Harris Broadcast Communications Corp. has announced the opening of an interoperability lab in Toronto.
The $2.5 million facility will house 43 racks of equipment from the company’s major product lines, including servers, automation, master control and transmission. Reagan Mitchell, a former executive with Corus Entertainment, a Canadian entertainment and media company, has been appointed to head up the lab as Interoperability Systems Engineering Manager.
In his new role, Mitchell, who has more than two decades of experience in the maintenance of on-air, mobile production and post-production equipment, will work with Harris engineering, manufacturing, service and select customers to confirm the lab and its testing methods reflect customer environments. He will manage a team of three technical experts who will use the lab to test, validate and certify the level of interoperability of new software and hardware that Harris builds, designs or sources. Mitchell will also work with third party companies that want to gain certification from Harris that states their products are compatible and interoperable with Harris products.
“The Harris Interoperability Lab is a unique initiative that highlights the significance of product interoperability in today’s broadcast environment,” said Tim Thorsteinson, president of Harris Broadcast Communications. “Harris Corporation’s investment in the Interoperability Lab will validate and certify the interoperability of our products and technologies with each other and other company products, and the value will be visible to our customers through increased product reliability and the capacity to deliver efficient, tailored solutions that our customers need to stay competitive.
