Panelists
Peter Elvidge, Head of Media Solutions, GlobeCast
Peter Elvidge joined GlobeCast in 2001 as an engineer and has since held a number of positions in its technical divisions before recently setting up a new media solutions department.
Based in London, Peter oversees a new team bringing together commercial, technical and operational skills whose key focus is to develop GlobeCast's media management operation and to provide workflow integration consultancy.
Elvidge has also been the driving force behind the creation and growth of GlobeCast's central London media management facility, which launched in 2006 and now plays out almost 30 international channels. His most recent achievement is a 22,000 hour archive and simultaneous launch of eight Playout channels for Bollywood broadcaster B4U.
Prior to joining GlobeCast, Elvidge was a Marketing Specialist with Dolby Laboratories covering broadcast, consumer and PC market segments. He is a Chartered Engineer and Graduate of the University of York in Engineering and Business Management.
Tony Taylor, Chairman & CEO, TMD
Tony Taylor is Chairman and CEO of TMD. The company is focused on designing and delivering media management solutions and services to the global media, broadcast and archive sectors. TMD provides solutions for the management of content in both the constantly evolving file-based tapeless environments as well as the legacy tape and film based physical media environments.
Geoff joined the BBC as a trainee engineer and on completing the initial 3 month training course was assigned to BBC TV News where he gained experience in a wide range of operational duties including vision and audio mixing on fast moving live News bulletins, Telecine and News Outside Broadcasts developing a wide range of skills from radio links and communications, cameras, vision control and audio mixing.
In the late 70's Geoff joined Visnews and as their Operations Manager over saw both the migration of the News syndication services from film to video tape, along with the growing broadcast facilities operation. It was during this period that the EBU set up the first trans European satellite broadcast using play out facilities at Visnews. Other notable events during this period included the worldwide broadcast and syndication of Charles and Diana's wedding and the first live American Super bowl shown in the UK on Ch.4 for which as Operations Manager was heavily involved in the planning of the satellite distribution.
After a brief period working from GEC Marconi, Geoff joined Autocue as their Technical Director and over saw the migration of prompting from a mechanic system with rolls of paper into a computer based system along with their first electronic production system which was to become the fore runner of today's electronic newsroom. In addition to over seeing the overall development from initial concepts to a marketable product he was also involved with writing some of the software and the translation into a number of foreign languages.
In 1988 Geoff then joined TVam the breakfast television station as an Engineering Manager responsible for the provision of the technical resources to the programme team, the running of the Master Control Room and planning of major outside broadcasts, the amongst the most notable of which were Piper Alpha oil rig disaster and the fall of the Berlin Wall.
When in 1992 TVam were unsuccessful in retaining the franchise, Geoff moved to GMTV and became their Chief Engineer responsible for a wide range of facilities from the business IT systems to all technical aspects of the broadcast chain as well as a member of the senior management team. During this period of time Geoff over saw the move of the station from PAL to SDI; from 4:3 to 16:9 production; upgrades in the newsroom computer systems; the migration from linear editing to a file based system; the introduction of disk based EFP cameras all whilst not interrupting the daily output of the station. More recently he was instrumental in the introduction of desk top editing and a digital archive system complete with on-line browsing for the production team.
After 16 years at GMTV has decided to move on and use his considerable knowledge to assisting other broadcasters with similar challenges as a media and broadcast consultant.
