Testimonials - RossGear Terminal Equipment

KETC Confirms That RossGear Was the Right Choice

Chrys Marlow
Director of Engineering
KETC / Channel 9
St. Louis, MO

As Director of Engineering at KETC/Channel 9, I am responsible for all of the engineering and technology needs for KETC and its subsidiary, V9 Studios. KETC is one of the most-watched PBS member stations in the country and V9 Studios is a for-profit subsidiary serving the production needs of the St. Louis area.

Three years ago, KETC combined its production and air operations by moving into a new 58,000 square foot facility. Part of this project required complete replacement of the engineering infrastructure. Previously, we were using Grass Valley and Utah Scientific for our terminal equipment requirements.

I have to admit, we looked very closely at Grass Valley, Leitch, Snell and Wilcox and Ross. We opted for RossGear due to product features, value and warranty. In most cases the feature set was the same or somewhat better than the competition with an approximate 30% savings and a good warranty.

We purchased multiple analog and digital equalizing amplifiers, encoders, decoders, stereo/mono audio amplifiers, monitoring amplifiers and a large number of frames with power supplies. Products include the SEA 8003 Serial Equalizing Amplifiers, DSA 8004 Dual Serial Equalizing Amplifiers, VDA 7500 Utility Distribution Amplifiers, ADA 7554 Stereo/Mono Audio Distribution Amplifiers, ADC 8033 RGB/YUV to 4:2:2 Serial Converters, CDT 8031 NTSC/PAL to 4:2:2 Decoders, DAC 8015 4:2:2 to NTSC/PAL Encoders, DAC 8013 Digital to Analog Component Converters, and SMA-8014 Serial Component Monitoring Amplifiers.

All of the Ross products were bought for a new studio, and a few of the converters had just been introduced. Ross put in writing their shipping dates for all of the products purchased, and met or exceeded each date.

KETC uses Ross for all of its serial and analog distribution needs. Additionally, all conversation between 270 Mbps and NTSC and or CAV is done by Ross products. I am satisfied with all of the Ross equipment that was purchased.

During the installation phase, we encountered a problem between a Ross converter and another manufacturer's D1 frame synchronizer. Even though the problem turned out to not be Ross' error, Ross worked with our integrator and the other manufacturer until a solution was found.

The equipment that KETC purchased from Ross is the type that has to operate 100% of the time and be virtually transparent to the operation. RossGear has done that for more than 3 years.