Geoff Young

Welcome to the home page for Geoff Young.

I'm a contract broadcast engineer based in London. For many years I was a freelance video systems engineer specialising in, but not confined to, post production systems in Soho. I've been designing and building systems since 1985, back in the days of 1", helping my clients make the best use of changing technology.

I also undertake consultancy, maintenance and upgrades for systems large and small and can arrange for servicing and repairs to equipment.

All projects are fully documented, with each cable identifiable by number and scheduled with all relevant attributes (source, destination, connector wiring, function and so on). Databases, diagrams and drawings can be supplied on paper, in PDF or other file format and are kept updated as systems evolve. This is invaluable with larger facilities built many years ago which now contain many thousands of cables, of umpteen types, amounting to tens of kilometers and winding all over the building.

I've worked abroad and around the country (er, England) but I'm mostly based in & around Soho.

I have worked very closely with G.A.S. Electronic Systems on many projects.

Links to a selection of major clients can be found here

When you've seen one snap of an edit suite or some racks you feel as though you've seen them all, but in reality they're all a bit different, carefully planned around the client requirements and thelocation, workflow, budget and so on. I don't really take 'photos' but here are some snaps.

Past Projects

I started this page in 1996, and I've been adding to it irregularly ever since. Essentially what follows is a long list of past projects, with links to technologies and clients.

January 2015 to September 2015: Serious Broadcast Incidents group within BBC Engineering at New Broadcasting House. Providing 24/7 support for all aspects of the BBC W1 estate, including TV, radio and World Service news, local, national and international services and overnight support for the 2015 General Election.

December 2010 to September 2011: Testing & commissioning the new Sky Sports newsroom and 5 new 3G/HD studios at Sky's new Harlequin 1 complex.

December 2009 to December 2010: Major ugrade at Splice TV and various more minor bits and pieces elsewhere. Oh, and I DIY'd the kitchen at home.

June 2009 to November 2009: MacPro based Avid suite for Figment Editing, and a PC based HD suite at Glasshead. Facilities move for the duplication and editing systems at Classic Media which included moving Postman Pat! Reorganisation of Avid suites at The Quarry and Speade and of Final Cut suites at Gorgeous, Soul Rebel Films, Interlink and Publicis.

December 2008 to July 2009: Reorganise and move the HD suite at Trim Editing, sort out video archiving equipment for Christian Aid, consultancies on workflow for projects shot on Red for various clients including Speade and Figment Editing. Planning and design for the merger of longterm clients DGP and Rainbow who have become The Mews. This included fitting out a new area with 5 HD Final Cut suites, integrating Dolby and other audio equipment into existing 5.1 systems, moving Quantel EQ and Flame and other HD equipment, and provision for shared storage and facility wide HD test & measurement.

July 2008 toJune 2008: Reorganisation of Avid suite for tve, and HD suites based on Avid Mojo DX at Line Up Communications and Peepshow Post . Baselight grading system and C24 based Protools suite at Splice TV , infrastructure support for Interaction London and new Avid Mojo based system at Glasshead

July 2008: Someone has actually read this! This is me waving at Mark at MGV, where he runs Sohos finest animatics and commercials production systems.

December 2007 to June 2008: Two new 5.1 studios for Music 4 based on the SSL AWS900+ analogue mixing console and SSL Xlogic Protools interface. Two new Avid suites for Figment Editing , two rebuilt Avid suites for Glasshead , a suite for Nomad Productions together with upgrades at The Quarry and Speade.

September 2006 to December 2007: New integrated FCP based facility for Publicis london; two new Avid suites at The Quarry and upgrades at Peepshow Post and Speade. Avid editing and DVD encoding facility for LineUp and FCP editing at Interlink Communications. Also a lot of design work for the new Splice TV HD facility which includes a 5.1 audio suite, DS HD, Symphony HD and FCP HD centered around the new machine room.

March 2006 to September 2006: Phew! A hectic period which includes a new premises with six suites and a fine machine room for Marshall Street Editors; a three camera digital studio and 10 FCP suites for Havering College; a clutch of projects at DGP including a major HD upgrade to dual link (RGB, 4:4:4) with the first DS Nitris 8 in the UK, upgraded Flame and Flint and HD DVD encoding with Content Agent XR , together with two 5.1 audio studios based on Protools D Command for their new arm DGP Audio. Also sorting out the location HDSR editing for the forthcoming Hogfather film for Joe Cuts and 5.1 upgrades to sound studios at Rainbow Post and Berwick Street Post

August 2005 to March 2006: Reorganisation of duplication system at Entertainment Rights; installation of Content Agent. at Hit Entertainment. Encoding & transcoding facility Expresso at DGP together with Discreet Flame also at DGP

November 2004 to August 2005: A new facility at Trim, with Avid Adenaline and Final Cut Pro. Set up editing for Peepshow Post at Mother London. Major upgrade at ArenaP3 with new machine room serving 10 online Avid suites. Further upgrades and expansion at The Quarry, and Speade. Flame system for Alteration Services. Move Pete Luri Editing and Gorgeous. Install Quantel EQ and two Pyramix digital audio workstations at Rainbow Post. Major upgrade at Blink TV with 4 Final Cut suites based on Blackmagic Decklink HD cards, together with a new machine room.

February 2004 to November 2004: A busy time! Move Edit Video into their new home. They have a big machine room, with 15 edit suites, including linear online suite, Smoke, Symphony & Lightworks Touch; Expand Frontier Post with a new machine room, and 11 suites including HD DS Nitris, Symphony, Adrenaline, Mojo & Unity; Move P3 into their new home at ArenaP3; Major expansion of the machine room and rebuilding of 10 Avid suites at Banana Split; Substantial upgrading at The Quarry; New suites at Peepshow Post and Speade.

October 2003 to February 2004: Additional High Def Cinewave/FCP suite at Blink TV; Another Final Cut Pro, this time with uncompressed AJA IO interface for Park Avenue; and another one for Loose Moose. Move and reorganise facilities for Patricia Murphy Films; Additional DVD encoder systems at . DGP.

April 2003 to October 2003: Avid Adenaline suite for Joe Cuts; Reorganisation at Marshall St editors; New edit suite and maintenance at Cut and Run; Additonal suite at Pete Luri editing; Expansion at Banana Split with digital upgrade including Avid Symphony & Avid Adenaline; Major new 3 camera, 16x9 digital studio for London college of Printing.

January 2003 to April 2003: Rebuild editing systems at The Firm; additional facilities at BCMB Advertising; copy & viewing system for Gorgeous; reorganisation of suites at Sue Moles editing; Major reorganisation at P3 including new offline suites.

July 2002 to December 2002: Installation of 48 channel 5.1 Protools HD sound studio for CFS Soho; new Avid suite at PeepShow Post; High definition Smoke 5 and Flints at DGP; New Avid facility for Sam Sneade at Speade; upgrade and installation of third Avid at Brighter Pictures;

Nov 2001 to July 2002: New Avid facility for PeepShow Post; move Avid and DVD systems for Tomato Films; Avid online for De-Compression; Media 100 online for Echo & Bounce; two more Avid suites for The Quarry; Avid DV Express system at BBC News; Avid online and Cinewave systems at Blink TV;

Feb 2001 to Nov 2001: Three more Avid suites for The Quarry; also for the BBC and Swordfish Editing (who have just picked up the Best Video award from MTV for Avalanches: "Since I Left"); new European MPEG playout channels for Bloomberg; move The Firm, Patricia Murphy Films and Digital Arts; major rebuild at Edit Video with new S&W digital vision mixer for the linear online and a new Symphony ; expansion of DVD authoring at DGP; major reequip and expansion of audio facilities at Rainbow Post; Jaleo online system for distributors Pixelution at BCMB Advertising; DVD authoring for Tomato Films.

I should also record the first ever real job that came about through this page (everything else is word of mouth). Thanks to Banana Split for trusting someone they found on the web with their Digibeta & edit suite upgrade :)

Sept 2000 to Feb 2001: Major installation of a new digital machine room at DGP serving 8 edit suites running Avid Symphony, MC9000 online and Film Composer offline, connected by Gigabit ethernet to the rest of the facility. Demo room setup for systems distributors Root6. Another machine room, this time for film editors Red Square serving 4 offline Film Composers and a DS. Move Ian Weil Editing, Jim Bambrick and Associates and Merrick Fenton Editing to their new homes. New Avid and Digital Voodoo system for production company Addiction, and new facilities for Capital Animation. Another Film Composer suite at the Quarry.

Feb 2000 to Sept 2000: I've neglected this, but IBC is upon us. Completed projects include a copy bay and further DVD authoring suite at DGP ; Online Avid suite for Channel 4 cricket at Sunset & Vine ; two online Avid suites at Channel 5 Television; a Quantel Editbox for Soho Editors ; an online Avid suite and copy bay for HIT Wildlife ; rebuild two Speedrazor suites at Passion Pictures ; offline Avid suite for Scott Crane at The Quarry; a Symphony suite at Digital Heaven ; two offline and an online Avid system for The Edge Post Production; move Avid suite for Digital Arts

Nov 99 - Feb 2000: New online suite at Frontline TV after their fire; commissioning various suites at Evolutions TVs fine new building; new online facilities at Digital Heaven , based on DS and a Probel router. All made a bit complicated by a slipped disk.

October '99: Upgrade the router at Clear from 16x16 SDI & AES to 32x32 and add an RS422 layer.

September '99: Further expansion in the machine room at P3 Post including Avid Unity with over 1400GB of storage shared between all Symphony and Media Composer systems. Also add a new Quantel Editbox FX and Open Render Engine.

July/August '99: Online Avid for Tomato Films; new offline facility in Marshall St; move Rainbow Post into their new space with the online Avid moving from Carnaby St and the SSL Scenaria & Screensound suites from Brewer St

May/June '99: New facilities at DGP including Octanes running Discreet Logic Flint, a Smoke suite and a DVD Creator authoring room. A small machine room serves all suites and the computers are networked together using TCP/IP over both 100baseT and very high speed FibreChannel . Also a Speedrazor animation editing system for Loose Moose and move two Media 100 systems into proper edit suites for Brighter Pictures, and a new Avid at Edit Video.

April '99: Speedrazor animation editing system for Peppers Ghost Productions. Another Symphony at P3. Integrate a new Avid into an existing linear suite at Film Work Group.

March '99: Three Media 100 suites with shared Fibrechannel storage for Communicator Ltd; reorganisation of two Avid suites at The Firm.

Feb '99: Two offline Avid suites and copying facility for Oxford Films.

Jan '99: Dubbing theatre with Audiovision, Avid online and two machine rooms for Clearcut Pictures for use with programmes such as the National Lottery show and Crimewatch. This comes after some months of consultancy on building design for offline systems

Dec '98: Further enhancements at P3, which now has 2 SoftImageDS systems, 1 Symphony and 7 Avid Media Composer onlines.

Sept - Dec '98: Offline systems for Sam Sneade Editing & Compendium, viewing/dupe bay for Patricia Murphy Films; SSL Screensound suite for Rainbow, video rebuild at Music by Design.

August '98: Avid online for Rainbow; Avid offline for Films of Record;

July '98: Reorganise and document all video cabling at Clear in the machine room and in the Inferno, Henry & Smoke suites; Move 6 Avids for Jim Bambricks to Wardour St; Install new Jaleo Octane and graphics suite at Baraka; advise on (Editbox) at MGV.

June '98: New Avids for Grey Advertsing and Itopia, move two Avids for Swordfish Editing, new graphics suite at P3; network for the 3D department at Magic Camera Company.

Feb-May '98: SoftImage DS for The Plaza Suite; online Avid at Merrick Fenton Editing, Discovery Channel and Wyatt & Wyatt; dubbing and viewing systems for The Computer Film Company , Eye Animations and Patricia Murphy Films; maintenance at The Whitehouse, The Firm and OB E

February '98: Install Discreet Logic Smoke at Edit Video

February '98: Move Avid at Lexington Post.

January '98: Dubbing, viewing and showreel preparation system for Blink Productions.

December '97/January '98: Major refit at SD Post, including a new linear digital edit suite and new machine room patching.

December '97: Avid switching system for Discovery Channel Europe.

December '97: Install the first (of many?) SoftImage DS in London at P3

October '97: Move video equipment forThe Computer Film Company into their splendid building in Wells St..

October '97: Major rebuild for the Magic Camera Company, after they finished The Borrowers. Umpteen SGIs, Domino, D1 and Digibeta all properly housed in a new Engine Room, with all functions fully patchable to operators around the facility.

July '97: Solid State Logic , Scenaria audio editing system for Rainbow Post production.

June '97: Show TV for Asia TELECOM 97 in Singapore.

April '97: I've just finished a major online Avid facility for P3 in Lexington Street, Soho. This has eight serial digital online Avid suites in a five storey building with all the equipment in a proper machine room in the basement. The suites house monitors for digital video and digital audio, together with the controls for the Avid, colour corrector, caption generator, etc. The Macs and their disks are in the machine room in the basement. Digital and analogue video and audio are routed via a 5 layer 32 x 32 matrix: everything else, including Mac keyboards, monitors, disks and printers is patchable. This facility is reviewed in Televisual, June '97. If you want to locate your Avid 50m (150') from the edit desk, please get in touch.

Prior to that was a major upgrade for MGV, where SGIs, Macs and a computerised rostrum feed a digital online suite and a Media 100; a digital audio upgrade for Edit Video, umpteen upgrades of offline Avids to V6 with the third monitor, an online system for Rapido TV (Eurotrash), offlines for Catalyst TV (Gardeners World) and Worldview Pictures (History of War) and a Lightworks VIP consultancy

A few past engagements (there have been lots of others!)

Offline Film Editors

I was pleased to note that many of the top film editors in London use systems I built for them (Televisual Nov 96, Nov 97).

Ian Weil Editing

Sam Snead Editing

Jim Bambrick & Associates

Martin Gould Productions

Rainbow Post Production

David Naden Associates

Swordfish Editing

Feature films including Rob Roy, Mission: Impossible, Braveheart.
TV series including Space Precinct, Noels House Party, Gardeners World, Eurotrash, History of War, Crocodile Shoes.
 

Online

Evolutions Television (digital edit suite)

Edit Video (digi Beta based SDI suite)

Greenpeace Communications (analogue component, Media 100 , audio)

P3 Post (online Avids )

Remote Post Production (Media 100s )

Locomotion (Editbox)

SD Post (SDI Avid & analogue component)

Rapido TV (Online Avid )

Plaza Suite (Maintenance of composite/component suites)

Graphics & Digital Film

The Magic Camera Company (D1, Domino & SGIs )

The Computer Film Company (D1 & SGIs )

MGV (commercials animatics)

Eye (D1 & SGIs )

Domino Video Graphics (Flint & Paintbox)

GM Digital Animation (SoftImage Toonz on SGI with Abekas disk recorder.

Exhibitions

Lightworks (stands at NAB , IBC, Montreux, etc)

Earls Court TV (design & install permanent fibre optic based system)

Networks 96 (use ATM to distribute JPEG based live TV over fibre around NEC).

Production Companies

Gerrard de Thame Films

Hart Ryan Productions

Freedom Films

Catalyst TV

Brian Byfield Films

Other

ITN (move Ch 4 breakfast news to Grays Inn Rd)

Greenpeace Communications (develop & support 'Squisher' marine satellite news transmission system)

Childrens Channel (building RF system)

Hippodrome (disco)

Boardrooms & lecture theatres

Griffin Bacal Advertising

Keymed

Jones Lang Wootton

ADT

Hasbro toys

EMAIL ME AT geoff@videoengineer.co.uk

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