World Wrestling Entertainment Takes Advantage of Matrox Convert DVI

As one of the most popular global brands in entertainment, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) broadcasts to more than 500 million homes worldwide in 145 countries in 30 languages. The company is headquartered in Stamford, Conn., with offices in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, London, Shanghai, Tokyo, Sydney, Singapore and Mexico City. Given the global scope of the company, its internal communications system needs to meet the same high standards used externally. At the heart of the action is Jonathan E. Solomon, the senior broadcast engineer at WWE.

"We need to ensure our staff has access to the right communications at the right time. We have countless corporate meetings and conferences and they almost always involve reviewing some WWE footage," said Solomon.

"Often, the footage we review comes from various online sources. Whether it be from our own site or from other outlets such as Hulu, we like to see how our footage is being used on the web. We were running into a recurring issue when trying to distribute this content - it would take us forever to convert the footage to a useable format. And even when we did, the video and audio quality would suffer."

In a quest to overcome this problem, Solomon found Matrox Convert DVI. "What would have taken three devices in the past - an audio BalUn, a DVI to HD-SDI converter, and an audio embedder - was resolved with one, simple-to-install unit."

"We use Matrox Convert DVI constantly. During online conferences, we've found it much easier to burn a DVD of the content than to open a computer, connect, and watch it. We also use it for our in-house channel to distribute corporate meetings each year that are normally streamed on the Internet. This allows our employees who are in a production area without a computer to watch the meetings. Plus, by simply playing the video full-screen, we can see the footage full-screen on a television!"

"At a fraction of the price of similar products, Convert DVI maintains the integrity of the footage while embedding the audio. The extreme ease-of-use of Convert DVI means that even our less technical personnel can handle these content captures, without calling on the engineering department for support, which is something I really appreciate!"

"Within hours of installing this unit, we were ready to go and we haven't looked back."