Ross Video is pleased to announce that ARET Audio & Video Engineering, based in Milan, Italy, has become our first Certified Systems Integrator for the openTruck™ standard in EMEA.

Launched at NAB in 2014, openTruck is an open-access performance blueprint for mobile production that delivers a predictable production experience and the highest quality content. Whether customers require a network broadcast, Internet delivery, or OTT and VOD services, openTruck helps maintain high-quality production values and consistency of final product, ensuring a healthy return on investment.

The openTruck initiative involves partnerships with equipment manufacturers, system integrators, truck builders, mobile producers and freelance operators. openTruck designs support varying crew capacities, sometimes even supporting twice the number of positions normally found in a vehicle of a particular size. Smaller vehicles and enclosures provide better fuel efficiency, which leads to significantly lower costs to travel from event to event. openTruck is also vehicle agnostic and can be built in varying sizes depending on specific needs. Flight packs, Sprinter-type vans, trailers and forty foot boxes have all have been created around the many advantages of openTruck.

Commenting on the relationship with ARET, Steve Romain, Director of Special Projects at Ross Video, notes “ARET has been a Ross Video partner for a number of years now and is a very forward-thinking company. openTruck is an incredibly  progressive standard which is open to all and totally focused on helping our customers. I’m therefore delighted that ARET has become our first Certified integration partner for openTruck and look forward seeing openTruck grow in EMEA as it has in North America”.

Alessandro Asti, Managing Partner of ARET, is similarly enthusiastic. “ARET has worked in OB van turnkey design and integration for 40 years and we’ve delivered over 450 vans worldwide in that time. We firmly believe that the openTruck initiative is badly needed; it offers an extremely high level of production consistency, and customers want the certainty and quality that it provides”.

ARET will be showcasing openTruck at IBC 2016 in the outdoor exhibition area – plot number 0.E01. Ross Video will be exhibiting our full range of Smart Production solutions on booth 11.C10.

About OpenTruck

Powerful, consistent, and cost-effective mobile production

Live event coverage of any type is a capital-intensive endeavor, and the cost of building and maintaining production vehicles represents a significant overhead. By enabling lower-cost remote production while retaining the quality and standard expected of high-profile broadcast events, openTruck™ levels the playing field for smaller companies and gives producers an all-round better way to expand their coverage and meet consumer demand for coverage of more local sports and other live events.

openTruck is a viable alternative to traditional truck design. Rather than using overly expensive technologies that lack smooth integration, this new construct emphasizes equipment and workflows that complement each other for better efficiencies at lower costs. A healthy return on investment is delivered using the openTruck blueprint as vehicles are precisely engineered to maximize space, minimize risk and consistently deliver faultlessly efficient production workflows, uncompromising video quality, and rapid reconfiguration from event to event.

This innovative initiative provides a standardized yet customizable way to design affordable mobile production vehicles equipped with the power and technology necessary to deliver the highest quality content. Trucks built using the openTruck™ initiative, deliver a predictable production experience and outstanding results—all the time, every time. Whether you require a network broadcast, Internet delivery, or OTT and VOD services, openTruck™ is exactly what you need to maintain high-quality production values, and consistency of final product that ensures a healthy return on investment.

The openTruck™ initiative is helping to fuel an expanding live production ecosystem and make cost-efficient, high-performance production vehicles readily available along with a pool of talented and fully trained freelance operators.

openTruck™ is suitable for a wide range of applications and events including:

• Educational and amateur sporting events
• Local and regional professional sports teams
• Local and state political events rallies
• Corporate events
• Live concerts and performances
• Community parades and festivals