DAVID Systems is celebrating 20 years of digital broadcast solutions

DAVID Systems is celebrating
20 years of digital broadcast solutions

A Story about the Digital Revolution

Whether broadcast journalists and broadcast production professionals know the software as DigAS, DigaSystem® or DAVID, it represents the suite of software tools successfully enabling digital content creation and delivery. Being one of the pioneers of the Radio digitalization era, DAVID Systems solutions today are recognized as a standard for media production, distribution and delivery at leading broadcasters worldwide and are used by over 15,000 media professionals in Europe, the US and Asia.

Munich, Germany – December 15th, 2011 – Since its founding in the early ‘90s, DAVID Systems GmbH has evolved from a start–up to one of the leading suppliers of media production, delivery and distribution software for broadcasters. Michael Wittmann, co-founder and now its Chief Technical Officer looks back: “We (Michael and the other co-founders, Klaus Strobel, Günther Sonderwald, Peter Bienert) started off with the vision of bringing digital technology to existing analog broadcasting environments, but it took some time to convince production professionals at the public stations. I remember very well, how many of the public broadcast officials became “digital tourists” meaning that they regularly visited digitally equipped affiliate public broadcasting stations in order to learn from their workflow and the experiences they had made so far.”

The early years

D.A.V.I.D. GmbH, as the company was known then, recognized the chance to grow into a completely new niche. Anticipating future developments in digital broadcasting from an early stage, DAVID Systems based its software on an open, scalable and modular IT architecture. This early decision was a key selling point, and is still one of its strong differentiators from other broadcast vendors. DAVID’s launch was made in Munich at Antenne Bayern, one the pioneers of private broadcasting in Germany. Andreas Gall, then head of technology at Antenne Bayern and now Chief Technology Officer of Red Bull Media House about his experience with DAVID Systems: “Looking back, it was really risky to rely on an unknown software start-up like DAVID Systems to substantially help build up one of the first fully digital broadcasting stations. However, DAVID Systems’ open IT architecture approach was convincing enough to meet our technical requirements in a very cost-effective way. DAVID delivered as promised and made us go on air as planned.” From that time on, an intensive technical partnership has evolved which still has tremendous impact on the enhancement of the DigaSystem® suite such as the Broadcast Server System or other software applications. One of the latest special requirements of Antenne Bayern was, for example, to support the moderator to segue a hot music mix into a slower, chilled mood. DAVID’s development team has succeeded in realizing this feature through enabling to combine the software modules CartBeat and CartMotion within its TurboPlayer play out software.
The Antenne Bayern project was quickly followed by the ARD Sternpunkte project in Frankfurt and Bayerischer Rundfunk. The latter’s use the broadcast server software TurboPlayer as the only and complete production and play out system for all channels. “DAVID Systems as a Munich-based company was far ahead of other vendors which gave us the great advantage to have solved many initial problems very quickly on the spot. The growing demands of the BR were certainly a kick to new developments and an expansion of DAVID’s portfolio" said Herbert Tillmann, Director of Production and Technology of the Bayerische Rundfunk. With the introduction of Edigas, the predecessor to DAVID Systems’ successful DigaSystem® suite, at the ORF, DAVID was established as a respected software vendor in the industry.

The first wave of the digital revolution

During the nineties, increasing competitive pressure emerged from commercial broadcasters which forced major public broadcasters to cut expenses and demand new synergies from vendors. Due to shrinking resources, acquisition, production and distribution workflows needed to be streamlined in order to increase efficiency. Also, private broadcasting stations like Radio FFN, in Europe, for example, were just ramping up and very interested in digital broadcasting technology. DAVID Systems addressed these simultaneous industry movements by developing an open and highly customizable broadcasting solution for both public and private broadcasting stations. As these stations grew, more and more individual workflow scenarios and third party products were easily integrated into the open architecture of the DigaSystem®, ensuring a stable and extensible environment. Over the past 20 years, DAVID Systems has become the indispensable partner for thousands of journalists and media professionals. Today, customer installations range from a handful to over two thousand production workstations. Vast installations at major public broadcasting stations such as the BR, SWR, WDR, ORF, SRG, NRK, SvR and NPR function seamlessly and in concert, making last-minute decisions and input effortless.

Privately owned, financially independent, growing again

Despite many change in the company ownership over the years, DAVID Systems always managed to maintain and expand its market position due to its solid relationship with its core customers. After completing a Management Buy Out from SGI Japan, the Internet and Broadcast professional Vincent Benveniste* was appointed as Chief Executive Officer in April 2009. Together with the two other ownership partners, Anthony Savelli*² and Stephan Schindler*³, Vincent Benveniste was able to turn the company around to become financially independent again with consistent growth in most business metrics.

Ready to enable interactive, visual radio

Benveniste is now positioning the company to address new business opportunities. Benveniste on the on the development of the industry: “I think we are now in the second wave of the digital broadcasting revolution. The hardware and technology battles have been fought. Content needs to be simultaneously available on all platforms – both stationary and mobile. Simulcast, HbbTV, DAB and Visual Radio are the opportunity of today’s broadcasting stations. Engineers in charge of production and distribution need solutions that can address these channels at affordable “radio-like” costs. Efficient technical strategies such as DAVID Systems is offering since 20 years, are making the next digital Radio revolution – a dynamic tri-media environment happen”.

Furthermore, DAVID Systems has, during the last decade, spent significant efforts in supporting the transformation of analog broadcasting to digital. In fact, the future of Radio has already begun at some stations such as for example with the implementation of the BR on3 youth wave in 2009. Herbert Tillmann underscores his special requirements on external partners: "In implementing the new concept we were glad that DAVID Systems was already part of the game from the beginning of the project. It was very important for us to discuss the specifics of this ambitious tri-media project with our partner as early as possible in order to get a feeling of the feasibility. Therefore the continuous technical input of DAVID Systems product managers at the planning stage was voluntarily taken into account.” As in previous projects, the modular design of the DigaSystems® with its open interfaces has proven to be perfect for the new tri-media requirements of the On3 station."

The next generation of Radio will likely be represented by an interactive visual radio application, with non-disruptive audio content at the heart and cost-effective tri-media content, ubiquitously delivered to the consumer.

DigaSystem® - a suite of tools

DAVID’s flagship product family DigaSystem® is the state-of-the-art solution for managing tri-media. More than 100 individual, integrated, or stand-alone software modules ensure that individual customer requirements are met. This ranges from simple requirements like importing music and metadata from CDs with DigaGrabber, to more complex functions like automatically importing multi-format content from foreign correspondents into the DigaSystem® with DigaMailbox IP, and high availability file exchange management, both manual and automated, such as within Germany’s major public broadcaster, ARD. A suite of audio and video editors support tri-media initiatives at stations by making it possible to produce audio and video content for terrestrial broadcast and for the Internet. They also seamlessly integrate with 3rd party craft editors when needed. Additionally, the DigaSystem is used as a content management system by several TV stations.

DAVID Customer Solutions and Sales Programs

Foreseeing further changes in the industry - especially on the customer side - DAVID Systems has assumed major structural changes, beginning in 2009, in order to be even more flexible and customer-oriented. In addition to an integrated Channel Partner Program, broadening the company’s market reach, DAVID set up a Customer Solutions Group (CSG) to leverage DAVID products, solutions and services, both in design and implementation. The CSG team takes care of the technical evaluation of the customers’ workflow requirements and creates specially designed solutions and workflow adaptations in alignment with its partners. Upon commissioning and acceptance by the customer, the CSG team is responsible for the technical support of the entire DigaSystem® workflow, interfacing with the customer’s technical departments (system administrators) as well as the creative teams (journalists & editors).
Sharing experiences with customers and industry leaders
Starting two years ago, DAVID Systems has sought to improve the interface with long term customers relationships and has expanded the annual customer conference into a three day long customer-focused event including an independent industry forum named “The Tri-Media Symposium”, hosted at Bayerische Rundfunk the last two times. The purpose of this conference is to network on business aspects, to learn about new developments, discuss best practices and future requirements and to exchange experiences in technical hands-on workshops. In the past, thought-leaders in the broadcasting industry contributed and participated in many lively discussions. These events are part of DAVID Systems’ mission to be a leading authority for digital broadcasting revolution. The third edition of the symposium is being planned for March 2012.With regular exhibitions at the IBC show in Amsterdam and NAB in Las Vegas, DAVID Systems continues to foster openness and seek customer dialogue. Naturally, the company heartily encourages and welcomes contact and comments via its Social Media presences such as Facebook, Twitter, Xing and Linked-in throughout the year.

Biographies

*Vincent Benveniste is Chief Executive Officer and shareholder of DAVID Systems since April 2009. His career has been focused on enhancing the ability of producing and distributing digital content. His responsibilities have shifted from technical to business management over the assignments. Prior to becoming DAVID’s CEO, he lead the worldwide Sales & Business Development of Silex Media, a media services company from 2006 onwards. Starting the year 2000, Benveniste was Regional Manager for Sendmail, the email security expert powering 35% of Internet traffic. At AT&T/Lucent, as product line manager for EMEA, he notably helped establish the company as the leader in call centers across Europe. Before that, he had spent five years at Apple Computer Europe developing network services. He studied biology at the Jussieu University in Paris.
*²Anthony Savelli is DAVID’s Systems Chief Financial Officer; he joined the company’s executive team as CFO in 2009. After an MBA (DEA Finance and Management) at a French university, Anthony Savelli first joined Citibank as part of the financial control team. After that experience Anthony supported, from the F&A and HR point of view, the European establishment and growth of American software companies such as Avid Technology, Lionbridge, Sendmail, Saratoga Systems, Cluster Seven and Silex Media. Anthony was always instrumental in finances and has gained extensive expertise in fast moving startup environments; he also supported one successful NASDAQ IPO (Lionbridge). Anthony has also worked for a biotechnology startup (TxCell) and applied to that sector the finance's software industry recipe. Anthony‘s role is to keep DAVID Systems financially safe in order to be able to invest in the future.
*³Stephan Schindler is one of the three shareholders of DAVID Systems; however, he is not part of the operational business. Stephan is heading the board of directors at DAVID Systems. He graduated from Cologne University of Applied Sciences with an engineering degree (media technology). He started his career as cameraman and editor. After finishing University, in 1991, he worked for ten years at Avid Technology, where he headed - after a career in sales and marketing - Avid’s global broadcast business unit as General Manager. Following Avid Technology, he spent three years at Sendmail Europe. In 2002, Stephan joined SGI Inc., where he formed a broadcast business unit across EMEA. He spun this business unit, then called Silex Media, out of SGI and ran it as Chief Executive Officer from 2006. In this position, Stephan managed the acquisition of DAVID Systems through SGI Japan. From 2008, Stephan ran DAVID Systems as CEO until April 2009 after completing the Management Buy Out. Silex Media activities were acquired by TCS where Stephan is currently managing TCS’ s worldwide digital media initiatives.

About DAVID Systems GmbH
DAVID (short for: Digital Audio&Video Integration and Development) Systems GmbH is a leading international supplier of end-to-end broadcasting solutions in Radio, TV and Internet. The company is headquartered in Munich with subsidiaries in Berlin and Washington. DAVID Systems is an innovative driver of digital media solutions since 1991. Its product portfolio includes open, customizable and scalable software for individual workflow und third party integration as well as support and trainings. Today, DAVID Systems paves the way of Radio and TV evolution into a 360° degree media world where broadcasters need to bring out content faster to more channels with tri-media enabled applications. Over two thousand public and private broadcasting stations worldwide (including the BR,SWR, WDR, ORF, RBB, DRS, NPR, WNYC, NYPR, NRK, SvR, DRS, RTR Chur, Antenne Bayern, Südtirol Radio, Metro Radio Hong Kong, Canal Sur, Red Bull Media House, RTL Milano, etc.) with more than 15,000 users rely on the power of DAVID Systems solutions. A strong global partner network ensures locally-centered customer liaison and support, a focused CustomerSolutions Group takes care of the individual requirements and provides support and training.
For more information about DAVID Systems and its products and services, please visit www.davidsystems.com. Follow news from DAVID Systems at http://www.twitter.com/DAVID_Systems and join DAVID Systems on http://www.facebook.com/DAVIDSystems.

DAVID Systems GmbH
Ridlerstr. 31 b
Vincent Benveniste/Christiane Winkler
80339 Munich
Germany T +49 (89) 540 139-0
F +49 (89) 540 139-50
vbenveniste@davidsystems.com
cwinkler@davidsystems.com
www.davidsystems.com

This release was published on openPR.