Broadcast and production companies in Nigeria will soon match their counterparts in the advanced countries as WTS Nigeria Limited has made clear its readiness to assist the local players in the deployment of latest technology that will bring them to the same level as the best in the world.

Speaking at the closing ceremony of the Africast 2010 Exhibitions which took place at the Ladi Kwali Hall, Sheraton Hotels and Towers, Abuja, General Manager, Africa, WTS UK Limited, Mr. Ian Cunliffe said WTS which launched operations in Nigeria in 2009, will ensure the availability of the best products locally to ease acquisition by broadcast companies in Nigeria.

Cunliffe, who assumed duties in Nigeria a few weeks ago, recognised the latent creative energy of Nigerians and said with the technology that WTS would make available, the industry will witness massive improvements in terms of quality of output and timeliness of delivery.

He promised that Nigerian broadcast firms would be availed of the newest technologies that make the job of news gathering easy and qualitative.

Among the latest technological equipment the company is making available to the Nigerian broadcast environment are the TVU Pack and Robotics Camera, tools that Cunliffe says are the latest in the world. The TVU Pack, he explained, is a miniaturized Outside Broadcast (OB) van that can be carried around with ease.

The TVU Pack is as small as a backpack and used mobile broadband wireless circuit aggregation to send television signals from remote locations to the studio.“The TVU Pack is the perfect tool for unfettered broadcasting,” Cunliffe said.

“With this, you do not need OB vans. It is a fully self-contained content capture and broadcast solution with its own on board power and data transmission capability. With this, broadcast professionals can capture news and cover events from locations not previously accessible to reporters. You can move within crowds and even operate from a moving vehicle.”

Cunliffe said apart from its small size, the TVU Pack also comes at a small fraction of the cost of acquiring OB vans, cheaper to store and manage as it required no driver and takes little or no space and very easy to configure.
The Robotics camera, Cunliffe said, is the latest from the stable of Sony Broadcast Systems and was designed to meet the challenges of covering events that require minimal interference.

He said the camera has been designed specifically for the coverage of concerts, conferences and religious events as well as at education facilities where the movement of cameramen interferes with what is going on.

“With the Robotics camera, the cameraman just sits comfortably and manages the operations of the camera with a remote control,” he explained.

Acquiring the products, he continued, has also been made a lot easier as the company has structured a programme that would enable those who might not be able to pay for the products to take up the options of loaning the equipment or leasing them.

This, he said, would be at comparative costs.
“We are offering a partnership that has not existed previously in the Nigerian market and we are sure that before we run our programmes for two years, Nigerian broadcast organisations would easily compare with the best in Europe, Asia and the United States in the area of technology and quality of production” he stated.