Moviola Begins Plan For Expansion With N.Y. Firm Purchase

By DARRELL SATZMAN

Staff Reporter

Post-production services provider Moviola has acquired one of New York’s largest professional videotape distributors, and company officials say they are eyeing another Big Apple company in a push to expand their reach.

Hollywood-based Moviola, which sells, rents and provides technical training and support for a wide array of tools used by post-production companies, will fold its New York office into the office of the newly acquired company, Video Tape Distributors.

The acquisition gives Moviola the largest share of New York’s professional videotape market, which includes such formats as BetaSP, DigiBeta and HDCAM, said Randy Paskal, Moviola’s managing director. Moviola claims to sell the most raw stock videotape in Hollywood.

While much of its business is directed at post-production houses, Moviola sells videotape to the major studios and hundreds of smaller producers for use in television programs, music videos, commercials and feature films.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Paskal said Video Tape Distributors had roughly $6 million in revenues in 2001.

Paskal added that Moviola which he said had revenues of close to $30 million in 2001 was negotiating to buy a New York post-production services company.

Founded in 1924 by Dutch-born engineer Iwan Serrurier, Moviola made its mark with the development of a patented film editing system that bears the company’s name.