Grass Valley was founded as a tiny R&D company in 1959 by Dr. Donald Hare in the small town of Grass Valley, California, in the foothills of California’s Sierra Nevada range.
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Thompson Grass Valley
Grass Valley demonstrated its first video product, a Video Distribution Amplifier in a hotel room at the National Association of Broadcasters convention.
By 1968, the Grass Valley Group had introduced its first vision mixer, the flagship product that helped build the company’s reputation.
The company merged with Tektronix in 1974, and was very successful for the next fifteen years.
Then Tektronix sold its video business to a private investor (Terry Gooding of San Diego, CA), who reincorporated it under the name Grass Valley Group Inc. The sale closed on September 24, 1999.
In 2002, the French electronics giant Thomson SA acquired the Grass Valley Group.[
On January 29, 2009, Thomson announced its intention to sell the Grass Valley business unit.
On July 26, 2010, Technicolor (formerly Thomson) received a binding offer from the Francisco Partners to purchase the Grass Valley business unit, not including the headend and transmission businesses
