IBE Article July/August 2009

Portaprompt: Profitable Prompting

By Mick Gould

Confucius the Chinese philosopher said "Study the past if you would define the future. "

Portaprompt, formerly EDS, has been manufacturing award winning Broadcasting products since the 1960s. With its long history of striking and clever product design, the company has weathered much turbulence in the prompting market by focussing on its strengths and adapting these to the International market. Profitable International success only comes from having new and desirable products and being first in the market place with leading technology.

The International prompting market covers the vast spectrum of the of the media industry, including, IPTV, Webcasts, Video, Film, Television Studio and Outside Broadcast Production, News Interfaces and Conference Presentation Prompting. Portaprompt has specialised prompting products for all these sectors of the marketplace. Having an eye to the future is key to Portaprompt’s profitable success in the International Prompting market.

In 1968 I went for the first time to TC5 (Studio 5) BBC Television Centre, Wood Lane. This studio still had Black and White EMI Turret cameras but in the corner was the ubiquitous EDS Caption Roller (CR2) machine. Before the arrival of the Aston or Chyron caption generators, electro-mechanical rollers were used to display end of show credits. The EDS CR2 was the Rolls-Royce of caption rollers.  Over 1000 units were sold all over the world and it was still selling well into the 1980s. How many products nowadays have a shelf life of [at least] 20 years? 

John Kingsbury and the late Pat Kingsbury were the founding shareholders of EDS/Portaprompt and built on these successes of engineering excellence and innovation.  In 1976, the company now renamed Portaprompt, launched  the revolutionary new range of very lightweight, low voltage close circuit studio prompters. Designed from the outset so that the prompting operator could rig and carry the equipment without the secondary help of riggers and with a single safe 28 volt power and video combined cable to the on-camera unit, it was so light it became the camera operator’s first choice of an on-camera prompter. This product needless to say took the International and Home market by storm leaving its only real competitor running to keep up!

Building on this ground-breaking international success, Portaprompt launched the FIRST lightweight general purpose studio computer prompter, Digiprompt into the International market in 1981, at least four years ahead of the competition.

Today the Management and Directors of Portaprompt are keen to maintain this legacy of excellence and ensure that the evolution of both prompting hardware and software continues apace.

Helen Kingsbury, Shareholder and Managing Director, has a keen interest in Modern Languages specialising in German, French Dutch and Italian. Apart from the corporate responsibilities Helen heads up the highly profitable International hire/rental division of the company. Helen has vast Broadcast and Media experience and was the first female camera operator at Central Television.

Miles Kingsbury Shareholder and Director is a graduate of Brunel University with a BSC in Production Engineering. He heads up the R&D division for robotics and on-camera hardware.

Jim Keating is International Sales Director with an HNC in electronics and C and C++ programming.

Steve Slade is Head of Software Design and Development with extensive programming experience in C and C++ for Windows code and is the author of the award winning WinDigi prompting software. All members of the Management team of this family-run firm have been with Portaprompt since the late 70s and early 80s which is a huge advantage for continuity of product development, deep knowledge of the business and profitable advancement.

The “Jewel in the Crown” of Portaprompt’s business is its International Prompting Hire Division. This division has been one of the keys to the company’s profitable growth since 1976. It services over 3,000 productions per year including dry and wet hire in the UK and Overseas. Because the kit is so light and compact, the highly multi skilled and talented prompting operators can deal with the most demanding locations, productions and presenters without the need for riggers.

This International Hire division is also vital to the development of Portaprompt’s prompting software and [on-camera prompting] hardware. All new products are thoroughly field tested in the hire division before being released to the Sales Division. If new prompting developments don’t pass Portaprompt’s demanding operators’ approval, the product goes back to the drawing board. Portaprompt  also hires and sells to smaller International Prompting Hire companies and Freelance Operators and has built a deserved reputation as the “Freelancers’ Friend”.

Portaprompt’s award winning WinDigi Windows Prompting software has been an ongoing tried and tested development for the last 10 years. WinDigi runs on Windows 2000, 2003, XP and Vista and comes in four versions, WinDigi LIte , WinDigi Lite Plus, WinDigi Pro and WinDigi Pro News. WinDigi is a powerful prompting software package for Windows.  No special graphic scroll card is required as the software uses the standard video card supplied with a standard PC.  Multi Lingual True Type® fonts are scaled giving large easy-to-read characters which are smoothly scrolled with either PC mouse or a wired or wireless USB controller. WinDigi supports all languages including Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Croat, Hindi to name but a few. 

The WinDigi Editor uses Rich Text Format making it compatible with all types of word processors. The prompting text can be formatted and styled., by using  normal editor functions. underlining, bold, italics, colour, centring, indenting, justification and bullet points. WinDigi is the most wide ranging powerful low cost high value PC compatible prompting software Portaprompt have developed to date.

 WinDigi LIte is the entry level software package using the PC mouse as the prompt speed controller.

WinDigi Lite Plus comes with the options of Hand and Foot, wired or wireless scroll controllers. The hand and foot controllers can be daisy chained with automatic switch over for multi-presenter productions. WinDigi Lite Plus is suitable for all major Studio and Location based productions.

WinDigi Pro is a powerful run-order based prompting system with multiple itemised stories, live editing, live run-order management with dynamic timings and is suitable not only as a stand alone newsroom prompter but  for large live productions such as Live Aid and Telethons. WinDigi Pro News is a powerful multi run-order touch screen graphical interface prompting package developed to Interface to ENPS, iNEWS and other Newsroom Production Systems (NPS) via either the MOS (Media Sever Communications Protocol) or FTP (File Transfer Protocol). Using these protocols WinDigi Pro can detect story and script updates and automatically reload changes, without interfering with the smooth operation of the WinDigi prompt output. Live updates also include re-ordering the running order of the stories. Dropping, moving, adding, holding and reinstating stories. Story Slugs, Story numbers, Story time, Closed caption text (if required), presenter names (in reverse video in prompt) can be extracted and displayed in adjustable colours. Story run-times and the story slug can be displayed in a rundown list on the prompter that reflects the one on the NPS client.

In 2006 at NAB Portaprompt’s innovation and development in prompting systems was recognised with a Mario award for the Nano Prompter. The Nano prompter with its hand held camera rig was probably the first totally wireless battery powered lightweight field prompter available to the market place. It uses the power of WinDigi software running on an a battery powered intelligent 9 “ on-camera prompter with a wireless key fob presenter controlled scroll control. The total weight with its hand held camera rigging is a record low of only 1.8kg. A truly “get up and go” prompter.

Recently developed is Portaprompt’s  light weight range of Quasar LED ultra high bright on-camera units. These LED ultra high bright units are replacing the potentially mercury contaminated CCFL back lit LCD panels used in the past. The Quasar LED on camera unit sizes range from 9”,10”, 15”, 17”, 20” & 24” a range that covers all the International Prompting Market requirements. All these greener  LED panels run on 12 volts DC, use less mains power consumption, 36% longer battery life on location, have a longer panel life and are markedly brighter than the less environmentally friendly CCFL LCD product.

Excellence in prompting design is not only required for the prompting software and on-camera units but for the rigging of the on-camera units as well. Portaprompt has a range of rigging to suit all types of tripod heads, pedestals, robotic heads and sizes of cameras and lenses. Internationally acclaimed is the award winning multi use Microprompt rig for very small tripods and hand held cameras. For Light Weight Robotic heads including  Panasonic, Vinten and Shotoku, Portaprompt designed the clever new range of Quantum plates.

One of Portaprompt’s outstanding products in the Conference Presentation market is the  Robotic Fast Pole prompting system. It has a remarkable height range from  0.52m to 1.98m with a rise and fall speed .0.5m per second, outperforming all its competitors. This system sold and hired internationally has prompted Presidents, Prime Ministers and CEOs of all major companies.

An important aspect of any good company is to give back to the community some of  its personnel’s time, ideas and design. In 2003 Portaprompt was invited to join the Greenpower battery powered racing car project by a local High School. The electric car “Turbo Tortoise” has been designed by Miles Kingsbury, Jim Keating and assisted  and driven by the pupils of the school.  It has broken many speed and distance endurance records at Goodwood and other Racecourses across the UK. This ongoing project not only tests the innovation and design skills of the company but gives the pupils of the school a fun way to learn about green technology, aerodynamics and battery life science.

Looking at the past, Portaprompt has gained extremely valuable knowledge from using its products in the field of operation.  This has enabled it to build internationally on its sales successes. As IBC 2009 approaches the company will be developing and enhancing its range of ultra high bright portable on camera units. Learning from the past but looking to the future Portaprompt will continue to build on this profitable base. Many companies may create history but only one writes it “Portaprompt with its Profitable Prompting Past, Present and Future.”