Overview / History

1 Beyond was founded in 1996 by Terry Cullen. In his previous company (semiconductor test systems for high speed manufacturing), Terry was frustrated not to be able to produce training and marketing videos at a reasonable cost to explain the highly technical products. After selling his company, he set off to accomplish one of his life’s goals, to spend the winter sailing the Caribbean. Investigating the latest video gear to document his trip, he discovered a new technology that Sony had just introduced, Digital Video. On returning from his dream vacation, he was again frustrated not to be able to find a reasonably priced editing system to edit his 20 hours of footage.

A computer specialist and successful entrepreneur, Terry was convinced that he could manufacture a PC-based editing system that would offer most of the features of high-end systems for a fraction of the cost - and edit the DV in its native format WITHOUT converting to M-JPEG, an older, less efficient compression technology.

Terry felt the time was ripe to attempt a cost effective solution since hard disk and memory prices were dropping rapidly, processor speeds were increasing, feature-rich software was being developed and clear standards were emerging. – [Note, if you’re in the area, please visit the 1 Beyond Technology Museum (1 Before) and see among other historic items, the first 1 Beyond NLE system. At the time the Pentium (1) had just been introduced (speeds were measured in MHz and disk sizes were measured in MB’s) and the 4.7 MB/sec necessary for Native DV was a push.]

The 1 Beyond ND Video Pro Product Family is the result. Terry has been in high performance computer and applications design his entire career. After researching the latest hardware and software available, he designed a loss-less NLE system at one-tenth the cost of the dominant systems of the time. The rest as they say is history. 1 Beyond continues to keep abreast of technological advancements and to keep the product line "1 Beyond" the competition.

Update March, 2003 – The above scenario has just repeated itself. With the introduction of cost effective editing systems for standard definition, off-line editing of SD is a thing of the past. At NAB 2003, 1 Beyond introduced an on-line High Definition editing and compositing system at a fraction of the cost. On-line editing of uncompressed, 10 bit high definition video e.g. 1080i requires over 35 times the data throughput of Native DV systems, but producing cost effective high performance systems is what 1 Beyond is all about.

Another interesting note, 1 Beyond has grown at such a fast and furious pace that Terry has still not edited his 20 hours of Caribbean footage!

With 1 Beyond, you are assured of getting the latest technology: the fastest performance, best video capture technology and most efficient video storage.

And best of all, the system is delivered to you, complete and ready for editing. No need to install or assemble anything!

The company philosophy is to be "1 Beyond" in Service, Technology, and Value. See our Credo / Warranty for greater detail and our Customer Testimonial for one customer's experience.