BroadcastPro ME speaks to Peyman Dadpanah, Business Director and Jaffer Sadique, Business Development Manager at MediaCast, Dubai.
Set against a spectacular view of Palm Jumeirah, in the offices of MediaCast, is the range of Blackmagic Design cameras along with production switchers, recorders, monitors, routers, converters, grading and editing platforms and more. “We allow the user experience the possibilities beyond the products he or she is familiar with across the Blackmagic Design range,” explained Peyman Dadpanah, Business Director of MediaCast in conversation with BroadcastPro ME.
MediaCast, the authorised Blackmagic Design Middle East Distributor has opened a new experience centre for Blackmagic Design products. Housed in their corporate office in Dubai Media City, this facility offers all the major products from Blackmagic Design in their workflow environments.
Speaking to BroadcastPro ME about the vision behind the centre, Dadpanah stated: “We wanted our systems integrators and other end-users to look at the product range not just as isolated equipment but as part of an entire workflow.
“Moreover, Blackmagic Design has a good number of OEM developers. We are trying to get people who are writing and developing their own software using Blackmagic Design solutions to come here and integrate their products into this ecosystem.”
Elaborating on the initiative, Jaffer Sadique, Business Development Manager at MediaCast said: This is a one-stop spot for all things technological and workflow related to Blackmagic Design. If one wants to check out a product or a system, an accessibility to a working unit in workflow is the best that you could ask for.
We now have all the core products in a live workflow. End-users can actually put the products to use
Underlining the commitment to ensure that both software and hardware upgrades are made as and when required, Jaffer highlighted the advantages of having such a centre.
“This experience centre is in line with how a typical Blackmagic workflow operates from acquisition to delivery. We have had major local channels visit us as well as representatives from post production houses.”
Open to the workflow being tested on all brands of cameras and footage, he added:
“While an end-user wants one product in the ecosystem, we found that it makes an impact when they see it along with what comes before and after. The difference is remarkable. Now they clearly see how a product adds value to their workflow and also discover if they are missing anything. Moreover, our in-house technical team drawn from various fields of video and audio production fields are best placed to walk end-users through the Blackmagic Design workflow.”
With plans to reach out to TV stations and production houses across the region through MediaCast’s network of resellers, Jaffer underlined the objective to empower the reseller while building awareness for the products.
Describing the centre as an immersive experience beyond just browsing a product catalogue, Dadpanah highlighted the growing market for Blackmagic Design beyond the Middle East.
“For the past 10 years, we have been distributors for Blackmagic Design. We cover the entire Middle East and Turkey. In the two and half years in operation in Turkey, we have seen amazing growth. We also provide services in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and other countries in that region.
“While 50% of the revenue is from the UAE, our success comes from branching out to different countries. We are the sole distributors of Blackmagic Design to almost 20 countries. When one market is down, another market picks up.”
With plans to establish a similar experience centre for creating music, Dadpanah stated:
“Our main activity in 2018 is to reach out to the end customer of Blackmagic Design and let our technical team interact with them. We take pride in being a value added distributor offering not just the products, but technical support, a service centre, training, certification and so on.”
