How it started
History
Barco is an acronym that originally stood for Belgian American Radio Corporation. Barco was founded in 1934 in the town of Poperinge, in the Flemish-speaking region of Belgium. Founder Lucien de Puydt's initial business was to assemble radios from parts imported from the United States – hence the name of his company, the Belgium American Radio Corporation, or "Barco".
Radio pioneer Camiel Descamps gave the company a new start in 1941 in Kortrijk after founder Lucien Depuydt died. His wife, Maria-Anna Reyntjens, and his brother-in-law Joseph Versavel assisted him. Later on, also Elie Timmerman joined them.
In 1949, Barco started developing a multi-standard television that accepted different signal standards. A jukebox called Barc-O-Matic was sold from 1951. In 1967, it was one of the first European companies to introduce color TV. Building on this, it then entered the professional broadcast market in the late 1960s, supplying TV monitors to broadcasters.
From the 1960s onwards, Barco branched out into numerous other activities, which included mechanical components for industrial use and quality control monitoring for the textile and plastics industries. In 1967, Barco became the first European manufacturer to produce transistor-based portable televisions.
In 2018, Barco collaborated with China Film Group Corporation (CFGC), Appotronics, and CITICPE to commercialize each company's products and services. In Barco's case, this involved the company's cinema projectors.
From Wikipedia’s article on Barco, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2