Testimonials - Vision 3

Buffalo Bills Touchdown with Ross Vision 3

Stephen Asposto
Video Production Director/Engineer
Buffalo Bills, Inc. Ralph Wilson
Stadium, Orchard Park, NY

Ralph Wilson Stadium is home to the Buffalo Bills National Football League football team. Officially opened in August of 1973, the stadium holds 73,967 people in capacity.

I have been with the Buffalo Bills football team since the installation of the JumboTron scoreboard system in August of 1994. Prior to that, my 31 years in the video production industry included designing and installing a corporate video studio, producing marketing and training programs, working for broadcast video vendors and various independent video production houses before starting my own full service production facility in 1988. Ironically it was known as Synergy Productions, Inc. It was from here that I started my relationship with the Buffalo Bills, initially as a subcontractor.

Originally the Bills “state of the art” system was home to the largest JumboTron display in USA and the heart of the control room was a Ross 216 switcher. This served us well until year 2000 when we began to upgrade our analog system to digital. That’s when the Synergy 3 was integrated along with a few RossGear frames, converters and frame sync’s. The initial plan was to eventually replace our ageing JumboTron screen, but with the cost of HD at that time seeming unreasonable, we planned to at least produce in16X9 aspect ratio. With Synergy’s dual aspect ratio output and close to 2000 4X3 televisions in house, I needed to look no further. Not to be overlooked however was the newly incorporated Squeeze & Tease, custom Macros and enough memory to store the multiple setups and EFX required, due to not only our gameday production but the advent of us producing two live to tape weekly Bills broadcast shows.

Six years later with HD now a reality (especially in the sports world), we upgraded our display to a 1080i HD capable Mitsubishi Diamond Vision screen measuring 82.8’ x 35’. Believing that it still would be difficult to convert to HD initially, with the limited funds that were remaining, I traveled to NAB in 2007 in search of some ancillary equipment to hold us over for one more year. Well, auspiciously my first stops were my friends at Ross Video and to say the Vision switcher was “love at first sight” is an understatement. Vision had everything I had hoped for in a production switcher including what I like to call “sex appeal”. Yes, I am referring to the unlimited color variations of the glow technology in the keycaps. Sure to impress any novice but ultimately another aid in simplifying our productions. I began to salivate when I saw that there were 4 channels of animation playout, proc amps, RGB color correctors, ultra chroma keyers and 12 full function AuxKeyers that function as additional ME’s!!

Due to our time restraints and the delivery availability of Vision being well into our 2007 season, I continued to investigate other switchers. In the end, Vision was the right product for our needs, and it fit perfectly into our future by supporting all of the SD and HD formats we would be facing in the next few years. Not only could I not find a comparable switcher on the market, in the same price range, I also couldn’t find a vendor who was more willing to help us design, install, and acquire their product like Ross Video did.

Ross offered to loan us a Synergy 3 MD-X Multi-Definition Production Switcher until our Vision 3 was available, and while I was hesitant about doing this mid-season, the control panel swap went smoothly. For our first game using the Vision 3, we had David Ross and Les O’Reilly at the controls, which is only another example of the outstanding customer service that I have come to expect from the Ross team. They helped me find a way to get this done a year ahead of schedule with flawless results.