History Of DVC as told by staff
The history of DVC as seen through the eyes of some of our longer-serving members of staff.
Hanny Cohen
Eureka Electronics Ltd. employed David at the age of 23 to do the accounts on computer and later to sell chess computers. His hobby was photography and amateur film making and as video editing on computers was becoming a possibility he was regularly upgrading and adding to his own computer.
He realised that there must be a lot of people out there who would also be interested in editing on computer and decided to take the chance to start his own business. He called it Digital Video Computing or DVC. (which were his own initials). He started marketing and building computer systems in a room sublet from Eureka and after several months met Chris Kirk who volunteered for a limited time to work for a small amount for half days. Soon they had sufficient sales to expand and take on new staff and in 1999 moved to larger premises. DVC. has earned an excellent reputation in the building of computers for digital video editing as well as for its helpful and extensive technical backup.
Sadly Hanny Died of cancer at the end of 2008 and we all miss her. Her contribution to the success of DVC was immense.
Kate Eastman (Ex deputy head of Sales)
I joined DVC after finishing my graphics degree at Brighton University. At the time of joining there were three other people in the company all of which were friends. We were all based in one room with bits of computers everywhere .
My job entailed building computers and watching films / thoroughly testing the systems. We were testing and solving problems with a few hundred system sales. Now over three and a half years on I cant believe the change in size and location. We have now sold over 2000 systems with a few more staff to support this increase.
I have now moved from technical into sales with a focus on the advertising and brochure design. Within the last six months becoming the deputy head of sales has changed my role within the company again making the job different ever day.
(We would like to take the opportunity of thanking Kate for all her hard work and years of service as she has now left DVC to bravely travel the world for a year - good luck Kate)
Noel Bateman (Now head of Technical)
When I started here DVC was a chicken spit, one horse operation, flying by the seat of its pants and lurching from crisis to crisis. On my first day I had to make myself a desk so I could get some work done and spent the first few weeks sorting through what I initially took to be boxes of paper for recycling, but which on closer inspection proved to be the invoices and correspondence for the last eighteen months. DVC consisted of Dave, who handled most of the sales, Chris and Kate building and repairing machines, and Tim, who handled some of the paperwork on a part time basis, and whose job I incorporated into my own when he left to pursue other projects in late night convenience retail.
Richard was at that time winding down his one-man company Flying Penguin (which rented office space from DVC) and shortly after I started he got himself a job taking the lion's share of the sales calls. Kate used to skip lunch and leave early, difficult though it was for her to abandon her Ewan McGregor poster overnight, but I've always needed a break in the day to read and eat. DVC was much smaller then, and very crowded - computer cases and stock were everywhere and the screwdrivers were always in hiding when you wanted one. The floor was liberally sprinkled with a crunchy layer of screws and anti-static bags and a mouth-watering selection of abandoned foodstuffs could be found in every corner. The walls were festooned with pictures from the sublime (Katherine Hepburn) to the ridiculous (Sean the sheep) and occasionally something useful like a list of manufacturer's phone numbers could be glimpsed among the press cuttings and amusing photos of Michael Portillo losing his seat in the 97 election. It all seems a long time ago.
The tech department changed shape, and then location in the following couple of years, and a wide variety of faces came and went. Today the gleaming Starship Enterprise that is the tech department bears little relation to the garage workshop of yesteryear, although there's still never a screwdriver to hand when you want one.
Chris Kirk
I can't even remember when I started - it seems so far distant in the past. I seem to be much older with far more responsibilities. When I started at DVC I was technically unemployed. I had a morning cleaning job which was very tiring. I had resigned from my last job as manager of a Tandy store to free up some time to make films (video).
I had dreams of them being shown on TV etc When I look at them now, I can see why they were not. David offered me a small amount of cash per week to come and help him out as the business was already expanding faster than one man could cope with. As the weeks went by I was ending up spending more and more time at DVC and eventually gave up the idea of trying to film something worthwhile and also gave up the cleaning job. We were crammed into one tiny room with computer stuff everywhere. It was quite exciting, because at the time - nobody else was doing what we were doing, well, nobody worthwhile anyway. We did all our own research in-between taking calls and shipping systems. David's credit card was well exercised whenever we were waiting for a payment from a customer. It is a miracle that we got through the first year. After that though - things just kept expanding, now we have loads of staff and a huge premises. I still don't have a window in my office though.
Richard Payne
At 17, I was a runner and camera assistant for a corporate video company in Bath. I was a photographer and camera process operator at Bath Evening Chronicle and spent 3 Years getting a Media Production Studies degree at Bournemouth University. After that I worked as a runner for BBC Drama on 'Trainer' (that unsuccessful horse racing drama) and then on 'The Travel Show' at BBC Manchester. Didn't enjoy the rather political atmosphere of BBC Manchester and returned to South with my tail between my legs freelancing all over the world as a Cameraman and Editor.
I bought an editing system from DVC in 1995 and used it for Corporate Video Productions. After a year of use I moved to Brighton to set up a production Company with David and Chris called 'Flying Penguin'.
As David and Chris will never let me forget ' Flying Penguin' never took off and I found myself getting dragged into DVC more and more until I officially joined on February 14th 1997.
David made me Director of Sales and gave me 10% of the company when I got married in 1998. (He says it was because he was too tight to buy a present.)
Richard now works as Southern Area representative forHoldan UK.
Trivia.
Did you know that the eye in our logo is actually the eye of Kate Eastman our ex Sales Head ?
