Among the surprises at NAB this year was the debut of a standalone streaming product from AJA, the Helo. At a press briefing, AJA President Nick Rashby called it "our first H.264 box."

Helo is designed to give streaming producers the ability to generate a separate source recording for delivery to clients or editorial. It can stream and record an H.264 signal (at up to 1080p60) simultaneously at bit rates up to 20 Mbps.

The device has both 3G-SDI and HDMI I/O as well as stereo audio jacks. It has an operating range of 5-20 volts, meaning it can be powered by a 12-volt batttery, and includes AJA's SWP-U-R1 power supply.

Helo is scheduled to ship "soon" at an MSRP of $1,295. 

In addition to a slate of other product releases, AJA upgraded its Cion camera firmware to v1.3, improving the handling of highlights and black details in all gamma modes. AJA has also given its gamma modes more standardized names to mke better sense to users familiar with similar, industry-standard modes on other cameras.

And the Ki Pro Ultra got a firmware update adding ExFAT file system support for PC and Linux systems, 16-channel embedded SDI audio support, closed-captioning, and SMPTE 2SI I/O support for 4K/UHD devices.

Both firmware updates are free and should be available for download in May.