IBC (International Broadcasting Convention) is my favorite show of the second half of the year. While other notable shows like NAB, InfoComm, and ISE exist, Amsterdam’s unique charm, great food, and a massive vault of vendors who don’t attend US shows make IBC special. It used to be a predictable cycle of announcing products at one show and releasing them at another. While that has slowed down a bit, I think we’re trending back towards a season of major show announcements. Here’s what I saw and what I found exciting.
Notable Product Announcements
- Ross NRG Routers: These are the small, compact, and fully featured routers we’ve been waiting for Ross to make to compete with AJA and Blackmagic Design. Available in 16×16 and 32×34 configurations, with or without buttons, they’re UHD-capable and competitively priced.
- Ross Video Acquires LAMA: Another big headline from Ross Video was their acquisition of LAMA, a company specializing in advanced audio mixing and cloud-based audio solutions. This move strengthens Ross’s portfolio by bringing in cutting-edge audio technology that complements their production workflows. It’s a strategic step toward more integrated audio and video operations, particularly valuable in live production environments where flexible cloud-based tools are becoming essential.
- Bolin Technology: Showcased their entire line of indoor and outdoor PTZ cameras, but I think the real star of the show that is often overlooked is their decoder line. Bolin speaks Dante, and they speak it fluently in both AV-H and AV Ultra. For those interested, these encoders and decoders are absolute powerhouses. On the NDI front, they have an NDI decoder that supports both 12G SDI and HDMI, but what’s most exciting is the embedded bridge module, which allows the decoder to send content back over the bridge to the other side.
- Vizrt: This show was all about AI integration. Using their new AI enhanced keyer, they showcased how virtual studios can produce better quality keying and graphics.
- Matrox IPMX Integration: Matrox demonstrated its vision for the future with unified control and content across its broadcast and ProAV segments through deeper integration of IPMX. Users can now bridge these two environments, allowing content to flow seamlessly from the broadcast room (using NDI, SRT, and ST 2110) to the AV department in IPMX, using Matrox’s conversion tools.
- Nikon ZR Camera: This camera is the first major collaboration between Nikon and Red since Nikon’s acquisition of Red Cameras in 2024. The ZR features a 6K full-frame sensor with Red Raw built-in. This is an interesting move for both companies, providing Red with a new form factor and Nikon with more advanced codecs.
- Mark Roberts Motion Control (MRMC) New Mount System: MRMC, another Nikon acquisition, showcased a new mount system designed for using PTZ cameras with teleprompters. While other manufacturer designs are done with extra-wide glass, this still has a limited range of motion, this new system keeps the PTZ camera fixed, preserving presets and FreeD metadata and moves the teleprompter independently in sync with the camera, significantly increasing the effective range of motion.
- PTZOptics 4K Camera Updates: PTZOptics announced new features for their 4K camera line that integrate many of the capabilities of their Hive software directly into the camera. This allows local users to control the camera via a web UI with gesture and cinematic controls.
- Kiloview: Showcased their new Bonding Decoder, a 4-channel receiver designed to pair up with the P3 and P3 mini bonded cellular encoders.
Personal Show Highlights
- Studio Network Solutions (SNS) Outpost Cloud: My favorite highlight was SNS’s launch of Outpost Cloud, a new cloud-based review and approval platform. It’s designed for media organizations and editors to quickly share content and get feedback with notes and annotations, enabling teams to iterate faster without moving files to other platforms.
- SNS LTO Archive Integration: SNS also announced new LTO archive partners, with more to come. This integration provides a single pane of glass view within ShareBrowser for media stored on both S3 and LTO platforms that EVO customers are already using separately. This makes managing media across different storage tiers much more efficient.
And that’s a wrap on IBC! This year’s show was a great reminder of how quickly the industry is evolving, with a clear focus on integrated, flexible, and cloud-based solutions. It was inspiring to see so many companies pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, and I’m already looking forward to seeing what next year brings.
