Why Roland’s V-8HD Holds All The Aces
Portable yet powerful, compact but incredibly versatile. Is this why Roland’s V-8HD is the preferred video switcher for Berry Productions?‘
We’d heard good things about it so trialled it and liked it enough to buy our own from Leisuretec,’ states Director of Events Katie Haddock. ‘We didn’t want big cases and extra screens, but we did want a monitor on the actual mixer for compact reasons, as well as a good amount of inputs and outputs.’
Berry Productions, based in the Midlands, specialise in live event production. With a talent for lacing technical wizardry with creative colour, the swirl of immersive experiences they offer covered everything and anything from marquee parties to corporate days and brand activations.
They have been contracted as the go-to events supplier, facilitating sound and lighting, for a new venue in the heart of Stafford. It’s a flexible space, with the largest room seating an audience of around 800, and a clutch of break-outs off to the sides. Katie explains: ‘We’ve had to invest in kit for the venue because of the amount of jobs we will potentially get here, mainly daytime conferences and awards nights. We have previously used a different brand of video switcher, but it was too big and bulky for this venue, so we needed something smaller that we could use for meetings.’
Katie welcomes the Roland’s eight HDMI inputs, which she says is more than enough. Plus, two of the inputs have scalers that accommodate laptops, iPads and smartphones, which aren’t always easy to connect via HDMI. Another benefit is the built-in multiviewer preview monitor. Katies adds: We do quite a few events that use a comfort monitor and relay screens and it works well for that because we can do separate outputs for the monitor and the screens that the audience sees.’
The arrival of the Roland marks a new chapter for the venue, and it’s here for the long term. It does everything Berry Productions and their freelancers (who are full of compliments about it) need it to do – chiefly vision mixing but with a view to it becoming the motor driving LED walls and stages in the future. Clearly up to the task, it’s compact but still has a world of versatility for switching, mixing, composing and recording high-quality video. An ideal events companion? Absolutely!
Roland V-8HD key features:
- All-in-one hardware design
- All HDMI workflow
- Five-layer effects and keying engine
- Built-in multiviewer preview monitor
- Aux output for a different video feed
- Technology-assisted automatic video switching
- Eight HDMI inputs and three configurable HDMI outputs
- 18-channel digital audio mixer with effects
About Leisuretec
Established in 1990, we are Trade Distributors of Professional and Commercial Audio, Lighting, Video, Special Effects and Ancillary. Through our AV Hire Production, AV Installation and Re-seller customers we address the live entertainment, leisure, commercial, residential and retail markets throughout the UK.
We support our trade customers with immense stock holding across a vast choice of products, knowledgeable technical support, competitive trade pricing, speedy delivery and attentive after-sales support.
