Via Storia Chose Sony to Equip One of its Latest OBVans

posted:

03/05/2013

TV production company Via Storia recently announced that it has completely equipped one of its OB vans with Sony hardware

Since the service provider market is currently highly competitive, companies are obliged to seek out ever more reliable and high-performance equipment at the best possible price. In this context, Via Storia embarked on the project of constructing a small OB van for preparing footage prior to linking it up with various other forms of production intended for broadcast by national and regional stations. As well as the need for HD migration, one of the primary issues was to assemble the latest technologies in this OB van, to give the investment lasting value while also making the vehicle a competitive unit on the market.

The company did of course look for a solution offering the greatest reliability in terms of investment: a brand well known on the market, products accessible for an SME, with the whole package offering a maximum level of flexibility to cover the widest possible range of service requirements.

Via Storia therefore opted for a turnkey solution from Sony. Jean-Luc Antoine – Technical Director of Via Storia - stated on this subject " The name and emblematic image of Sony are very reassuring for ourselves and for our customers".

Sony accompanied this project right from its early stages, carrying out in-depth work to gain a clear understanding of what the company was really looking for in respect of its investment, doing so in order to be best able to respond to those needs. Sony offered Via Storia its very latest solutions, unveiled at the Salon IBC 2012 trade fair, fielding a package that met in full all of the parameters constraining operational usage, budget and delivery. The team from Sony then followed up the entire roll-out procedure and practical implement ion of the project, supporting the teams from Via Storia with its own teams of engineers and its training services.

Over and above the installation of hardware, the service provided by Sony is backed up by a quality 2-year 'Prime Support' package, included as standard, as well as a comprehensive range of new customised Service options: 7/7 hotline support, on-site installation, annual maintenance…. Norbert Paquet, Trade Marketing Manager at Sony, explained it all to us: "Sony has the largest team of support engineers in Europe for cameras & mixers, and this enables us to construct a tailor-made custom service to suit the specific problem areas and budgets of each one of our customers. This enables our engineers, based at Sony France's head office in Paris, to assure dedicated customer relationships on a daily basis with an unrivalled level of responsiveness. This covers such a wide range of parameters that the work of service provider companies is supported by great back-up"

The new OB van will therefore incorporate:
- HDC-1700 cameras offering great performance and rugged durability. These units feature all of the latest technologies and functionalities essential to HD production.
- An MVS-3000 mixer, the very latest device in the MVS range, enabling all of the power and reliability of Sony mixers to be combined within a restricted amount space, thanks to its compact sub-frame (4RU, 32In / 16Out), its double integrated 'mosaic' feature and its new 2ME panel.
- For monitoring purposes, Via Storia chose PVM-2541 from the TRIMASTER EL series. The monitors incorporate Sony OLED technology which provides exceptional image quality while also assuring customers of a high-performance standard of service.

Jean-Luc Antoine expressed his delight about this collaboration: " The market today is not easy for SMEs such as Via Storia, and we really need to feel confident about our business relationship with a manufacturer. The Sony teams took the time to meet us on a regular basis and to examine our problem issues in detail, all of which we greatly enjoyed and appreciated. In the course of these exchanges, we discovered the wonderful philosophy of this brand and of its products - they're well thought out and are very practical to work with. Today, we really enjoy working with this new set of film equipment in a wide variety of situations. The hardware delivers great performance combined with attractive operating costs, and moreover these are very recent products that will guarantee us a long service life.

This collaboration is fresh evidence of the Sony commitment towards maintaining direct relationships with its customers. In the context of this project, Sony called upon the combined expertise of its own teams and of those of Visual Impact France, the company that integrated these Sony solutions for Via Storia.