Burbank, CA -- Electrosonic Systems has added design consultation to its roster of services with the acquisition of Associates in Media Engineering (AME), a systems design company based in Glendale, CA since 1985. With the acquisition, Electrosonic, a national design/build company, also bolsters its media processing and management services.
"AME was struggling as a small company to deal with the reality of delivering large systems," observed Jim Bowie, general manager of Electrosonic's North American Systems Business. "They could deliver the design, but they couldn't really influence the build. We on the other hand have the capability to deliver on multiple large projects at the same time, and we were interested in solidifying a design group. So it seemed logical for us to join forces."
"Electrosonic is a company with a great reputation for quality and for attracting the best engineering/design talent in the industry," said Benjamin Lein, AME's founder. "That was very attractive to us. While Electrosonic was interested in offering more design work, we were looking to expand into the design/build end of the business. Our joining forces couldn't have come at a more opportune time."
Electrosonic's existing Burbank office is mere miles away from where AME was headquartered in Glendale, so the transition will be fairly seamless for personnel. The addition of Lein and the entire AME staff have enabled the establishment of two new divisions: Electrosonic Design, providing upper tier design and engineering services to the themed entertainment, museum and architecture disciplines, and Electrosonic Studio Services, providing digital media services including standard and high-definition compression and encoding, media management, audio encoding and more.
These new divisions combined with Electrosonic's existing operations group will enable the company to serve clients from the conceptual stages right through maintenance and service. This is of particular merit for museum and theme park clients seeking a "full service" design and installation company. "In entertainment venues, everybody wants to push the limits, and then it falls on the technology provider to deliver a system that is not only unique but also works every single day of the year," Bowie explained. "If we can provide a system which includes the media encoding and delivery then it's our responsibility to make sure the show is going. It's also very easy for us to find any problems and get them fixed. It just means the clients get better service, really."
The addition of AME's studio team gives Electrosonic video and audio processing and management services such as HD and SD compression and encoding, audio encoding, format conversion, DVD authoring and media management and distribution. These tasks will be handled both in the Burbank facility and through Scharff Weisberg's Media Resource Center (MRC) in New York City (Electrosonic acquired Scharff Weisberg's installation division at the start of 2005). This boosts Electrosonics media services offering to a national level.
"Our business has grown significantly in the past year," Bowie noted. "In fact our business has doubled in the past year, so this really helps our balance and it brings in a lot of talent. When you grow, the real key to success is the ability to add talent. Once you have the talent, you get the work. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy."
