AJA at IBC 2019

 

As someone who grew up in the northwest in the 90s, I’ve always had an affinity for glue, but unlike my solvent hungry schoolmates my happy place is not in an alleyway in Blackburn’s Shadsworth estate with a plastic bag, it’s the AJA stand at IBC. AJA are our go-to provider of mini converters and glue to get systems out of sticky situations or solve that awkward monitoring path in your edit suite. In my opinion they are best in class in this field and have a support infrastructure that puts other un-named manufacturers to shame. This year we only have one true product release from AJA but it’s a nice one, the FS mini. I really love the FS2 frame sync from AJA and have put them into anything from ProTools hero suites to flyaway streaming racks. I’ve yet to get hold of this new mini converter but if it has half the flexibility of its big brother then it’s going to be a staple in our installations in the future, especially as AJA are producing an opengear card version from release. The other headlines are mainly 12G additions to existing products such as the 64×64 Kumo router and Corvid cards for those productions and graphics ops looking forward to the 8K and UHD HFR revolution that will be with us in a decade or so. But great options for people to have that one suite or studio ready for the last minute 4K production you may have had to say no to. What’s not in the release for the show is anything further in the IP workstation I/O card range. Last year rumours were flying about new virtualisation options in the Kona range which would be game changing, but it looks like we will have to keep holding our breath, just like the lads in Shadsworth.

Greg Abell