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Video Production

Today's streaming productions scale from impromptu online broadcasts captured via webcam and delivered within a corporate firewall to massive professional multicam productions streamed worldwide. With tutorials,  reviews, and analysis from leading producers, the content on this page looks at preproduction, audio and video capture, encoding, and especially the gear and strategies essential for successful streaming.

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Features

Review: Magewell Director Mini 3.0

All-in-One (AIO) live production devices leverage the latest mobile CPU and GPU power and integrated capability, with real hardware connections for multiple HDMI ports, ethernet, headphones, audio input, and more—all from one manufacturer so there's just one update cycle to track. Magewell recently came out with the 3.0 update to their Director Mini AIO production tablet (Figure 1), and they are pushing the envelope with what these little powerhouses can do.

The 2024 Streaming Media Readers' Choice Awards

The readers have spoken! We've counted all of the votes in the 2024 Streaming Media Readers' Choice Awards, and—drumroll, please—it is now my pleasure and sworn duty to present winners and runners-up in each of our 17 categories.

How AI Is Transforming the Video Production Landscape

The evolution of AI extends from prepro­duction planning to postproduction enhance­ments, offering tools that augment creativity, efficiency, and precision. It is difficult to ignore all of the buzz about AI these days, but here is what streaming pros can expect from this ear­ly stage of AI technology.

The Generative AI Industrial Revolution

Generative AI may prove even more divisive to society than the Indus­trial Revolution. There are many questions well worth examining re­garding gen AI's impact on the streaming in­dustry, the media and entertainment world, and more. In this article, I'm going to focus on a few streaming use cases in the hope of pro­viding a broader perspective on the changes happening in our world now and those we can expect going forward.

Spotlights

Hot Products: Magewell USB Capture HDMI 4K Pro

Magewell's USB Capture family has long been the gold standard for professional video capture devices, earning a reputation for being the easiest and most reliable way to bring video and audio signals into software for live streaming, video conferencing, medical imaging, and more. Thenew USB Capture HDMI 4K Pro continues this tradition while adding the ability to capture video sources up to 4K resolution at 60 frames per second.

How to Elevate the Quality of Your Video Stream With AJA HELO Plus

With such a broad range of streaming content at our fingertips, delivering a standout stream requires attention to quality, latency, and so much more. AJA director of product management Paul Turner reveals the secrets to using AJA's HELO Plus H.264 streamer/recorder to deliver live streams and recordings that impress and engage.

Hot Products: OBSBOT Tail Air AI-Powered PTZ Streaming Camera

OBSBOT's flagship Tail Air AI-powered PTZ streaming camera delivers 4K video at 30 frames per second or 1080p HD at 60 fps with crystal-clear visual quality. Its large 2-micron pixel size, 1/1.8" CMOS sensor and advanced camera components enable higher quality, brighter frames and finer details with less video noise even in challenging, dimly lit environments.

Introducing OBSBOT Tail Air and Tiny 2 (Live Demos)

OBSBOT develops AI-enhanced cameras that help AV and streaming professionals efficiently create stunning live streams. The flagship Tail Air 4K PTZ streaming camera combines exceptional visual quality, outstanding low-light performance, NDI HX3 support, and flexible connectivity in a compact form factor, while the Tiny 2 4K camera has ushered in a new era of webcams. This session includes demos of Tail Air and Tiny 2 and explores how they fit into the streaming ecosystem.

Columns

How Will AI Change Your Streaming Business?

AI is the buzz term of 2024, and indeed, tech companies have put a lot of resources and commitment into adding or improving AI components in their products and services. The term AI covers a wide swath of technologies, but for this column, I'll focus mainly on generative AI, or services that can generate human-like output based on input that we humans provide.

IBC 2024: Better Content Curation Through Conversation with Imaginario AI

One AI-driven solution that stood out at IBC 2024 as particularly smart and creative comes from a London-based company called Imaginario AI. I met with CEO and Co-Founder Jose M. Puga and got an up-close look at a content indexing and curation tool that uses multimodal AI models to "make video content searchable like text." Imaginario AI made a big enough splash at IBC this year to take home 1st prize in the "Manage" category of the IABM's BaM awards.

Orphaned Tech: Struggles With Legacy NDI Gear

Not every new customer has the bank to buy all new gear. It's typical to buy used gear, get it running, and then upgrade only as the need and cash flow dictate. But a challenge comes with using older NDI gear.

Streaming Is Easy, Until It’s Not

When it comes to electronics, it's easy to look at advertised features and believe that tech will provide everything you need. But no matter how powerful and integrated it is—perhaps even because of how integrated and powerful it is—you need professionals to run it to ensure you look your best. Streaming may seem easy, but as with any business role, only expertise will make it look easy, even when it's not.

Video Production Companies and Suppliers