As 2013 draws to a close and we look forward to 2014, here are my top 3 MVS innovations from the year gone by:

1. MVS 3000A

The midrange Sony switchers, first introduced in 2012 have been really popular. Best of all has to be the MVS 3000A that was unveiled at IBC 2013. Basically it’s a compact 2 M/E switcher with a choice of panels, which has nearly all the power of a 7000X but for a quarter of the cost. And the nicest thing for VMs is that it feels just like a 7000X – in the past, Sony was guilty of making small desks that were harder to use than their big ones, but this time they’ve done a really good job.

2. Aux Mix

The must-have feature that’s now available on all MVS switchers  (v12 software onwards).   It means that you no longer need to tie up an M/E bank just to do a mix in a plasma display.  And it doesn’t sneakily use any existing resources either – you still have all the transitions and keyers as normal on all banks.

3. Full source or bus-based colour correction

Another standard feature on the MVS 3000A and MVS 6530. It’s accessible on every input, but the really neat thing is that you can also apply it to any bus – so you can very easily have properly graded pictures on studio monitors.

Here’s to more good stuff in 2014!