Tektronix takes control of Lightworks

Montreal: A recent infusion of cash in Lightworks Editing Systems’ r&d program should accelerate market penetration for new digital nonlinear products, says Lightworks’ Canadian distributor, Mark Pounds, president of OLE Canada.

The investment in the London, Eng.-based designer of nonlinear editing systems – close to 100 units have been shipped and serviced in Canada by ole – is the result of a stock-for-stock exchange agreement giving Oregon-based Tektronix control of Lightworks. The deal was announced April 9 at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas.

Founded in 1946, with annual revenues of $1.32 billion in 1994, Tektronix’s portfolio includes color printing, video systems and network display businesses. The focus of the strategic alliance is to integrate Lightworks’ editing and special-effects systems, including the Newsworks high-speed edit system launched at this year’s nab, with Tektronix’s disk storage, networking and archival systems.

Pounds says both Tektronix and Lightworks have reconfirmed ole’s status as exclusive Canadian distributor and service supplier.

Tektronix’s high-quality test equipment is a standard in the industry, and the company has been taking steps to expand its role in the editing system market, and film and tv post-production in general, through the acquisition of Grass Valley, a California-based manufacturer of editing systems, and its development of Profile, a new digital video-storage system used for Pal and ntsc recording and playback.

Newsworks is a fast-paced edit system specifically designed for broadcast news operations. The system can be used to edit directly from single- or multiple-tape machines to disk.

Founded by Pounds in the summer of 1992, sales for the Montreal-based ole have gone from $3 million in the first year to a projected $7.5 million for the fiscal year ending July 31. The company also has offices in Toronto and Vancouver.

ole is the exclusive Canadian distributor of Aaton 16, Super 16 and 35mm camera packages and Aaton’s Keylink telecine film code recorder, the Fairlight Audio Workstation and ASC Audio/ Video Digital Servers.