Grass Valley Provides Production Tech for Grupo Multimedios Broadcast Network

Mexican broadcast network Grupo Multimedios has significantly expanded its investment in production technology and solutions from Grass Valley, a Belden Brand, marking the latest development in the very strong collaboration between the two companies. The move will enable Grupo Multimedios to strengthen its efficiency as it expands its operations and facilities, as well as increases the quantity and quality of content creation, across Mexico and the Southwestern United States. This expansive upgrade positions Grupo Multimedios as the first company in Mexico with a completely virtualized ingest, playout, media movement, and social media integration solution.

“Creating and delivering the highest quality content to our viewers is our top priority, and we require technology and solutions that make this as seamless as possible,” says Guillermo Franco, chief technical director, Grupo Multimedios. “Grass Valley shows unwavering dedication to being a true partner for us with top-tier solutions, strong collaboration, and reliable support to keep us at the cutting edge of innovation. Transmissions in Mexico City in early August, for instance, grew from 11 to 50 million households, reaching almost half of all Mexico — a historic landmark that we couldn’t have accomplished without Grass Valley. As we navigate the ever-evolving media landscape, virtualizing our production suite is an important step for our business and Grass Valley worked with us to ensure that we selected the right approach to meet our needs.”

Grupo Multimedios deployed the latest version of GV STRATUS featuring the GVRE Transcoder for rapid media decoding and a comprehensive social media manager that manages the posting, tracking, and monitoring of social media content. Users can tailor the full range of production tools based on function for increased efficiency while producing time-sensitive news programming. As part of its studio facilities upgrade, the broadcaster has installed a Grass Valley Karrera K-Frame S-series switcher at each of its four studios in Monterrey, one studio in Mexico City, and one in León to support local productions. Additional switchers will be added to its other studios in the coming months. The GV Korona K-Frame V-series have also been deployed, providing added flexibility and efficiency in the form of multiformat support, including 1080p and 4K UHD. Operational efficiency is also increased as the switchers maintain similar operation modes and are able to share show files between models.

Grupo Multimedios’ news production sites have been equipped with the K2 Summit 3G Production Client, LDX 82 Series cameras, and Focus 75 Live cameras. These will be deployed in Grupo Multimedios’ studios and OB trucks respectively. The Focus 75 Live camera is user-switchable, capturing in full 720p or 1080i HD. The LDX series cameras take operational flexibility to the next level with the ability to upgrade as production and business needs change, ensuring Grupo Multimedios is capturing high-quality content in the format required from the very start of the production process.

“With media organizations under greater pressure to delivery better quality content to more platforms on tighter budgets, infrastructures and workflows need to be agile and flexible,” adds Nahuel Villegas, vice president, Caribbean and Latin America, Grass Valley. “Virtualization holds very exciting promise in the way it enables efficiency, and we couldn’t be happier to be collaborating with Grupo Multimedios to revolutionize its news production and best equip them for what the future holds. We are very proud that Grupo Multimedios has chosen to extend its long relationship of collaboration with Grass Valley. The value of this complete solution is evident in its ease of use and unmatched video quality, and will also stand the test of time with its agility and scalability as Grupo Multimedios expands its operations and facilities to deliver even more high-quality content.”