What’s in a team- José de Freitas

At Tyrell, it is one of our most dearly held beliefs that people buy from people – namely people that they like, respect and trust. So, that is why we are always proud to sing the praises of our exceptional team at every opportunity, because we know that it’s our multi-disciplined experts, with their wealth of experience, that ensure the success of our business and the satisfaction of our clients.

Recently, we’ve been getting to know our expert team a little bit better to prove that we really are the best in the business. This week it’s the turn of Pre-Sales engineer, José de Freitas, to discover how his extensive experience after 40 years in the industry has earned him quite a spectacular reputation…

Name: José de Freitas
Job title: Pre-Sales Engineer
Miles on the industry clock: 40 years

There’s a lot of impressive things to know about Tyrell Pre-Sales Engineer, José. Starting with his epic 40-year stint in the industry, which has seen him clock up enough broadcast miles to last a lifetime. A Portuguese native, José moved to Ireland to study and learn English, setting in motion

his affinity with Ireland and the UK. Sometime later, José took some time to work in South America where he was able to focus on creating video documentaries, including one based on the Amazon for BBC. It wasn’t long however until the call of Ireland’s blustery shores sounded, and he moved back to Dublin in 1994 to begin work on the newly launched soap opera, ‘Ros Na Run’ for TG4 Channel.

What followed for José was an exciting two years on the show working as an engineer, where he looked after the facility at a pivotal time in the production process. This was the first time that they were able to record straight into Avid, using a 4 camera OB which fed into vision mixer then into an early Avid storage system. The hard drives were then removed, given to the edit suite and the post production process started immediately. This was a revolutionary workflow at the time and one that José was at the core of.

José then moved to join PVL  a System Integrator, where Bryan and Declan of Tyrell fame were also working at the time. José stayed for 18 months, gaining much more experience and implementing the same workflow that was successfully used at Ros Na Rún on RTÉ’s ‘Fair City’ soap. In 2000, José joined TV3 as chief engineer and spent a further 15 years there as Chief Engineer and CTO, where he looked after the broadcast infrastructure, OB’s and entire technology suite in the building – including overseeing the build of a brand new studio, which just happens to be the largest in Ireland!

Finally, José decided to make the leap to Tyrell and joined the company in 2017 as pre-sales engineer. A diverse and exciting role that includes the installations of small to mid-sized studios, corporates, radio studios as well as managing installs of Clear-Com’s solutions at large sporting venues and broadcasters. José has been pivotal in the adoption of LiveU’s products in the Irish market, which have revolutionised the OB workflow and have been used on high-profile events including the Dublin Marathon and the Pope’s visit to Ireland.

Alongside his work for Tyrell, José also keeps his hand in working on OB’s for high-profile sporting events which have included the Six Nations games as well as the Europa League final. This was a dream job for José as the both finalists were Portuguese with the game taking place in Dublin!

Outside of work, José has a penchant for motorbikes and taking them on long journeys across most of Europe. José is incredibly well known in the industry as his experience and knowledge nearly always precedes him. Tyrell are very lucky to have him and it’s obvious how much passion and skill he has for his work.

If you want to know more about José and how he helps to keep Tyrell customers happy, follow him on LinkedIn where you can find out what makes him and us tick.