Bexel Philosophy Aims To Ease Rental Burden

Revealed at NAB 2013, Bexel’s new philosophy for the rental market continues to move the company toward a systems approach built around three classes of flypack systems rather than piece-by-piece rentals.

With the Galaxy line (comprising Hercules, Atlas, and Zeus for larger productions and master-control operations) at the top followed by the Action Series (for midrange five- to eight-camera shows requiring a 2M/E switcher and a small audio console) and Elements (for three- or four-camera shows), Bexel is looking to make it easier for clients to find the equipment complement that best suits their needs.

“The high end is going well and helped standardize [large shows] while the midrange offers nice systems for studio production and collegiate work, and the Element systems at the low end are busy,” says Bexel CTO Tom Dickinson. “And we continue to expand our fiber-optic services and push audio.”

Under a new partnership with Canon, a 4K flypack offers an Evertz router, Sony 7000 production switcher, DiGiCo SD10 audio console, and Canon 4K cameras.

“We certainly believe in growth in the 4K market for both field acquisition and, on some level, specialty applications,” Dickinson says. “It marries well in a lot of ways with our current video-production customers. And we see more rental opportunities as they try and see what they can do with 4K.”

Matt Danilowicz, CEO of Bexel parent Vitec Videocom, says the mission for Bexel and sibling brands Anton/Bauer, Litepanels, Sachtler, and Vinten is to enhance the quality and science of media production.

“And, in the next couple of years, we are going to enhance our level of training, support, and education for our customers as the marketplace is diversifying,” he adds. “There is a crying need for better knowledge and information, and we want to provide it with things like Bexel University that is now training our internal staff and partners.”