French firm VITEC acquires OOH Video

October 17, 2011 by Dave Haynes

The French firm VITEC has acquired the digital signage side of the one of the early players in the digital signage space.

VITEC Multimedia has purchased the “business Activities” of Vancouver-based OOH Video. “With this purchase, says the release, VITEC now adds industry-leading multi-channel digital video playback and Digital Signage products to its already enriched products and technology lineup. Now, customers can depend on VITEC throughout the entire video production process including acquisition, conversion, image processing, MPEG compression, recording, media asset management, streaming, decoding and delivery. This transaction does not include the LED Video display Division.”

“The acquisition of OOH Video’s Business Activities, including its product lines, brand, and key resources, further positions VITEC as a worldwide leader in advanced digital video solutions,” said Philippe Wetzel, CEO of VITEC. “In combination with our recent acquisition of Optibase, Focus, Como, Stradis and Ateme Defense & Security, this acquisition furthers our objective to provide a complete line of advanced digital video solutions to our customers around the globe. With innovation at its core, the VITEC R&D division–now with more than 100 esteemed engineers–is uniquely positioned to deliver innovative solutions for a wide range of advanced digital video applications–managing the entire video process from source to display.”

“OOH Video has partnered with VITEC in the past, and given our successful history, we concluded that the sale of OOH Video’s Business Activities to VITEC was the right decision,” commented Mark Spevakow, president and CEO of OOH Video. “As a market leader in Multi Channel digital video and audio playback solutions, we wanted to be sure that current OOH Video customers and partners would be well taken care of while OOH Display ( www.oohdisplay.com ) continues to develop solutions on the newest generation of LED Video Display Technology markets. Our LED Display Division works with some of the top LED Manufacturers in the world and is involved with sales, installation, rental and service of LED Displays.”

VITEC is a pretty substantial player in digital video products, with brands that include Optibase, Focus, Como, Stradis and Ateme Defense & Security.

Spevakow has been around this space for more than a decade and had the insight to call his firm OOH (for Out Of Home) back in 2000. His company was a big supplier of the Visual Circuits platform, an early digital signage/enterprise video offer that was slick for its time but, if I remember correctly, seriously expensive.

Focus Enhancements bought Visual Circuits about seven years ago and now VITEC owns Focus, so you can connect the dots.

 

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