MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.—TVU Networks, a global provider of cloud and IP-based live video solutions, has appointed Mike Cronk as vice president of strategy.

Cronk has more than two decades of experience in media tech, most recently as head of product for live media services at Amazon Web Services (AWS). Prior to that, he was with Grass Valley for much of the past 25 years, most recently as vice president of core technologies. He is also founding chair of the Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS).

In his new role, Cronk will focus on scaling TVU’s award-winning software-as-a-service (SaaS) product line, expanding its adoption among media organizations worldwide and enhancing the company’s offerings for customers, partners and the broader media community, T said.

“Mike Cronk joins TVU at a time of unparalleled innovation and momentum for our company,” TVU CEO Paul Shen said. “His deep expertise in cloud transformation, media workflows, and product strategy will enable us to continue redefining how broadcasters engage their audiences. With Mike’s leadership, we will further strengthen our position as the trusted partner for media supply chain transformation worldwide, turning our customers’ most ambitious projects into reality.”

Reflecting on his new role, Cronk highlighted TVU’s commitment to innovation: “TVU has been at the forefront of live video production for nearly two decades, forging strong partnerships with media organizations worldwide. This year alone, TVU has enabled groundbreaking cloud-based workflows, from leveraging AI-assisted production during major sports events to powering fully cloud-based workflows for this year’s biggest elections. The opportunity to contribute to such a visionary company at this pivotal moment is truly exciting. Together with our customers, we have the potential to achieve even greater milestones and transform the industry further.”

“Mike’s vision and expertise align perfectly with TVU Networks’ mission to transform the broadcast industry,” Shen said. “His addition to our leadership team marks an exciting chapter for TVU as we continue to innovate and collaborate with our clients to redefine what’s possible in live media production.”

For more information about TVU Networks, visit tvunetworks.com.

MONTREAL– Michael Cronk, vice president of Core Technology at Grass Valley, has received two honors for his professional achievements, technical and business innovations and continuing influence within the broadcast industry.

Cronk is among six recipients of Future’s 2019 Industry Innovator Award, presented by TV Technology magazine. The awards are now in the second year. Cronk was also recently honored with IABM’s Technology Leader of the Year Award.

With over 20 years of broadcast industry experience, Cronk has built his career on designing and building product roadmaps and technical strategies to advance the development of content and media technology. His work has been especially impactful in the wake of progressive changes such as the shifts from tape to disk, SD to HD to 4K UHD, and linear to on-demand. He has been instrumental in guiding the development of the company’s core technologies to ensure portfolio interoperability and consistency, leading a team of some of the media industry’s most experienced and respected engineers. As Chairman of the Board for the Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS), Cronk has been influential in leading the industry towards a clear, efficient path to standards-based IP.

“These recognitions are incredibly well deserved. Mike is a true leader and visionary, and a major asset to Grass Valley and the industry,” said Tim Shoulders, president, Grass Valley. “It is hugely exciting to see him being honored for his impactful work in driving the advancement of the content and media technology landscape; this is what being an innovator is all about.”

“It’s a pleasure to honor those who make such a difference in their industries – innovating in technology and business while also inspiring others,” said Carmel King, vice president of media technology for Future's B2B Group. “The awards are designed to shine a spotlight on the people behind the companies and technologies on which our industries depend. We offer a heartfelt ‘thank you’ for their contributions, and wish them continued success.”

IABM’s CEO, Peter White, commented, “I can think of no one more deserving of this recognition for what he has helped achieve with AIMS over the last two years – while also holding down his day-job at Grass Valley!”

Cronk’s recognition as an industry innovator and technology leader is embodied by some of the major successes that AIMS and Grass Valley achieved over the last year. Under his leadership, AIMS has substantially contributed to the widespread vendor adoption of IP since its founding three years ago, attracting nearly 100 members. At Grass Valley, he has dedicated the last few years to enabling faster innovation, and at scale, resulting in the debut of its Core Technology Initiative – a ‘build once, integrate to many’ agile R&D approach to strengthen product quality and capability across its expansive portfolio. 

Grass Valley last week announced a major R&D initiative intended to leverage its engineering resources more effectively.

For the company, the upside is intended to be greater efficiency and greater responsiveness. For broadcasters, production companies and other end users, the benefit is shorter product development cycles to bring innovation more quickly to market.

Michael Cronk, vice president of Core Technology at Grass Valley, is heading up the implementation of the initiative, which is called "GV Core Technology." I had a chance to conduct a telephone interview with him about the initiative as he readying to leave for IBC 2018 in Amsterdam.

TV Technology: In the press release announcing GV Core Technology, Grass Valley talks about the initiative leveraging a lean engineering philosophy. Could you elaborate on that philosophy?

Michael Cronk: What it really involves is being very efficient from an R&D perspective. Let me give you an example. If when an engineer writes code and they commit the code, or compile the code, they run tests on that code.

A good metric is cycle time –the time between when I commit the code to when I have verified that it works.

With traditional software in big systems, you might have a lot of testing going on. That cycle time can be weeks, for example.

Whereas if you automate the testing and the entire pipeline is automated, then you can do that in a matter of hours, or depending on the code, in a matter of minutes.

That allows us to be a lot more responsive, to add things. If something is broken, we get feedback quickly. We are able to respond much faster to customer requests. It is lean in the sense you have taken out a lot of the waste associated with the process.

TVT: Have there been any underlying technologies that make it easier to build once and deploy many?

MC: Not so much the underlying technology. I think it’s more about organizing within the company to take advantage of the length and breadth of the strength we have.

If you take a look at technologies like SMPTE ST 2110 IP interface or processing, those are Grass Valley delivers on across various applications –with the production switchers, modular gear, cameras, replay, news systems. Those signals are common across all of them.

So, it’s really about organizing and instead of multiple groups building something that’s the same, have it built once, very well, and leverage it across the company.

That takes a process and a way to communicate and to share information.

I guess the technologies that enable it now is the conferencing and the standardization tools that allow us to work closer together and collaborate.

TVT: How will customers notice Core Technology in the products they purchase?

MC: I think what they will see and are already beginning to see is a faster time to market and a faster response. Those are the real benefits.

As an example, we have a technology in the Core Technology called GV Engine. That is the heart of the playout engine for iTX. We recently released it into the Stratus system, our new system called GVIO. That’s the same core code integrated in multiple places.

And we are able to bring new functionality to virtualize our news systems much quicker than if the group started out doing the work themselves.

TVT: You are heading the team implementing this. What are your short-term goals for Core Technology and your longer-range goals as well?

MC: I have been in the broadcast industry for about 25 years. It’s one of the most fantastic experiences I have ever had. There are a lot of talented people. We have two CTOs and other Ph. Ds who aren’t CTOs but equally contribute.

I get to work with a tremendous team of people who are excited and innovating quite a bit.

In terms of the future, there’s really two paths. There’s taking the GVEngine and rolling that out into more and more products.

Then you have some forward-looking initiatives that I can’t elaborate on at the moment but are some of the most exciting things we are doing.

BOTHELL, WASH.—The Alliance for IP Media Solutions has announced the recently appointed members of its board, as well as chairs and deputy chairs for its marketing and technical working groups.

Michael Cronk

Three directors have been appointed to head up the board for AIMS. Michael Cronk, senior vice president of strategic marketing at Grass Valley has been appointed chairman. Steve Reynolds, CTO at Imagine Communications will serve as vice-chairman. Andreas Hilmer, director of marketing and communications for Lawo, rounds out the board as its financial officer.

The board then appointed Kerry Wheeles, CTO – Networking at Imagine Communications, and Scott Barella, CTO at 5280 Broadcast, as the chair and deputy chair of the AIMS Technical Working Group, respectively. For the AIMS Marketing Working Group, Andy Warman, director of production and playout strategy and market development for Harmonic, will serve as chair; Roger Sherwood, digital content and media solutions business development at Cisco, has been appointed deputy chair.

AIMS is a non-profit organization focused on promoting the adoption, standardization, development and refinement of open protocols for media over IP, with an initial emphasis on VSF TR-03 and TR-04, SMPTE 2022-6 and AES67.