media segment founded 1974 founder john ross headquarters iroquois ontario canada area served worldwide key people david ross ceo george angus cfo jeff moore senior vp & cmo troy english cto number of employees 600 1 website http www.rossvideo.com ross video ltd is a privately held canadian company that designs and manufactures equipment for live event and video production . the company s signature product line is production switchers or vision mixers which were the basis for the founding of the company . the company s products are used daily in over 100 countries by broadcast television networks cable tv networks sports stadiums live production companies government agencies and houses of worship . 2 ross video s headquarters and manufacturing operations are located in iroquois ontario canada while their r & d labs are in ottawa ontario canada . 3 4 5 6 contents 1 history 2 products and solutions 2.1 production switchers 2.2 real time motion graphics systems 2.3 control systems 2.4 cameras 2.5 robotic camera systems 2.6 signal processing 2.7 routing systems 2.8 augmented reality and virtual set solutions 2.9 assembly production solutions 2.10 workflow management systems 2.11 replay 2.12 production servers 3 locations 4 external links 5 references history edit ross video was founded in 1974 by john ross who provided the initial seed money by selling his refurbished world war ii trainer aircraft . from the basement of his house john developed the 16 4 analog switcher that would be a commercial success for the company as well as a groundbreaking technology for that time . hailed a pioneer in canadian broadcast technology development 7 john ross launched his next series of switchers in 1978 which introduced the now industry standard next transition operation concepts including the first patent for transition preview now used by almost all higher end switchers made in the industry . ross video continued to grow from the success of various switchers that include the rvs 210a which sold for 25 years and the cdk 104 which became a fixture in most telecine suites around the world . in 1998 ross video made the leap from composite analog switchers to component digital switchers . their first digital switcher called synergy sold over 3000 units by being smaller than traditional switchers doubling the available inputs and increasing the amount of effects that operators could add to their programs . in 2004 ross video entered the hd market and introduced overdrive a product designed to automate live video production environments . during this process ross video needed to redesign their gear frame racks to accommodate hd . this led to their creation of the opengear terminal equipment standard a standard terminal equipment platform for broadcast and production distribution and conversion equipment . 8 in 1991 john s son david began working full time at ross video managing all switcher product development and working closely with the sales and marketing team . david was promoted to director product development and later to executive vice president followed by a promotion to president and finally to ceo in 2006 . in 2005 david assumed the position of chairman of the board and became the majority shareholder of ross video owning 90 per cent of shares with employees of the company owning the remaining 10 per cent . 2008 ross video makes its first acquisition media refinery founded by bas saleh . 9 based in the media park in hilversum the netherlands media refinery became ross europe bv and formed the company s base in europe . media refinery s xpression graphics system with its 3d character generation graphics and virtual sets was a perfect fit for ross video s portfolio of live production components making this a no brainer acquisition . bas saleh continues to head development of ross video s graphics product line . 2010 ross video acquired norpak 10 world experts in video data insertion . norpak and ross are now nielsen s hardware partner for watermark insertion for television audience measurement . ross nielsen encoders which are manufactured at ross video s factory in iroquois are deployed at the vast majority of us broadcast television networks and local stations . 2010 ross acquired codan broadcast 11 which was a combination of two well known australian companies talia sound & vision and pro video . this acquisition added an important base in australia and a range of elegant and cost effective routing solutions from a development team with a 20 year history . this addition of routers enabled ross to round out its live production product offering and deliver a more complete infrastructure solution . 2011 ross video acquired fx motion in december 2011 . 12 fx motion a robotic camera systems company based in brussels belgium was best known for bringing film style motion control technology to television with its ground breaking furio product line . the absolute positioning system and rail based tracking delivered by the furio product line set it apart from the competition and made it ideally suited to virtual set and augmented reality applications . now heading up ross robotics stijn vanorbeek the founder of fx motion has a background in electrical engineering and cinematography . 2012 ross video acquired cambotics 13 a robotic camera systems company and global leader in studio camera automation technology . the acquisition of cambotics which designed and manufactured the world s finest automated heads and pedestals enables ross to provide a more complete solution and advance live production technology . cambotics products became the cambot series within ross robotics and cambotics founders bob scotto and miles spellman joined ross robotics as chief hardware architect and chief software architect respectively . 2013 ross video acquired montalto 14 a research and development company with extensive experience in and deep knowledge of broadcast routing systems . former harris leitch staff the innovative montalto team s extensive knowledge and passion for routing systems coupled with their track record of successfully developing many breakthrough products over the years will advance ross video s routing systems line and contribute technology and products to the opengear product portfolio . 2013 ross video acquired mobile content providers mcp 15 a premium full service mobile sports production packager that successfully delivers premium content at affordable prices to many major sports networks universities and international organizations . the goal of the new ross mobile productions rmp is to become a national mobile production company and offer full service production packages and rental services that deliver network quality production . rmp s services which also include customizing and creating score bugs and graphics packages will and meet consumer demand for coverage of more sporting and other live events . 2014 ross video acquired automated data systems ads 16 a company know for its innovative feature packed and easy to use solutions for data delivery automation and broadcast production requirements . the company s main product is eznews a newsroom editorial system used by television journalists to produce newscasts . ross video will continue to support eznews while offering clients a compelling opportunity to move to ross video s own newsroom computer system product inception . the ads team brings a wide range of experience in journalism broadcast management computer system sales and support and software development which is the perfect fit for inception . 2014 ross introduced opentruck a remote production initiative that enables to cost effective network quality production . 17 2014 with the acquisition of unreel llc 18 a leading augmented reality ar and virtual set vs solutions provider in april 2014 ross video became the only company in the broadcast industry able to offer a single vendor turnkey ar vs studio solution . ross video uses unreel s ux ar vs control software and ux design services alongside multiple ross video products to deliver ar vs solutions that are cost effective and easy to create install and use . this acquisition also opens the door to a powerful new revenue opportunity virtual advertising . unreel which has more than two decades experience in the ar vs solutions market an enviable list of clients that includes cbs cnbc espn nbc nesn nasdaq reuters the pentagon and the social security administration and multiple feature film credits to its name has groundbreaking technology and an innovative creative model that ross video has built upon to create the studio of the future . 2015 ross video and rocket surgery graphic services llc 19 came together to form a premiere design firm built around the xpression graphics platform and the dashboard api . the artists of rocket surgery ross creative services specialize in high end design and data driven solutions for a wide variety of clients such as america s got talent new york jets pittsburgh pirates new jersey devils jacksonville jaguars st. louis cardinals hamilton tiger cats and the uk lottery . the goal for ross video with rocket surgery is to create an amazing and flexible end to end customer experience . rocket surgery graphics present information in new and innovative ways that captivate and inform . from broadcast graphics and animation to dazzling arena displays they are experts in maximizing production value . 2016 ross video acquired abekas . 20 this iconic brand pioneered many new innovations over the years and won 7 technical emmys for their contributions to the industry . abekas founder junaid sheikh with his team continue to grow and expand the product lines with new abilities for broader market reach . the abekas product lines of mira replay mira and tria production servers and aircleaner profanity elimination delay system all integrate well into the ross live production system portfolio . 2016 to address the long term implications of ip technology in media networking and video production ross video acquired a technology company based in ottawa canada with a team of 35 fpga software and verification engineers . 21 coveloz develops programmable system on chip applications offering design services and firmware solutions to address the time sensitive networking and processing of audio video and control signals . as president of coveloz nestor amaya and his team are poised to meet the needs of the rapidly evolving deterministic networking markets starting with audio video applications . coveloz operates as a separate business to offer its products and engineering design services to the broadcast pro a v communications and industrial markets . coveloz makes its media networking technology accessible for companies within the industry who lack ip knowledge to accelerate adoption and drive efficiencies of scale . in a continued effort to accelerate the transition of video workflow to an ip based infrastructure coveloz works with altera as a part of intel to bring studio video over ip applications to market . products and solutions edit production switchers edit acuity large production switcher carbonite black mid size switchers carbonite black solo economical compact switcher real time motion graphics systems edit xpression real time motion graphics systems workflow tools and purpose built software applications clips clip server with fast recalls baseband video ingest and multi layer clip playback tessera multi display designer controller for sports venues and studio video walls trackless studio all in one virtual production tool control systems edit overdrive automated production control system dashboard facility control and monitoring open platform for facility control and monitoring using custom panels to simplify operations mc1 master control modular card based dedicated system aircleaner profanity elimination delay provides protection against possible costly content violations cameras edit acid image acquisition with maximum hd performance in any studio production environment pivot very low cost yet high performance image capture with all in one ptzf device robotic camera systems edit furio rc remote control system combining a dolly lift and pan tilt head furio robo track based system cambot high payload systems from simple pan tilt heads to free roaming pedestals smartshell unified control application with user interface signal processing edit opengear open architecture platform for a choice of products under one control system gearlite small and portable