Back With a Bang: The Evolution of Studer Continues

Back with a bang: The evolution of Studer continues By Kevin Emmott

Monday, February 13, 2023 - 09:27

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A large-format Studer Vista X console has been installed at BBC Studioworks' Kelvin Hall facility

Credit: Martin Shields

Paul Shorter describes himself as a veteran newbie . Prior to being senior product manager at Evertz Audio Solutions, Shorter spent seven years as manager of technical services in the US for Soundcraft Studer. Before that, he spent three years working with large-format mixers as business development manager, broadcast sales and tech support for Harman. He knows his way around a console, but as far as anyone at Evertz is concerned, he's the new guy.

At the start of 2021 right in the midst of the pandemic Evertz announced an asset purchase agreement with Harman International to acquire the Studer brand. The acquisition made a huge amount of noise, but then, there was silence. Not much appeared to be happening. But, much like that famous duck that's furiously paddling away under the water, there was a lot going on under the surface.

In September 2022 Studer burst back onto the scene with a raft of product launches that seemed like a mark of intent from Evertz to integrate the brand into its wider portfolio Which is exactly what it was.

The new IP-based Studer products were unveiled as part of Evertz' efforts to integrate Studer's technology into its own live production workflows. Studer's Vista digital consoles and Infinity processing core became part of Evertz Software Defined Video Networking (SDVN) solutions, and IBC saw the launch of both the compact Vista 1 Carbon and the Infinity-ST server core.

New installations started to appear, such as the large-format Vista X console at BBC Studioworks' Kelvin Hall project which opened its doors in September. In this, Studer's 75th anniversary year, it feels like things are definitely gearing up. But why the silence?

A help and a hindrance

The pandemic helped in some ways, but hindered in others, says Shorter, looking back on a tumultuous few years. We spent most of 2021 moving production and manufacturing from Europe to Canada, and the pandemic really slowed us down because we couldn't send people to help.

Paul Shorter, senior product manager, Evertz Audio Solutions

But it had its benefits. The delay gave us an opportunity to take a step back and look at the best way to integrate Studer into the Evertz family. It gave us some space to look at the bigger picture, and that year became all about how we fit things together.

Mo Goyal, senior director for international business development, live media production at Evertz, agrees: The immediate objective was to move manufacturing, but a much bigger focus was to look at where the industry was going. Where are the biggest gains where we can add value and demonstrate the integration of our systems?

IP was a clear first step. Evertz has been part of the IP transition since the very beginning and so we already have that expertise and experience. The Studer platform didn't have that history so our first step was to look at how to get the Infinity Core platform into the ST2110 world. Our Magnum orchestration is a unified control system which already operates in that environment and helped us integrate the Studer product line faster.

The integration has already paid dividends, and Evertz' messaging at IBC reflected that with the headline news that new IP-based Studer products have been unveiled as Evertz focuses on integrating Studer technology into its own live production workflows .

In addition to the Vista 1 Carbon, the Studer Infinity-ST server core boasted a new CoreLink card audio interface that provides ST2110-30 as well as Studer's proprietary A-link connectivity. It was a bold statement of intent from the Canadian company.

A head start

Goyal adds: Evertz used to be more concerned with building the infrastructure to connect all the elements inside production and take that out to playout and distribution. Over the last five years the company has been increasing its technological reach into production. It is part of our strategy to deliver live production toolsets and we identified a gap with the audio component.

The opportunity to fill that gap with Studer was too good to turn down, and it also gave Evertz, a company with a reputation for innovation in the video world, a head start in the audio market.

The strength of the Studer brand was part of what attracted Evertz to it, says Goyal. On the creative production side the big players are already out there, and creatives already have tools they are comfortable with. Regardless of how advantageous our toolset is, we would be the new kid on the block and operators would remain loyal to the brands they love. Studer helped open some doors to the audio production market, and having Studer back in the broadcast space as part of a group which has never been afraid to innovate was a positive message for Studer's existing customer base.

Consoles are not dead

Innovation is something that Studer already has a reputation for. In fact, its Vistonics user interface, which introduced the concept of control knobs on glass, is 20 years old this year.

As the broadcast industry embraces new working models and concepts like the cloud, and as the very concept of mixing consoles undergoes a re-evaluation in the eyes (and ears) of broadcasters, the company is still focused on making the user interface fit the environment. But what is that environment?

Seven years ago a colleague told me that large-format mixers were dead in the water, and yet seven years later we're still manufacturing them and there is still a demand for them, says Shorter. While there is a definite shift towards making things more compact there are still people who w

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