Iroquois, ON, Canada –February 8, 2012 – Ross Video has announced the acquisition of FX-Motion, a robotic camera systems company based in Brussels, Belgium. FX-Motion is now Ross Robotics, adding a new product line into Ross’ Video Production Technology portfolio.
FX-Motion, founded 10 years ago by Stijn Vanorbeek and Roberto Gaziano, is best known for bringing film-style motion control technology to television remote control and robotics systems. The FX-Motion Furio system has been used to control cameras and provide compelling visuals on productions such as the Eurovision Song Contest, So You Think You Can Dance and in augmented reality productions like the VGA awards as well as in news studio production environments.
Furio is available in 2 variants – Furio Robo (Full Robotics System) and Furio RC (Remote Control System). Furio’s absolute positioning system and rail based tracking sets it apart from the competition and makes it ideally suited to virtual set and augmented reality applications.
Furio Robo is designed for live television production studio use in which a single operator controls multiple cameras with pre-set shot and motion path recalls. The system consists of a Pan-Tilt-Zoom Head (PTZ), Rail Based Dolly System with Elevator and a sophisticated IP based control system. The system scales from a simple PTZ head on a fixed tripod to a full multi-camera rail system.
Furio RC (Remote Control) is designed for applications in which an operator controls the camera system remotely using a local (encoded) fluid head and foot pedals to move the camera side to side and up and down. Furio RC translates the camera operators every move to the remote camera. Highly responsive, Furio RC is perfect for live stage productions. This system allows one camera operator to rapidly move a camera from one end of the stage to the other and get shots simply not possible with a roaming camera person.
“We are super excited about adding robotics to our product portfolio,” said David Ross, CEO Ross Video. “There is a very close link between the OverDrive Automated Production Control System, Production Switchers, XPression Graphics and now our Furio Robotic Camera Systems. We are able to offer some great integrated production solutions to our clients and really push the state of live production technology.”
“I and the rest of the FX-Motion team are very happy to be joining Ross Video and adding Robotics to a combined live production product portfolio. There is a great fit both from a technology and corporate culture point of view,” commented Stijn Vanorbeek, CEO of FX-Motion and now President of Ross Robotics. “Together we are able to create compelling, integrated production solutions and Furio will benefit greatly from Ross’ global market reach and excellent customer support organization.”
