history

A lot has changed since 1992 when Pillar To Post was formed in a three car garage in Northern Virginia.  Many things have stayed the same.  We’re no longer threading up 1” machines and adjusting the TBC for nearly every program entering our doors.  We are however, just as committed as ever to quality and the quest for perfection.

 

Pillar To Post's roots are in public television.  In fact, the long running PBS series American Playhouse provided the springboard for our business.  Anyone who has delivered a national broadcast program to PBS is aware of their strict technical standards.  Our nations Public Broadcasting Service has historically been a driving force in industry innovation.  To keep up with those rigorous specs.  Roger Downey at Playhouse forged a partnership with our technical and business brainchild Don Powell.  Don's guidance led the small edit facility through the wind down of Playhouse and into a new technical service pillar for the entire public television community.

 

It's hard to explain the milestones in our business development without quoting a cliche like "looking outside the box."  Clear that simply telling their friends in public television about this great new service wasn't going to go far, Don looked to combine forces with the growing closed captioning industry.  The new FCC mandate for captioning of public television programming provided just the push that this small business needed to really get off the ground.

 

Fast forward to 1995.  Jim Powell joins the team bringing five years of experience in camera shading, color correction and some needed computer skills.  As we developed the business it was clear that diversification of some kind would be beneficial, not only to the business but to broaden our skills.  Using that outside the box mentality we managed to land a contract with the Annenberg Foundation and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.  Over the next 7 years we built and operated the Annengerg/CPB Educational Channel.  A satellite-delivered digital television channel that made thousands of hours of programs freely available to schools and communities through non-commercial broadcast outlets.  Our team ultimately edited, scheduled, uplinked and monitored a 24 hour a day educational broadcast channel.  This could only have been done by maximizing efficiency and following solid procedural guidelines.  As computers moved beyond technology labs and into classrooms and teachers' homes, Colorado State University took over streaming the channel programming through the Internet.

 

Our base business of broadcast finishing has evolved over the years as new requirements and opportunities have presented themselves.  It's almost hard to imagine that there was a time before HD television and even a time before YouTube.  Both advancements were destined to have a big impact on Pillar.

 

Always looking to the future of technology in the television industry pillar2post Digital Media became our moniker.  We doubled our efforts in the area of Internet based video.  In 2006 we worked hand in hand with iTunes and PBS Home Video to reach the burgeoning video on demand market.  Within three years we were able to add another quality content powerhouse.  National Geographic Domestic Home Entertainment called on p2p to begin delivering their programs to the VOD partners as well.  Our complement of video tape machines gained an HDCamSR in 2009 to support the growing work for National Geographic.  This may well be the last tape machine we'll purchase.

 

A major change was prompted by a tragic disaster in 2011.  The tsunami that ravaged a large area in Japan also destroyed the one factory making the world supply of Sony HDCamSR tape stock.  We remember all those who lost everything on that day.  Their stories were brought to us by our friends at NHK and other associates in Japan.  The impact upon us was much less severe, but it is lasting.  Many media and broadcast operators such as National Geographic and Discovery Channel relied heavily on the quality and audio capabilities of HDCamSR.  This event was the push that caused that final leap away from tape and into file based mastering and storage.

 

Regardless of the source format, whether on tape, hard drive or coming in on one of our fiber optic connections, our standards of quality are applied.  What makes Pillar To Post special is the way that we apply our technical knowledge to each project and commit ourselves to find the most efficient path to excellence.  We concentrate on the critical final stages of media finishing and delivery.  With highly trained editors and time tested procedures, we guarantee flawless broadcast delivery and beyond.  Clear and timely communication is part of our foundation.  Our promise is to keep our clients up to date on progress at all times.  We understand deadlines.  We’ve delivered over 3000 programs directly to iTunes, Amazon, Xbox, Google, PSN and others, all under tight deadlines.  We’ve delivered over 150,000 programs for national broadcast on the Public Television system through PBS, APT and NETA.  Through that experience we have honed our procedures with near flawless precision.  But that doesn’t mean that we’ve stopped learning.  Each day we are met with new challenges.  As our name implies, we are able to adapt to new situations and embrace the inevitable changes in our industry.

 

Pillar To Post continues to succeed by holding on to the most important core values of treating our clients right and adapting to their needs, remaining dedicated to efficiency and working hard to simplify the lives of our clients.