AJA announced its first Thunderbolt 3 product at IBC, spotlighting the new Io 4K Plus, a compact device for 4K/UHD capture, playback, and downconversion.
Designed for use with software including Adobe Premiere Pro, Apple Final Cut Pro X and Avid Media Composer, the box has 12G/6G/3G/1.5G SDI connectivity and HDMI 2.0 input and output. It supports 8-, 10- and 12-bit 4:2:2 and 4:44 over 12G-SDI or HDMI, AJA said, along with 16-channel embedded SDI audio and eight-channel embedded HDMI audio.
The 4K Plus also supports real-time scaling of 4K and UHD sources to HD for monitoring and output, along with dual Thunderbolt 3 ports for USB-C daisy-chaining with workstations and other devices.
AJA said the Io 4K Plus will ship in October for an MSRP of $2,495. If your workflow includes the need to punch in 16-bit audio, you may want to look for the Avid-branded version of the box, which is called the DNxIV. It’s due to ship at the same time and will be available through Avid’s reseller network for $2,999, AJA said.
Happily Handling High Dynamic Range
Worth noting: The 4K Plus will also be HDR-ready. AJA said its upcoming Desktop Software v14 release, coming in October, will support HLG and HDR10 in accordance with HDMI 2.0 specs. New firmware for the Ki Pro Ultra Plus with HLG and HDR10 support is also due next month, AJA said. (It will also enable recording and playback of ProRes 4444 XQ at up to 60p at 2K resolution.) And the newer HDR10+ open standard championed by Samsung, with its dynamic metadata, is being supported in the beta version of the developer SDK for AJA’s 4K I/O products, the company said.
“With dynamic metadata, picture quality can be adjusted scene-by-scene, and the image quality is stunning,” said Nick Rashby, President, AJA Video Systems. “We’re very excited about offering HDR10+ support as part of our SDK available to developer partners, ensuring our partners can bring all the latest tools for HDR production to users as fast as possible.”
Workflow Nuts and Bolts
AJA FiDO-TR-12G transceiver
AJA also showed a line of single- and dual-channel FiDO mini-converters for converting 12G to fiber and vice versa. The FiDO-TR-12G transceiver, FiDO-2T-12G dual-channel transmitter and FiDO-2R-12G dual-channel receiver will be available for an MSRP of $1,325 each, and the FiDO-T-12G single-channel transmitter and FiDO-R-12G single-channel receiver will be available for an MSRP of $785 each. All of them are expected to ship this fall, AJA said.
At the same time, AJA announced a price cut for some of its existing mini-converters, reducing the price of the Hi4 4K Plus 3G-SDI-to-HDMI converter to $595 from $695 and the price of the 3GM 3G/1.5G mux/demux converter to $495 from $795.
AJA OG-FIBER-TR-MM transceiver
And, citing growing demand for cards that are compatible with Ross Video’s openGear architecture, AJA introduced a new set of openGear Multi-Mode cards set to ship in October: the OG-FIBER-TR-MM transceiver ($890), the OG-FIBER-T-MM ($690), the OG-FIBER-R-MM ($690), the OG-FIBER-2T-MM ($890) and the OG-FIBER-2R-MM ($890).
AJA: www.aja.com
