Recalling a promise not to announce new products until they're ready to ship, AJA took care to couch news of the forthcoming Io 4K as a "technology preview" at IBC. The Thunderbolt 2-enabled Io 4K will ship at the same time as the new Mac Pro, and will support 4K, Ultra HD, HD, and SD capture and playback via Thunderbolt 2 connection, enabling 10-bit 4K video output from the Mac Pro.

The unit also features four bi-directional 3G-SDI connections, 4K and Ultra HD over HDMI, and the ability to simultaneously output video over SDI and HDMI. It offers real-time downconversion from 4K to HD for monitoring over HD-SDI and HDMI. The price has not yet been announced.

AJA also had plenty of now-shipping product introductions to talk about. The new TruZoom software and joystick control for AJA's Corvid Ultra video platform gives users a simple way to define and extract a 16×9 region of interest within a 4K frame and scale it to HD in real time. It's targeted primarily at broadcasters working with real-time signals from 4K and Ultra HD cameras, but also works with uncompressed files. TruZoom ($9,995) requires the Corvid Ultra ($7,995) and at least one TruScale option card ($3,495). AJA is offering a real-time debayer option for raw footage from the Canon C500 at $1,995.

AJA also announced new Mini-Converters, available now. The 4K2HD ($795) downconverts both 4K and Ultra HD to HD-SDI and HDMI 1.4 simultaneously, enabling HD monitoring from 4K cameras. Frame rates of 50 and 60 output to HD at 25 and 30, respectively. It also supports display of a pixel-for-pixel center cut of the original frame for focus-checking. The 10-bit V2Digital analog-to-digital and V2Analog digital-to-analog converters ($345 each) support HD and SD-SDI and YPbPr/RGB component or composite. And the HD10A-Plus ($695) converts HD and SD 10-bit analog video to digital, supporting full-bandwidth component input via RGB, RGBS, or YPbPbr and three HD/SD-SDI outputs.

A forthcoming plug-in for the KONA 3G will support up to four HD-SDI input channels as well as 4K and Ultra HD input for the Telestream Wirecast 5 — the first such support for Wirecast, AJA says. The free plug-in will be available when Wirecast 5 ships later this month. And a free firmware update enables dual-link, 4K, and Ultra HD support in its Kumo line of compact SDI routers, which are geared to mobile trucks and live-event AV rigs. Uncompressed raw 4K and Ultra HD support is enabled through grouped 3G-SDI connections. That download is available now from AJA's Kumo support page.

AJA: www.aja.com