Aston Broadcast sold to Brainstorm

The deal includes both the staff and the technology behind the world-renowned Aston character generators, the first of which – the VCGI - was launched in 1973.

Brainstorm will continue development and roll-out of Aston 7, the latest incarnation, adding it to its own product range.

For Softel, the sale is part of a comprehensive restructure that will see the company concentrate on its core competencies around ancillary data solutions.

Softel chief executive Sam Pemberton said: “We were approached by a number of potential purchasers but we felt Brainstorm was by far the best choice for our customers going forward. Aston Broadcast has a long-standing relationship with Brainstorm and they are intimately familiar with the product, and crucially Brainstorm has a history of providing exceptional service to their customers and delivering pioneering solutions.

Brainstorm Multimedia provides real-time 3D interactive graphics technology for many broadcast graphics types and workflows as well as for feature film production

“Brainstorm is very proud to acquire such a prestigious brand in the world of video graphics,” said chief executive Ricardo Montesa. “Aston’s products are known in the market to be technically excellent as well as extremely user friendly. The Aston 7, which is already powered by Brainstorm’s powerful graphics engine eStudio, is an excellent addition to Brainstorm’s product range, providing us with a sophisticated solution for the character generation requirements of our current and future clients.”

Softel is involved in subtitling and captioning, interactive TV, MPEG stream processing and multiplexing, opt cuing/ad insertion, and Teletext, delivered through a full range of products, professional services and bespoke development