Ross Video

Social media in the newsroom has boomed to the point where major breaking news stories come with a hashtag to keep people engaged with the story on their social accounts. Broadcasters who want to monitor and air those social updates have plenty of options, ranging from the $600 jury-rigged solution all the way to a $30,000 high-end system.

The Ontario-based company, best known for its production switchers, acquired Mobile Content Providers, a South Florida-based mobile sports production packager, with plans to transform MCP into a national mobile production company.

As designs and prices get smaller, robotic cameras are cropping up on more stations’ wish lists, especially for groups with centralcasting ambitions. The top three manufacturers, offering different features and designs, see their market expanding both in the U.S. and internationally.

With growing needs to repurpose traditional news broadcasts for online and social media, TV stations are turning to tech companies like Grass Valley (left), Ross Video and Critical Media. They offer products to segment newscasts into clips, either as part of news production automation systems or as stand-alone products.

No longer just a supplier of top-line production switchers, Canadian-based Ross Video offers a range of tools for TV production, particularly live news. At this year’s NAB Show, the company announced over a dozen new or substantially-redesigned products and unveiled its entry into camera robotics with the purchase of Cambotics. Among the CEO’s strategies is putting his customers’ needs first. “The first question we ask when designing a product is how are you going to use this? What do you need? This gives us an entrepreneurial outlook that tells us early on whether something will work or not.”

The purchase of the studio camera robotics producer is just one of its Sunday announcements that include a number of product introductions and improvements. For all that’s going on at NAB 2012, click here.

Ross Video today announced the launch of its new line of BlackStorm video servers. Ross describes BlackStorm as an “affordable production player with file-based workflow support.” The BlackStorm 102P Playout Server is a two-channel high-definition 1 RU video player. It natively supports the Quicktime (.mov) file format and a selection of codecs. It provides a […]

Since entering a long-term technology partnership with Ross Video in 2010, Gray Television has purchased 18 OverDrive automated production control systems, with more implementations planned in the future. “I have had the pleasure of working directly with the Ross team since the beginning of our long-term agreement, and can honestly say the impact for Gray […]

Sinclair Broadcast Group has purchased Ross Video’s OverDrive for three facilities. Sinclair, headquartered in Hunt Valley, Md., will launch automated productions in Texas, Maine and Tennessee this summer. The adoption of OverDrive Automated Production Control came after a full review by Sinclair of available technologies. “After carefully researching numerous news automated production systems it became […]

Ross Video has named Carl Cavagnolo regional sales manager for metro New York, New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania. Cavagnolo will be based in Mount Kisco, N.Y., and report to Kyle Luther, director of sales – USA. Cavagnolo is a broadcast professional with more than 30 years of sales experience. He has worked for JVC Professional […]

Ross Video is at the NAB Show with lots of new products, many aimed at mid-market and mid-size operators, as best evidenced by its new Carbonite switcher. The Carbonite offers the same processing used in its Vision Octane and comes in a 16 or 24 input chassis. Carbonite 1, for $22.995, is a robust 1MLE […]

Vendors of news production systems, editors, switchers, graphics and lighting will be showing new or upgraded products at the NAB — all with the promise that they will allow broadcasters to produce news more efficiently and distribute it more widely. Here are some of the latest developments from Avid, Grass Valley, Chryon, Sony, Panasonic, Ross Video, EVS, Litepanels and Videssence.

Ross Video has named J.B. Morrison business development manager for XPression, Ross’ Real Time 2D/3D HD character generator. Morrison joins the sales team after working for Ross as a demonstration artist and trainer. His past experience includes technical director at KSNT Topeka, Kan., and 10 years as a radio broadcaster. Morrison will be based out […]