Article posted on Mar 19, 2012

 Vaddio, the leading manufacturer and OEM-distributor of specialty PTZ cameras and camera control systems, today announced a commitment to bring educational technologies into every classroom via a new partnership with Sonic Foundry, Inc. (NASDAQ: SOFO), the trusted market leader for lecture capture, enterprise and event webcasting.

The partnership was formed to explore new innovative solutions that cost-effectively extend the power of video to classrooms of all shapes and sizes, while maintaining the highest-quality user experience for students, faculty and technologists. 

“We believe the knowledge shared in a classroom – any classroom – is of value and needs to be preserved. Our partnership with Vaddio will make it even easier to capture, archive, secure and study that information, regardless of the physical space in which it was generated,” said Gary Weis, CEO of Sonic Foundry. 

Sonic Foundry and Vaddio have worked together extensively in the past, sharing global installations into leading edge buildings and tech-enabled classrooms. This new alliance seeks to combine the best room-based video technology expertise with the most advanced streaming capture and delivery system in the market today.

“Though we’re not yet at the point where the smart classroom is a ubiquitous and workable concept, we’re getting there, and partnerships that combine expertise help us get there faster.  Two premium solution providers like Sonic Foundry and Vaddio, getting together to address how to reach many classrooms with video capture technology and beginning to address the economics of outfitting classrooms with affordable gear, is a win-win,” said Alan Greenberg, senior analyst and partner, Wainhouse Research.  “We’ll be looking to see how this partnership evolves over time.”

“We’ve always been committed to automating the latest lecture capture tools – whether it’s camera tracking or the combination of people and content, there is tremendous opportunity to enable the rapid expansion of automated lecture capture in all segments of education, and our partnership helps individual schools to community colleges to traditional four year university programs create a completely automated lecture capture classroom,” said Rob Sheeley, president of Vaddio. 

Trusted by more than 1000 colleges and universities, Sonic Foundry’s patented Mediasite webcasting and video content management system quickly and cost-effectively automates the capture, management, delivery and search of live and on-demand streaming videos and rich media presentations that combine video with slides. 

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About Vaddio: 
Vaddio is the leading manufacturer and OEM distributor of specialty PTZ cameras and high-end camera control systems in the broadcasting, audiovisual and videoconferencing industries. Headquartered in Minneapolis, MN, Vaddio also has operations throughout the Americas, as well as sales and support partners throughout the world. More information can be found on the Vaddio website, www.vaddio.com or at (800) 572.2011.

About Sonic Foundry®, Inc.
Sonic Foundry (NASDAQ: SOFO, www.sonicfoundry.com) is the trusted market leader for enterprise webcasting and lecture capture, providing video communication solutions for education, business and government. Powered by the patented Mediasite webcasting platform and Mediasite Events group, the company empowers people to transform the way they communicate online, using video webcasts to bridge time and distance, accelerate research and improve performance. Product and service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of Sonic Foundry, Inc. or their respective owners.