Specifications

Several years ago, Ross Video made a standard denition gear frame and
line of terminal equipment products. We called this frame our 8000 Series
and it was (is - we still make it) compatible with other industry products from
companies like Harris (Leitch), Cobalt Digital and AJA. Given that the 8000
Series rear connector structure was ne for SD but not suitable for HD, we
needed a new frame.
Rather than reinvent the wheel and design a new Ross frame, we thought
it would be best for us and our customers to nd another company in the
industry that was willing to let us develop cards compatible with their existing
frames. Making a gear frame is a surprising amount of work and effort and
we thought if we could simply use an existing one it would be faster and
simpler for us, and our customers would have a range of choices available
to them. We approached most of the major industry players to discuss this
idea explaining the advantage to them would be that by offering competition
within their frame they would be able to win a larger share of the market.
Surprisingly, we were told by company after company that we could not
make cards compatible with their frames. These companies made no bones
about their business model which was designed around getting a couple of
their frames into a customer and then lock them in to their solution. Once
they got their frames and control system into the customer, since there would
be no compatibility with other vendor’s products, the customer would have
no choice but to go back to them as they needed more equipment. Our
approach had always been different. Every one of our analog and digital lines
of terminal equipment had compatibility with existing standards. Customers
always loved this because they had choice.
So, we had to create our own frame and control system. Instead of doing,
yet again, the same thing every other company in the industry was doing,
we decided to create an industry standard for terminal equipment. This t
perfectly with our code of ethics “#1: We will always act in our customers’
best interest.” Having a standard would be great for customers, they would
only have one frame and control system to worry about with a wide range
of product choices available. If it was great for customers, it would also be
great for other players in the industry, especially smaller companies who
just did not have the capability to produce a frame and control system. They
could create cards for this new frame and sell them into the marketplace and
be compatible with the growing openGear
®
terminal equipment ecosystem.
As the new standard took off, Ross would also do well as we got our share
of the business. We called this new standard openGear
®
.
During the development of openGear
®
, every design element was created
around being open and being able to have numerous companies make cards
for the system. This is very important to understand since trying to put all
of the concepts and ideas about an open system onto an already designed
platform would not work very well and would likely fail or be impossible to
manage. openGear
®
was designed from the very start to be open which
has allowed for far more exibility and simplicity than if we had tried to
incorporate it after the design was shipping.
THE STORY