Cleveland-based Kean Production Services, which provides high-resolution equipment and services to clients for large-scale displays, is planning to add an Analog Way Aquilon RS4 to its roster after successfully using the 4K/8K multi-screen presentation system and videowall processor on two major projects.

“I wasn’t looking for a new product when Erik Iversen (Analog Way’s Market Strategy Manager for Rental & Staging), whom I’ve known for decades, contacted me about checking out the Aquilon RS4,” says Chris Kean, one of owners of Kean Production Services.  

“I did a week of training with Analog Way and was very impressed with the system’s capabilities: It’s a very flexible system that you can easily reconfigure based on your needs.  We’re a niche market and do big projects requiring a lot of preproduction.  We weren’t looking to take the time to learn a new piece of gear, but the RS4 quickly became a favorite of ours.”

Kean Production Services provides high-resolution processing for the annual sales and principals meetings of a major global architectural firm.  The three-day sales meeting in early May 2025 in the ballroom of the Grand Hyatt Nashville proved to be the first test of the Aquilon RS4 for the company.  The system supported five General Sessions plus the performance of a grunge-rock band featuring company employees.

“This is a very creative company with very high-end requirements,” says Kean who was hired by Mac Productions in Covington, Kentucky for the event.  “We design the technology to transmit their message to the displays to support presenters and inform the audience.”

The stage featured a widescreen main LED video wall flanked by two portrait LED video walls.  It had been estimated that two processors would be required to drive the displays, with each handling one of the portrait video walls and half of the main screen.  But Kean, working with Iversen and Analog Way Chief Technologist Andrzej Lubaszka, devised a more elegant solution using Kean’s single Aquilon RS4.  “We developed a way to approach the project without putting the show at risk by treating the displays as one canvas instead of three screens,” Kean explains.  “We managed this with the Layer Memories feature, which wasn’t concerned with the screens’ configuration.”

Sources feeding the graphical imagery on the displays included four laptops running custom-resolution slide decks outfitted with Apple Keynote and Microsoft PowerPoint software; an 8-channel custom-resolution media server; and IMAG cameras.  

Kean spent “about five minutes” swapping one input card and one output card to gain more SDI inputs, which also impressed him.  “The way the system is built, you’re not locked into a particular signal flavor. It has everything you require for most jobs, but if you should need more cards they are inexpensive and easy to find in the marketplace.”

Kean was also asked to drive the downstage monitors for the speakers.  Using the Aquilon RS4 Aux out feature, he was able to split the widescreen video wall signal onto two side-by-side monitors, “a neat flex for the system, something the client had not seen before and was super happy with,” Kean reports.  Aux outputs were also used to reformat SMPTE content into a signal the video stream could use.  

Kean Production Services was able to repurpose its technology design featuring the Aquilon RS4 for the client’s multi-day Principals Meeting in mid-September at the Terranea Resort in Palos Verdes, California.  “The displays were the same as in the sales meeting so we had a baseline to work from,” says Kean.

Now that the company is investing in its own Aquilon RS4, Kean expects to use the system for many more projects.  “The industry is seeing a lot of new tools coming out, but the Analog Way Aquilon products are mature, show-ready, and stable, while still adding features that other systems do not have, such as Look up tables and fine-grain control to match colors accurately.”

“From intensive training through the first job we did, it’s been a very comfortable experience working with Analog Way,” he continues.  “Moving to a different brand of processor could have been stressful and risky, but Erik, Andrzej, and the entire support staff removed that stress and took care of us.  I can’t say enough about them and how we were never far from the answers we needed from them.”  

“In this business you’re only as good as your last show,” Kean notes.  “You have to trust your equipment to do what you promised to do every single time.  Analog Way has proved to be nothing but reliable and trustworthy.”

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