RGBlink: Justin Knox Interview

Justin Knox has done the full 360º when it comes to video - from the early days of primitive CRT monitor walls to playing a leading role at one of the most forward-thinking companies in the industry. In 2015, the New Zealander joined RGBlink as Marketing Director after more than 15 years with ULA Group in Australia. Michael Nicholson caught up with the seasoned audiovisual professional to find out what life is like at the sharp end of video processing and scaling.

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“It’s fair to say I started early in the industry by way of music and have a technical slant. My background was in stage lighting - beginning in Auckland with theatre - then moving to dance, commercial and corporate events. This is pre-computerised lighting consoles, pre-DMX, and preintelligent lighting. “Actually, around this time an industry friend of mine acquired a video wall - basically a bunch of CRT monitors, a bunch of cables and a workstation. The thing came without a manual - he could power it up but little more. Always a big ideas guy, he had already sold the advertising and convinced a shopping centre to host the video wall before it even worked. This ended up being my first handson video experience - as the only person he knew who could program a computer, he called me. After lots of trial and error, many frustrations, and effectively reverse engineering the instruction set, I got the video wall programmed and working. So, coming to RGBlink is almost a full circle in that respect.” Working with Paul Coleman and Walter Coleman - who had earlier founded Selecon - Justin spent most of the ‘90s doing rentals then increasingly installations of stage lighting, draping and engineering. He explained: “It was really valuable experience for me, particularly in

engineering design solutions and project management. We enjoyed building up that business and - in today’s lingo - disrupting the accepted status quo to really satisfy customers”. That period also gave him his first opportunities to travel overseas with his work, “I travelled to the US and Europe, including to PLASA for the first time, building many relationships that remain today.” As the sun began to set on the 1990’s, Justin decided to leave his homeland and start a new chapter of his life in Australia. It didn’t take long before he was heading to the Gold Coast to meet ULA Group’s Con Biviano. “I had known Con before then, which is another story in itself. Now I was in the ‘bigger fish bowl’ of Australia, Con encouraged me to visit him and I quickly came on board, and quickly built up a strong rappout together. It was an exciting time where the business really grew and the industry evolved incredibly. At first, LEDs were not yet ‘a thing’, but when LED began to emerge, ULA was into it very early with LED lighting - then boldly and early again with LED displays.” Since it started in 1992, ULA Group has built a reputation for providing innovative, reliable, and engaging lighting technologies and solutions. By the mid-2000’s, the LED display industry was growing rapidly and the video and lighting crossover that is so

• Above Justin Knox and RGBlink CEO Ben Hu work closely together.

prevalent today was starting to take shape. Justin revealed: “The VuePix LED display products rapidly took off and took over large amounts of my time as this became an important growth driver, and for what we could see from an events / rental sense, a converged market of lighting-video. So, getting into video was really a journey of technology, and not just LED, but also control and media server platforms allowing these technologies to be brought together. “Surprisingly, there were very limited video scaler choices. The existing industry was very focussed around existing technologies such as PDP and projection with a different mind-set to the new world of LED displays that was so rapidly emerging. At the time in the mid-2000’s the solution the LED companies were providing was essentially PC-based, which was workable for standalone signage applications, but not suitable for the business that was driving adoption and growth at that point - events. “Here then was an opportunity - an opportunity RGBlink CEO, Ben Hu identified - and founded a business on: quality video processing solutions embracing the requirements of LED displays.” Justin’s curiosity and admiration for video professionals and engineers drew him in. While the convergence

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of lighting and video pathed the route, it was the characters who beckoned him in a new direction. “I have to say, the people brought me in. There is an energy and enthusiasm that draws you in with what I’d describe as like a tech-start-up atmosphere.” From the outside looking in, a move away from ULA, Australia and into a different part of the audiovisual world may have appeared daunting, but not so for Justin. He reflected: “ULA had been a large part of my life. Like the earlier time in New Zealand, I can honestly say I had some of the best times of my life there - both periods were filled with great achievements and wonderful experiences.” Justin had recently married and was anticipating the idea of less travel and more time at home, but life doesn’t always go the way we expect. As he considered his options and several approaches with an open mind, Ben extended an invitation for him to join up with the RGBlink team at ISE 2015. Soon after, they reached an agreement and Justin quickly got to grips with a new professional life. “Really, from a technology perspective ,it wasn’t such a huge thing - although there was and is just a lot of video ‘stuff ’ I’m still learning. I had been spending huge amounts of time away from Australia building the LED display products and already knew

the company and management, so I had no reservations about joining RGBlink in that sense - nonetheless, it was a whole new thing starting somewhere new for the first time in a very long time.” He added: “I already knew what it’s like to work in China relatively well, the culture and so on. The bigger change was working for a bigger enterprise and those dynamics - RGBlink having a much bigger team than I had been used to. In the marketing team alone we have four people for design and production, and another three for local marketing and events, plus another two people full time on documents. And with more people, there are lots of meetings for all the moving parts, right across the business keeping us very busy.” China presented a new challenge and an opportunity to immerse himself in an environment that is probably incomparable to anywhere else on earth. Its buoyancy, variation and vibrancy have made an impression on the New Zealander. “Certainly, China is a very different market to established international markets,” explained Justin. “In many ways, it is quite advanced and creative compared to other places – especially when you look at some of the event display applications. The entrepreneurial spirit in Shenzhen and Guangzhou is

truly incredible. For us, Beijing and Shanghai are much more corporate, and focussed on high quality solutions which is great too.” Having taken the change of direction in his stride, Justin focussed on giving RGBlink the global footing that he felt its innovations and potential deserved. “It was clear to me that communication was key to transitioning RGBlink to a respected international manufacturer - the technology and performance quality was clearly existing. With so many people getting into LED displays, articulating the solutions that are available for video processing was really needed.” Justin is keen to point out that the company’s successes are down to the strategic vision of the management team, the pioneering product development effort and the hard work of everybody at RGBlink. Since he joined the company in 2015, he has been part of an impressive success story. “It has been incredible ride,” he reflected. “The growth - certainly in conventional terms – has been phenomenal. We’re about to celebrate the ninth birthday of RGBlink. The company has become well established in a what is a very specialised field in a very short time. Sales have multidigit, year-on-year growth and the

• Left Justin with RGBlink CEO, Ben Hu and Bter Hu, China Sales & Development Director

• Top right, Justin posed with a customer at one of the many exhibitions RGBlink attends.

• Bottom right RGBlink’s X Series.

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“It was clear to me that communication was key to transitioning RGBlink to a respected international manufacturer. With so many people getting into LED displays, articulating the solutions that are available for video processing was really needed.”

network around the world continues to grow.” Europe is the strongest market for RGBlink, but emerging markets like India are experiencing even greater growth. Over the last three years, the company moved, expanded, and completely reimagined its Shenzhen Regional Sales & Support Centre. It expanded its Xiamen Head Office three times and opened a European office in The Netherlands. The RGBlink team has grown by around 50%. There remains a strong R&D focus, with around 30% of the team involved. There are now full-time team members in Australia, South America, India, the US and The Netherlands. Of course, it all starts with products that the market finds attractive and implements en masse. With almost a third of the growing workforce dedicated to ensuring RGBlink remains at the tip of the curve, it’s little surprise that there have been a number of standout products of the last few years. “The first was the VSP628pro, which showed RGBlink could truly produce a world-leading, high performance video processing product,” said Justin. “The road to making VSP628pro was not easy, but Ben was tenacious

- really listening and bringing back honest customer feedback to the team from key industry players to deliver an impressive product that out performs others in its class. It remains a popular product today, despite the growth of the display market to larger displays. If anything, quality, flexible video processing is even more in demand. In the US, we see customers taking VSP628pro in place of previously needing three or four processors to do the same functionality and with higher performance, which is quite an achievement.” Then there was the X3, which has been the big breakout product for the company. “The X3, released in 2015, is part of what we call our universal video processor range - advanced video wall controllers. These are designed to capture the market for very large and multiple display applications, and our timing in building not just the X3 but also the X7 was just right on as very large systems became really viable and in demand.” Justin highlighted how quickly the market is moving and growing: “Only two years after the X3 came to market, the X7 - with over four times the capability - was the big story of 2017

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• Above Justin presented the House of Worship category - which was sponsored by RGBlink - at this year’s mondo*dr Awards.

and has cemented RGBlink universal ‘video wall’ processors as the go-to solution.” Through these product advancements, the company enjoys prominence in a number of application areas - ranging from rental / events, integration for sophisticated control rooms and conference spaces, and broadcast. “RGBlink is probably best known in rental / events applications, especially - and proudly for us - as the videoprocessor of choice that many LED manufacturers supply with their displays. In the events space, RGBlink is trusted every day from the smallest to largest events right around the world. “For large-scale entertainment and events, RGBlink is rapidly becoming the choice of many video production companies, especially with the X3 and X7 universal processor range, which really has enabled sophisticated multidisplay systems.” Justin went on to explain that the real breakout category over the last couple of years has been in broadcast - specifically with video wall controllers in studio. The list of broadcasters using RGBlink products day-in-dayout for mission critical delivery and control to video walls is impressive:

RAI TV Italy, CNN, ESPN, TRT Turkey, Austrian TV, KBS Korea and CCTV China to name a few. He said: “In a lot of applications, RGBlink is the ‘glue’ that brings the project together and allows it to go ahead. Our universal video processors, in particular, fit that mould, and by-design are highly modular allowing us to bring together key technologies as well as to iterate in a way that brings the user base along with us.” The company is in a unique position, in that the foundation of the business is in technology and engineering. Ben as both CEO and R&D Director provides the grounding and direction for the team, taking on board the feedback that comes from the industry - using it to work on emerging standards. Internally, there is also a dedicated video research team, entirely separate from product development teams. The research team features the company’s ‘dreamers’, who are empowered to invent new processing methods and optimisations. RGBlink also has a strategic relationship with the local university. “The development team is constantly working on new products and

evolving existing products across the lifecycle,” explained Justin. “With our innovations in modularity, it has been excellent bringing new capabilities to existing platforms, for instance, as well as new out of the box products. So, we are very forward focussed at RGBlink and moving forward rapidly. “However, despite the rapid development, and knowing this pace can affect customers, we have recently added new teams to maintain products through the lifecycle more effectively. This allows the R&D teams to maintain their forward focus while the dev-ops teams keep focus on the in-production range.” He added: “We are always looking at solution possibilities - how to enable and facilitate video display anywhere, especially as the requirements become more fluid and dynamic.” Justin is clearly enjoying the part he is playing in RGBlink’s development: “The atmosphere and culture were one of the key things that attracted me to RGBlink. The company is very progressive with strong can-do mentality, driven from Ben, and the culture is very much quality and technology focussed. There is a strong commitment to always doing better and not just accepting the status quo. “Aside from the seriousness of business, there is a real sense of fun. There are regular team events and celebrations, and we often have midweek dinners for smaller groups to celebrate achievements. Most of the team are let’s say ‘youthful’, so they are fun to be around and there’s pretty much always a positive mood.” As Jutsin looks ahead to a bright future, he does so with an appreciation for the career he has had so far and for his role as the public face of a company that is an innovator in its field. “RGBlink continues to enjoy an incredibly loyal following built of one-on-one relationships. We have spent a huge effort on building out from great foundations and bringing the brand and the products to a larger audience - an audience that is really in need of these kinds of solutions,” he praised. Concluding, he said: “I joke sometimes that I feel like the mascot, however, I am privileged to have this special role and to have the chance to introduce to so many people - both those well established in the industry, and those coming into the space - the solutions RGBlink has to offer.”

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