This is the roots of who we are.
Zeplay started as a dream and a few VHS decks at a local cable television station.
Over the years it made the leap to software and now serves television stations, trucks, and sports arenas around the world.
Zeplay LLC is based out of Bloomington Minnesota and is the company behind ZEPLAY. The goal has always been to create the best price-to-performance instant replay solution for the market.
Zeplay started, as most things do, out of necessity. We grew up at BEC-TV, a small cable access TV station in Bloomington, MN. In addition to creating award-winning programming and providing amazing real-world broadcasting experience to generations of students, BEC-TV has a long tradition of building their own technology when they can’t find something suitable on the market.
Back in the 80s, BEC-TV needed a solution for instant replay, so they turned to their fresh-out-of-school chief engineer Rick Keeney. Rick built a four-channel instant replay system out of four parallel-controlled VHS edit decks and a pile of parts from Radio Shack. The “Keeney Controller” went on to run instant replays at BEC-TV for 15 years, while Rick went on to Hollywood for an illustrious career in special effects.
The Keeney Controller was still being used daily when Zeplay co-creator Brandon McKenzie came on the scene in 1997. By then, the system was on its third or fourth set of VHS edit decks and occasionally needed a little TLC to fix loose connections inside. The station’s director, Tom Ringdal, was looking for a replacement, but all of the commercially available options were too expensive and too complex for BEC-TV’s needs.
About the same time that Brandon started volunteering there, two friends from BEC-TV were starting their own company, Tightrope Media Systems, to build TV automation and digital signage software. Tightrope’s early products were also inspired by their time at BEC-TV, and one of them, Cablecast, got its start in a backroom there. After graduation, Brandon was hired at Tightrope and went on to serve in a variety of positions at the company.
BEC-TV built several interim replay systems in search of a replacement for the Keeney Controller, but all were either too expensive, too complicated, or too quirky to be used in the long run. It began to look like the only solution was to, once again, build something from scratch.
After a few prototypes, and a lot of learning, Brandon and co-creator JJ Parker finally set out to build a new instant replay system for BEC-TV in the cold Minnesota winter of 2007. The prototype system, then called “FourPlays” allowed the operator to capture four camera angles simultaneously using standard PC hardware. Although FourPlays ran well for a few years, it soon became clear that more work would be required if it was going to be used outside of BEC-TV.
Tightrope acquired the FourPlays prototype, and the team set out to build an instant replay system that was ready for broadcast use. Zeplay made its international debut at the 2009 NAB show, with sales starting in earnest in 2010.
Over the next decade Zeplay was adopted around the world by high schools, colleges, broadcasters and professional sports organizations. Zeplay’s industry-leading visual user interface made it approachable for novice operators and lightning quick for seasoned operators. As the product matured and the feature set expanded, Zeplay found its niche.
“One of the features I love most is that you can export sequences while still recording... If a local TV station needs a highlight package but the game isn’t over yet, we can create it for them while still recording, so we don’t miss even a moment of action.”
-Jaime Livas, Director of Digital Media for North Texas Athletics
“We use professionals for big games, but student operators trained on ZEPLAY are up and running in about an hour... ZEPLAY is also the most robust and reliable replay system we have used. We had performance issues with our previous system, which caused many headaches. We are confident we have what we need for highlights every game, as well as repurposed content to present on our website.”
- Rob Coons, Senior Director of Broadcast Operations for
Northwestern University Athletics
“ZePlay offers a lot of flexibility based on the project size and budget. We rely heavily on the system for the fan experience, and I am astounded by how quickly we can produce multiple replays. We can fire off a replay even as our opponent heads back down the basketball court. It is the meat and potatoes of our system.”
-Brad Noblitt, Director of Engineering for University of Florida’s
College of Journalism and Communications
“Our previous system would lock up or crash right in the middle of games, and there was no tech support available anymore... So our engineering team researched other replay systems that were on the market and found ZEPLAY to be the ideal fit. Since installation, it's been very stable and reliable, and the replays just look awesome on our video boards.”
- Shawn Brown, Director of Video Productions for the Utah Jazz
"We use ZEPLAY's sequence editor, which is essentially an NLE built right into the User Interface, to assemble the highlights package, complete with multiple speeds and transitions, right there in the van as the action is happening.”
-Justin Cowgill, Director of Facilities and Technology for CreaTV
"STAR awards are given to interesting new products that help a user save money or accomplish a task in an easier way... The products selected help advance the industry----some were chosen because of technical novelty or innovation, some because they filled an important gap in the production or transmission chain, and some because they were just cool products.”
- Mark Hallinger, Editor of TV Technology Europe
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