The Hospital Group Builds New Facility with Thomson Grass Valley Products
(International Broadcasting Convention 2002 – Booth 8.151) Amsterdam, 12 September 2002 – The health of the London creative community will be in good hands as Thomson Grass Valley today announced a multi-million dollar order from The Hospital Group, Ltd., a state-of-the-art production and recording facility for creative industry professionals in the music, art, and film world. Featuring the latest in audio, video and networking technology, the re-built 60,000 square foot facility will incorporate a wide range of digital high-definition (HD) production equipment from Thomson Grass Valley, including cameras, vision mixer, server, and router technologies.
The new facility consists of six floors, each focused on a specific discipline. The lower floors of the Hospital facility have been outfitted for live broadcast productions exclusively with Thomson Grass Valley gear, including dozens of 50-inch flat-panel plasma screens manufactured by the company's consumer electronics division.
The broadcast production studio, which will go online when the building opens in the Spring of 2003, features several Thomson Grass Valley LDK 6000 HD cameras, a Kalypso™ Video Production Center, the first to be installed in Europe, several Profile® XP Media Platform systems, including at least one PVS 2000 HD system, a 256x256 Trinix™ routing switcher and numerous 36x36 Triton™ routers for video distribution, and a Venus™ 2001 audio router. Thomson Grass Valley networking technology and encoders for streaming video live to the Internet, will also be deployed.
For Thomson Grass Valley, the initial equipment order will increase significantly as the project progresses and additional technology is installed.
"We are looking forward to working with Thomson Grass Valley on this major project, said Drew Kaza, CEO of the Hospital Group." Such a unique facility deserves cutting-edge broadcast technology and we're thrilled to offer European TV & video producers the first all high definition studio in London, alongside all the other amenities the Hospital will have to offer."
"We are delighted to be working with The Hospital Group on this bold and adventurous project," said Marc Valentin vice president of the Thomson Grass Valley business. This is a great example of the commitment of Thomson Grass Valley to deliver state-of-the art equipment for facilities that are committed to excellence."
This huge undertaking, the first such multi-media creative environment under one roof in all of Europe, is founded by Paul G. Allen and incorporates the vision of one-time Eurythmics star Dave Stewart, who serves as Creative Director for the project. The new facility is built on the former site of St. Paul's Hospital and managed by The Hospital Group Ltd. Drew Kaza, formerly Managing Director of Internet & Interactive for BBC Worldwide, serves as CEO.
The Hospital is located in Covent Garden, in the heart of London's creative/artistic community. It will offer producers, artists, and directors the most advanced digital equipment and technology for visual and audio production. . The project encompasses facilities for songwriters and music composition, a ground floor public gallery and screening room. It will also feature an exclusive members club, focussing on the creative community, alongside private and public restaurants. Offices and private apartments round off the remaining floors of this unique purpose-built facility.
The Hospital Group hopes to attract professional artists, creative industry leaders and new media entrepreneurs to share ideas and produce programming at the new building. The facility is due for completion in March 2003.
About Thomson
With sales of 10.5 billion Euros (U.S. $ 9.3 billion) in 2001 and 73,000 employees in more than 30 countries, Thomson (Euronext: 18453) (NYSE: TMS), provides a wide range of video (and enabling) technologies, systems, finished products and services to consumers and professionals in the entertainment and media industries. To advance and enable the digital media transition, Thomson has five principal activities: Digital Media Solutions, Displays and Components, Consumer Products, Patents and Licensing and New Media Services. The company distributes its products and services under the THOMSON, RCA and TECHNICOLOR brand names. For more information: www.thomson-multimedia.com.
A business within Thomson Digital Media Solutions, Thomson Grass Valley delivers open, integrated digital products that work together along the entire digital video chain to support a variety of workflows, from content capture and acquisition through production, post production, and transmission. With a proven track record in broadcast, including 17 Emmy® and multiple industry awards, it offers an award-winning, robust product portfolio that touches more high-quality content than any other; product and systems expertise that has yielded hundreds of patents and a number of industry standards; and worldwide software engineering expertise and customer support teams that are second to none.
For information about Thomson Grass Valley products please visit www.thomsongrassvalley.com.
Grass Valley Group, 400 Providence Mine Road, Nevada City, CA 95959. Tel: 888-526-8554 ; Fax: 503-627-5224.