Matt Vidmar

Matt (Matjaz) Vidmar (born August 1962, Novo Mesto, Slovenia) is an

entrepreneur specialising in technology and media. He studied economics and
has a degree in electronics. As a student, Matt started his first company VAS
the first privately held advertising agency in the Eastern Bloc countries. In 1986,
he moved to London to gain practical experience in the global media industry.
In 1987, he started working for Gold Video Production who specialised in
royalty and fashion and here Matt directed the Royal Garden Party for
Buckingham Palace in 1988, amongst other renowned projects. In the same
year, he started working for CFC (now Framestore) as part of the original team
that pioneered electronic film post-production and movie CG effects. CFC won
two Academy Scientific and Technical Awards (technical Oscars) for its
revolutionary work in this field.
In 1991, Matt founded Connexion Exports which was one of the leading companies delivering affordable CG
workstations to the broadcast and DTP industry. Connexion was the only independent manufacturer of the 'XSystem Alpha-64' graphic workstations in Europe. The production of the Crown Jewels artwork which was
airbrushed via a computer controlled custom printer onto the biggest oil canvas at the time, measuring 72m long
and 4m high, was one of the company's first commissions. The artwork was wrapped around The Jewel House,
Tower of London, during the 1994 renovation.
In 1997, Matt started ON-AIR Systems (rebranded as OASYS in 2012). The company introduced ON-AIR "Channel-ina-Box" the very first Integrated Video Server with built in playout automation, interactive CG, vision mixing and
shared video storage which enabled video content transfers via computer networks. Technology has been
harnessed to simplify multichannel network TV workflows and drastically reduced the playout operational costs;
within five years this approach became the effective industry standard across the broadcast industry.
In 1999 Matt expanded his product portfolio by delivering the world first turn-key solution for the delivery of IPTV
service to broadband users. The first commercial installation was deployed in Mumbai in 2000. This pioneering OTT
video service is regarded as a technology and business concept breakthrough; however the industry only expanded
with commercial success a decade later, after content owners accepted OTT as one of the biggest content
monetising opportunities ever. Project also deployed the very first 1GbE broadband service in collaboration with
MTNL and BSNL. The operator was awarded NASSCOM First Prize for the Most Innovative Technology Company
in 2000.
Matt started Vision Group in 2005 with offices in London, Dubai and Ljubljana. Vision Group consists of several
private technology companies and was first established with the launch of Playout247. Since then the company
has grown to encompass Connexion Broadcast, Vision247, Vision Fibre Media (sold in 2014) and Vision
Technology. Matt was yet again on the forefront of the industry by innovating the market through the delivery of
new technology which enabled a revolutionary cloud based broadcasting service. The solution is based on an inhouse developed middleware and CDN infrastructure branded XtremeOTT. Fully fledged service went live in early
2006. XtremeOTT was the very first cloud based 'OTT Broadcast Management and Delivery System' a solution
centralising and simplifying live and on-demand broadcast quality video streaming to users across traditional IPTV
and/or OTT delivery fabric. This award winning technology was the first to market in delivering advanced features
such as 'Channel-from-the-Cloud', 'Catch-up-TV' and 'Forward-TV'.
In 2012 Matt acquired Fora, an IPTV middleware R&D outfit with 10 years of experience, to expand development
resource in Vision Group and rapidly deliver the next generation OVP solution to the market. In 2013 Perception
Xtreme was introduced - the world's first end-to-end 'Unified CDN/OTT/IPTV Platform-in-a-Box'. The platform
received a number of industry awards.
In 2014, Matt expanded into tech finance and launched Xtreme Equity Fund. With 28 years of experience in the
media, broadcast and IT industry, Matt accumulated was experience in project funding. Through his experience, he
transplanted proven classic broadcast funding models like carriage for equity into the new media environment.
Matt is an agile promoter of interactive hand-in-hand engagement between technology and funding partners as
being the best and safest way forward for guaranteed mutual success.