Grass Valley (company)

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Grass Valley

Current logo of Grass Valley
Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Broadcasting
Founded	April 7, 1959; 62 years ago (April 7, 1959)
Headquarters	Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Key people	Timothy Shoulders II, President; Sydney Lovely, SVP, Products & Technology; Christian Bernard, SVP, Operations; Tim Ordaz, SVP, Services & Support; Eve Dery Hodnett, VP Legal; Michael Cronk, VP, Core Technology; Chuck Meyer, CTO; Ian Fletcher, Chief Applications Designer; Neil Maycock, SVP Strategic Marketing.
Parent	Black Dragon Capital
Website	grassvalley.com

Grass Valley (formerly known as Thomson Grass Valley and Grass Valley Group) is a manufacturer of television production and broadcasting equipment . Its product line includes cameras, live production switchers, replay and highlights products, media storage, editing, modular infrastructure, routing, conversion equipment, control, monitoring and automated playout, with solutions sold as hardware, software and SaaS. Headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, it was formed by the March 2014 merger of the Grass Valley with Miranda Technologies, which were both acquired by Belden in 2014 and 2012, respectively. In February 2018 owners Belden merged Grass Valley with new acquisition Snell Advanced Media (formerly known as Quantel and Snell Group). On July 2, 2020, Grass Valley announced the completion of its acquisition by private equity firm, Black Dragon Capital, from Belden Inc.

History[]

Grass Valley camera in use on a sports outside broadcast

Grass Valley Group was founded as a research and development company in 1959 by Dr. in Grass Valley, California, in the foothills of California's Sierra Nevada range. Hare chose Grass Valley after learning about it from his friend, Charles Litton Sr..^{[citation needed]} In 1964, Grass Valley demonstrated its first video product, a video distribution amplifier in a hotel room at the National Association of Broadcasters convention.^{[citation needed]} By 1968, the Grass Valley Group had introduced its first production switcher, that was to become its flagship product.^{[citation needed]}

The company merged with Tektronix in 1974.^{[citation needed]} When Tektronix divested its printing, video and networking divisions it sold the video business to a private investor, Terry Gooding of San Diego, California, who reincorporated it under the name Grass Valley Group, Inc.^{[citation needed]} The sale closed on September 24, 1999.

In 2002, the French electronics company Thomson Multimedia, now known as Technicolor SA, acquired Grass Valley Group.^[1] After coming under the ownership of Thomson, Grass Valley Group merged its product line with the existing professional and broadcast products of its new parent company.

In 2005, Grass Valley purchased Canopus Corporation, also adopting its video-editing software Edius. During the second half of the 2000s, Grass Valley made and sold the Edius NX video-editing and capture card, which offered special real-time video-restoration capabilities for composite video and especially VHS that had been ported from the ADVC-300, an external capture unit made by Canopus during the first half of the decade. Other than the original ADVC-300 unit that had been compatible with all kinds of capture software and all Microsoft Windows versions from Windows XP up to Windows 10, the Edius NX card only worked with Edius versions 3, 4, 5, 6, and 6.5, which only run on Windows XP. For newer versions of Edius, as of 2017 Grass Valley still offers legacy drivers for the Edius NX card for download on their official site, but provides no guarantee that the card will actually work with the newer versions of Edius.

After the financial crisis of 2008, Thomson defaulted on its financial covenants and was forced by its creditors to divest its Grass Valley business, PRN and other manufacturing entities. On January 29, 2009, Thomson announced that they were putting the Grass Valley division up for sale.^[2]

In 2010, the Grass Valley business unit, not including the head-end and transmission businesses, was acquired by private equity firm Francisco Partners and resumed operating as an independent company with offices in San Francisco, California, on January 1, 2011.^[3] The company announced in August 2013 it would move its headquarters to Hillsboro, Oregon, later that year to an existing office.^[4]

On March 31, 2014, the company was acquired by Belden Inc. from Francisco Partners and merged with Miranda Technologies,^[5] which Belden acquired on July 27, 2012.^[6] The merged company operates as Grass Valley.

On October 30, 2019, Belden Inc. put Grass Valley up for sale, listing it as a "discontinued operation" on its books.^[7]

On February 4, 2020, Black Dragon Capital signed a definitive agreement with Belden Inc. to acquire Grass Valley.^[8] The transaction closed in the first half of 2020, following the receipt of regulatory approvals and other closing conditions. More recently, Grass Valley logo is rendered without "A Belden Brand" byline, marking departure of company from Belden.

On July 2, 2020, Grass Valley announced the completion of its acquisition by private equity firm, Black Dragon Capital, from Belden Inc.^[9]

References[]

Further reading[]

• 2002. "Share the News Three New Systems from Grass Valley Group Are Intended to Facilitate Work Flow". Broadcasting & Cable. 132: 35.
• 2001. "Equipment Purchase — French Manufacturer Thomson Multimedia Acquires Grass Valley Group". Broadcasting & Cable. 131: 12.

External links[]

• Official website