Q. What kind of products or services does your company offer for broadcasters?
Snell offers product in three application areas: Broadcast Infrastructure, Live Production, and TV Everywhere. The common theme to all Snell products is high performance, straightforward upgradability, and outstanding value, all supported by world-class customer service. For example, our Broadcast Infrastructure range, which includes the industry’s most comprehensive range of interfacing and routing products, enables broadcast operations and playout facilities to transition seamlessly to digital, HD, and 3Gbps operations in a measured and cost-effective way. In Live Production, not only was our Kahuna360 switcher the first to provide simultaneous SD and HD processing in a single unit, it was also the first to enable broadcasters to operate in a true 1080p environment. For TV Everywhere applications, we provide a range of tools that enable broadcasters to streamline their workflows while delivering and monetizing content over multiple platforms such as PCs, tablets, the Web and mobile phones.
Q. What’s new that you will showcase at the NAB Show and that TV broadcasters should look for there?
To address the exciting growth of TV Everywhere, we’re launching a brand new Media Asset Management (MAM) product, Momentum, as well as new versions of our ICE integrated playout, or channel-in-a-box, platform, and a new release of our industry-leading Morpheus enterprise automation platform. In our Infrastructure line, we’re introducing a new signal processing platform called KudosPro, which provides a comprehensive range of signal handling and conversion functionality. We’re also unveiling a complete range of fiber products, and Vega, a routing switcher that redefines the concept of a routing switcher. In Live Production, we’re showcasing a new, compact version of the Kahuna360 production switcher.
Q. How is your new product offering different from what’s available on the market?
Innovation, technical excellence, and deep relationships with customers are core values at Snell, and at the NAB Show we’re introducing products and solutions that apply these values to the needs of the market. The results are not only different than what’s been available previously, they are game-changing.
Two examples of this in our TV Everywhere application area include ICE and Momentum. We believe ICE will enable broadcasters to change the economics of delivering television content. It is a highly integrated system that combines what were multiple racks of hardware into just a small number of rack units. Unlike other offerings, ICE incorporates more of the “channel” into the “box,” maximizing the commercial and operational benefits. Plus, driven by Morpheus, ICE is the only channel-in-a-box system that can truly scale from a single channel to 100+ channels while maintaining the same user interface.
We’re also launching Momentum, our state-of-the-art Media Management and Workflow system. Momentum allows file-based workflows to be created and managed more effectively than ever before, enabling new efficiencies in both linear and nonlinear content delivery. Another example is Vega, a new routing switcher that redefines the product category by enabling users to configure it for any combination of inputs and outputs. Vega also lets users operate a mixed coax/fiber environment, and offers twice the I/O density per rack unit versus anything else on the market.
Q. What do you anticipate will be the most significant technology trend at the 2012 NAB Show?
In a word, change. This is a dynamic time in our industry with consumers driving an explosive growth in TV Everywhere by accessing content on a variety of devices. In the past, our customers have been faced with the challenge of technology migrations, with many simultaneously transitioning from SD to HD, from baseband to file-based, from manual to automated workflows, and from a single linear channel to a multichannel, multiplatform content provider – all at the same time. Now added to the mix, is the need to do more with less, making the stakes even higher for our customers. They need solutions that make sense from both a business and technology perspective. At Snell, we’ve dedicated ourselves to helping our customers meet these goals. We have partnered with our customers to deeper understand their needs and we’ve used our industry and technology expertise to solve their problems with solutions that are both elegant and cost-effective.
Q. Where are you based, and how many employees do you have? Anything else we should know about your company?
Our headquarters is in the United Kingdom, and we have local offices in the United States, France, Germany, Spain, Hong Kong, China and Indi
Snell is a rapidly growing business and we are constantly developing and recruiting our employee base to enable us to sustain this growth whilst still delivering the service, support and values that our customers expect.
