Exclusive | Tapping the big opportunity: AJA's Tony Cacciarelli

AJA Video is manufacturer of digital video interface, conversion and acquisition solutions for broadcast and post-production. The company is headquartered in Grass Valley, California.

AJA, founded in 1993 by John Abt to pursue business opportunities in digital video, initially made digital conversion products and created an industry-leading line of Mini-Converters. In 2000, AJA leveraged its expertise into the burgeoning desktop video market. The company's inaugural line of KONA video capture and playback cards debuted on the Macintosh platform at NAB 2002 and quickly established AJA's reputation for delivering the highest-quality desktop video products. In addition to the KONA family of video I/O cards for the Mac and for Windows PCs, the growing AJA product line also includes the innovative “Io XT” Thunderbolt desktop video products and Ki Pro family of portable file-based recorders. AJA currently employs more than 150 people and has greatly benefited from the highly experienced engineering and video business talent in the Grass Valley area where it recently built a new facility.

In conversation with Adgully, Tony Cacciarelli, Product Marketing Manager, AJA Video Systems shared some great insights about their product portfolio, strategies and vision.

Giving us a sense of the market that AJA is in and its respective share in it, he said; “Well, AJA is involved in several markets. We started with broadcast market and that remains one of our biggest markets today. The broadcast market has some completely diverse set of needs and actually really specific. We hold a large percentage there. The market in India is presently at a very critical stage. We are at the point where the media and entertainment industry, television and broadcast in particular, are moving from analog standard definition television to digital high definition.”

“And now India is going through this transition in literal sense hence the business opportunity in India is great for us and we already have experience of going through that transition. Why consumers will buy our product in India is because we produce really high quality and reliable products for critical applications where failure is not an option,” he adds.

AJA recently released several new products to build on their extensive, existing product lineup: Ki Pro Quad: a new solid-state portable video recorder capable of capturing high-quality edit-ready files in formats including 4K (4096 x 2160), Quad HD (3840 x 2160), 2K (2048 x 1080), and HD (1920 x 1080) as 10-bit Apple ProRes with 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 color support, for the fastest path from camera-to-editorial with 10-bit 4:4:4 and 10-bit 4:2:2 color support.

Corvid Ultra: Our highest-end OEM solution, with superior I/O, processing and scaling for complex, multi-format 4K/2K and HD/Dual-link/SD workflows. Corvid Ultra supports high frame rates (48p and 60p), 4K and stereoscopic workflows. It has onboard debayering support and two expansion bays.

TruScale:  An arbitrary scaling engine option for the Corvid Ultra that allows high-quality up or down scaling of any raster from tiny web video up to and 4K. TruScale is real-time and keyframeable, allowing motion video to be efficiently resized while maintaining pristine image quality. It also enables many new and exciting workflows including real-time pan-and-scan of 4K to HD.

Speaking about the strategies that have worked for AJA in terms of marketing and growth, he said, “When it comes to marketing what we focus on is what our consumers specifically want and market the product line that fits to their needs and demands. So we believe in right marketing to the correct TG.”

The key factor that will help AJA market well in the Indian Market are: right communication to right TG, well maintained quality and creating awareness about the evolving video market. The other markets that have given good results are: China and Korea has shown good growth, Japan's growth has temporarily slowed while some other markets such as the South East Asian markets have come up as they are moving into the phase of digitization. But China and India are the major growth points with a huge market size.

Well, if we see the size of the Indian broadcast and post-production industry is quite large. When we go deep we have cinema with multiple languages and varied programming wherein there is a tremendous amount of content need and demand and so the question is; will AJA look into catering that market also or will it just focus on the mainline cinema?

Answering the above stated question; Cacciarelli said, “Yes of-course we are looking at tapping the deep markets too. We are looking at catering to larger market and with time we will keep a track of the needs and demands of regional cinema too and yes accordingly the price and packaging will also be considered.”

Well, of course pricing will play an important role, he said, “AJA's product pricing is on par with the quality the customers are getting from that product.”

The switch to HD shows that there is a huge opportunity lying in the markets like India. He says, “It will obviously create a vast amount of opportunity to build new products and new approach to work. The transition to HD is a positive next step for the Indian broadcast industry.”

As told by Cacciarelli, the company has already started exploding the India market quite literally and they have also hired some professionals to create a regional office in Mumbai which is a clear step towards tapping the Indian market to the core. 

The 20 year journey of AJA has seen and witnessed a great growth in their traditional markets like North America and Europe. With a clear and positive vision for Indian broadcast industry AJA has a long way to go in India. Some of the Indian broadcasting clients that AJA has in its kitty are namely, ZEE TV, Sun TV, CNBC, Viacom, NDTV etc. 

For information and records: Tony Cacciarelli is a post-production professional with 24 years of experience divided between working in product development, sales and marketing with technology manufacturers such as Avid, Softimage, Assimilate and AJA and as a professional video editor, visual effects artist, 3D animator and video engineer working on commercials, live events, awards shows, television and feature films. Cacciarelli has experienced the day-to-day challenges of seeing film and video projects through to completion, and delivering technology solutions that production professionals demand. He has a unique vantage point, and can work as an intermediary to help bridge communication between technology developers and production professionals to create optimized, practical and efficient workflows in broadcast, interactive and film. Cacciarelli is currently product marketing manager for AJA Video Systems where he sits between product development, marketing and sales teams to effectively communicate new technologies and bring the products to market that are tailored to customers' needs.