VDC Celebrate 25th Anniversary In Broadcast

Niall Holden, CEO and Founder, of VDC Trading, reflects on the firm's 25 year history and looks to the year ahead.
RFV: What does 2013 hold for the company?
NH: It's set to be a big year for us as we start the year celebrating our 25th anniversary and in the broadcast sector we'll be looking to build on the relationships we already have with key organisations in this sector as well as some new ones
We've also ambitious plans to expand internationally and in the marine sector as well as exploring opportunities in the retail space. Our aim is to provide elegant cable solutions to the professional audio, video, broadcast markets and industrial markets and customer service and product quality is at the heart of what we do. We'll be launching a new website in the new-year to further improve our clients’ experience.

RFV: Tell us about some exciting projects you are working on at the moment?
NH: Our technical team are working with a partner to provide remote tele-medicine services in a number of locations in the UK in 2013 and have recently provided A/V and data cabling for installation at Saracens Rugby Football stadium. Throughout 2012 our solutions have been used by the BBC Radio in their outside broadcasts, and as you can imagine, with everything that happened in 2012, we've been busy!

RFV: What are your top sellers and why are they proving so popular?
NH: We've recently expanded the Van Damme range to include two single flexible digital coaxial cables to add to the established four and six way flexible HD Vision low loss multicores. All are suitable for SDI and HD-SDI transmissions and the range is proving incredibly popular. These cables have been complemented by the introduction of Van Damme BNC connectors with true 75 Ohm construction for the precision impedance required by HD-SDI signals.
Due to the number of outside broadcasts that took place this year it was interesting to see strong demand for the Van Damme Transmission Grade Triaxial camera cable. These cables are particularly suited to long transmission lengths and hostile environments – both of which were a feature of the broadcasting of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations, for which we provided around 7km of cable.

RFV: How does the firm stand out from the crowd?
NH: Our mission is to provide the finest audio, video and data cables available and the best possible experience for our customers. The Van Damme motto is "the route of least resistance" and that shapes everything we do. Over 35% of our business is the delivery of bespoke solutions that few could provide - usually on timescales that push us to the limit - and we're really proud of our reputation of always delivering and staying at the forefront of new technology in our industry.

RFV: What do you feel are the emerging trends in your area of expertise?
NH: The big trend is the convergence of audio and video standards with networking protocols, and we've seen a significant increase in demand for Category Cable and fibre optic solutions. Ethernet and Ethernet based protocols continue to proliferate in the professional A/V market and our Van Damme range, which has seen the recent introduction of U/UTP and SF/UTP to complement the established Van Damme TourCat series category cables, supports most applications and draws on our heritage of providing flexible and robust cabling solutions that are ideal in dynamic or “tour” use and longer runs.
Read more in part 2 of the Big Interview.
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