From IP to the cloud – the future of connectivity

“It’s been a big year, shipping seven products.”

For Andy Bellamy, director of technical sales, EMEA, at AJA Video Systems, just keeping with the media industry has been a full-time job recently, let alone planning for the future. However, the company, which provides solutions across remote production, streaming, distribution and more, is still keeping one eye on what’s next while providing services for today.

2025 saw, “much more emphasis on UI”. This has included adding an LCD screen for easy set up to the DANTE-12GAM IP audio converter, a first for AJA’s Mini-Converter line, and then to the new UDC-4K. The revamped Mini-Converter design enhances ease of use. Bellamy says, “Only 10-15 minutes training is needed to be up to speed with products like this now.”

This has been, “a response to increasing demand for technology to be more accessible,” in an industry that is being told it needs to do more with less. Bellamy is aware of this and keen to, “help democratize the tools professionals need most.” “We know we’re able to help people save money,” he added.

One of the biggest changes Bellamy has noticed through 2025 has been the growing use of IP distribution, with the demand for IP and SMPTE ST 2110 connectivity now there in response to earlier tech advances. “Across Europe people are taking a step forward with ST 2110.”

Bellamy believes virtualisation is another coming shift. AJA is currently working with AWS on this through its Virtual KONA solution, and Bellamy hopes, “we’ll be able to provide that when people are ready for it,” wanting it, “to be mature and functional on release. We want it to be as robust as a physical card.”

This will be helped by file types such as JPEG XS, which Bellamy lauds, “looks incredible, is computationally light, and has the lowest latency of the lot for contribution and distribution.” Beyond that, the next step could be IP Media Experience, or IPMX, which allows peer-to-peer distribution, which, “is very attractive. It’s definitely picking up pace. Whatever lies ahead, AJA will continue developing tools that let customers work the way they want to.”

Overall, the industry has been, and will continue to be, moving towards technologies that are more accessible and quicker to use while keeping quality high, Bellamy believes. “The budgets are so much lower than five years ago, but the quality is still high.”

This has opened up a new market to AJA and others. Bellamy reveals, “Five years ago only TV stations were doing remote production, now it’s also large corporations creating content as high quality as TV.”

“It’s multi cam, 4K, HDR. They’ve got big plans and already have full blown TV stations for training.”

With these new technologies continuing to grow in use and maturity, AJA plans to develop tech that keeps quality high and costs low.