Pleasure Doing Business: Media Concepts, Inc.

It all started in 1974 when John P. Gallagher and Bob Skidmore, two broadcast veterans in New York, came to Florida to sell in-room, closed-circuit movie systems to local hotels. The idea was a hit and eventually led to renting movie videos, which led to a video production facility, and the business continues to evolve to this day.

Media Concepts is now owned by Scott Richardson and Rick Smith, who both worked for the original owners and continue to roll with the punches in the media business. Located at 559 49^th St. the building is well marked but but well hidden at the same time. Few probably realize how much equipment and history is steeped inside the three structures that house the business.

Media Concepts is a full-service media production facility offering in-studio and remote broadcast-quality digital video, editing, duplication, film transfer and more. It sells the latest in audio/video equipment – consumer and pro – and rents gear and with a consignment shop selling vintage and modern equipment.

Rick Smith led a tour of the facility last week and it is a sight to behold for any audiophile. There are vocal booths, editing suites, studios, a repair shop, and a showroom.

He was hired by Gallagher and Skidmore in 1978 and his job was to keep the closed-circuit movie systems maintained.

“We would go to the hotel and put these two humongous – I'm talking 80-pound machines – specially modified, into the hotels. We'd tap into their antennae system and it could feed each room,” he explains.

“It was a unique situation because you had a two-hour movie and unfortunately it had to be on two (¾ inch) tapes. We had to modify the machines to play to the end of tape one and then trigger machine number two to start, and then have them both rewind and reset themselves for the next on-demand play time.”

VHS became popular soon after and Media Concepts started producing industrial videos and commercials taking advantage of the demand for the new technology.

“The two original owners had a production background so they had the recording equipment and we did production for local business and industry, people like Honeywell and Sperry,” Smith remembers. “These industries had the need for video but didn't have their own video departments. Back in 1978 it wasn't like it is today when you can pick up a phone book and there are ten pages of video guys.”

In the early 1980s they started renting movie videos when no one else did.

“At one time we were the largest movie rental facility in Pinellas County. We had ten thousand movies in here. This was before Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, before any of those guys came out. This room was filled, wall to wall, with VHS movies.”

The mom and pop video stores started popping up in the Tampa Bay area and most of them bought movies from Media Concepts. When Blockbuster and the others crept in, Media Concepts crept out ahead of the curve.

Smith and Richardson purchased the business in 2008 and both of the original owners still live in South Pasadena. The business continues to work with individuals, local hospitals, the Dali Museum and large corporations dealing with anything video. The staff of five is constantly moving and visitors are best advised not to stand in one place too long.

It used to make mass duplications for Tony Little, the well-recognized TV exercise instructor (with pony tail) in his early days. At the time they were buying tape from Sony, Fuji and others in standard lengths but decided it would be cheaper to load their own tapes at lengths of their choice so they developed a system and were soon running VHS tape copies, as many as 200 machines at a time, 24/7.

Media Concepts maintains most of the old equipment including one-inch and two-inch video machines for clients who still need it. Formats include M2, ¾ inch, Betacam, Betacam SP and even those in European formats, all of which can still be transferred to digital.

Through all of the changes in formats over the years, the business keeps a step ahead of competition.

“They all moved in and decided they were going to try their hand at the same thing and we have seen them all come and go,” Smith says. “It's only because we weren't doing just one thing – equipment rentals, editing, duplication, sales, service, engineering, on and on.”

Media Concepts offers a valuable list of services from shooting pro-quality digital video to transferring old super 8 films to making mass CD copies of the latest music demo.

“One of the most unique things we do is film transfer,” Smith says. “Old 8 mm film, Super 8, 16 mm film. We've got a film chain, known as a multiplexer, for film transfers right here.”

It is a service usually farmed out to a distant facility.

“There are some precious memories there that you are putting in the hands of some clerk,” he says of chain stores. “Scary. So we do a lot of film transfer. A lot of transfer of old format to the new format – VHS tapes, Beta tapes. We had a guy come in here yesterday with 39 old Betamax tapes he wants us to transfer to DVD. Old videos of his family that he wants to preserve.”

What is the next popular format?

“The industry really wants to move to solid state,” Smith explains. “Hard drive is still a platter, Disc is still a platter; moving parts. We want to get to the thumb drive; the SD card. That's where most of the camera technology is moving now is into solid state recording media.”

Media Concepts also provides writing, music, producers, voice talent and any other aspect of a project with the many contacts they have nurtured over the years.

Smith is on the board of the 49^th St. South Business Association and secure at the current location and hoping to improve the area and make the corridor more appealing to new businesses.

“No radical changes, just trying to stay ahead of that curve,” he says of the future. “It's all about reading, talking to people, trade shows, getting out and getting a feel for what's going to be the next big thing. Right now we're in a state of limbo. We're really in between that transition from analog to digital and marrying the video side with the television side with the computer side.”

Borrowing a line from the Media Concepts web site, “If the past is any indication of the future, then they have just begun...”