UK-based HIVE Media Control Ltd, founded by video industry veterans Dave Green, Trey Harrison and Mark Calvert, launched a new generation of media playback and control systems. Four brand new hardware video media players are now available, which aim to dramatically reduce the cost and complexity of media player solutions.
“As the AV market demands higher and higher resolutions, the cost and complexity of the media control systems required to drive displays has become unmanageable,” says Green. “With HIVE, we have taken an alternative approach. The days of Heavy Metal are over! Instead of huge racks of expensive, power hungry hardware and complex signal distribution systems, we have a new generation of pocket-sized computers. These are also specifically designed to be more environmentally friendly, using less energy, as part of HIVE’s commitment to reducing carbon footprints.”
The HIVE product family has been designed from the ground up to deliver exceptional video quality and ease of use for AV integrators, architects, event producers, show designers and brand activations. The four products are known simply as Player_1, _2, _3 and _4. They deliver HD, 4K, 4K SDI and 8K SDI respectively. The SDI models also support genlock from a reference sync source.
Utilizing the latest embedded GPUs developed by NVIDIA, the HIVE team say they are proud to be able offer outstanding performance at a fraction of the cost and footprint compared with the current systems on the market.
“To put it simply, HIVE is less expensive,” says Calvert. “The quality of our video output is often better than systems that cost much more. This is one of the gaps in the market that we have identified over the last 15 years of working on some of the world’s best video-based projects. We have also designed a system that is very easy to use, simplifying the process of what can otherwise be complex video playback tasks.”
Harrison adds: “HIVE products deliver flawless playback of industry standard video codecs at the highest quality and highest resolutions. With the integrated warp and blend features, large seamless multi-projector installations can be realized at a fraction of the cost. HIVE networks are highly scalable and coordinate well with other media systems, with hundreds of devices synced together or synced to external timecode.”
HIVE supports up to 8K H265/HEVC, H264, the Notch LC codec, and Avolites AiM codec. In addition, the team has designed HIVE to utilize a web browser user interface. This intuitive UI allows the user to operate the system from a phone, tablet, laptop or any device with a modern web browser.
“You can upload video files directly from your device,” Green continues, “edit your playlist or timecode cue list directly from your device, and build a custom User Interface which runs on your client’s portable device. It’s all done through the simple web browser UI and we’re thrilled to have made this happen.”
HIVE also launches with an expert-ready support subscription service. This will provide technical help with all aspects of using the HIVE media control systems.
