UK-based HIVE Media Control Ltd today launches a new generation of media playback and control systems positioned to actively disrupt the market.
Four brand new hardware video media players are now available, which aim to dramatically reduce the cost and complexity of media player solutions. HIVE is founded by video industry heavyweights Dave Green, Trey Harrison and Mark Calvert – all well-known and respected innovators in the field of high-performance media control. Together, they have delivered video systems for global projects including the London Olympics, the Tokyo Olympics, Dubai World Expo, Eric Prydz’s HOLO, Coldplay, and the National Museum of Qatar.
“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 Dave Green, who has been inventing media servers and video control for decades. “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.
Utilising 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 Mark 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.”
Trey 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 realised 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 – there is no comparable solution at anywhere near this price point.”
HIVE supports up to 8K H265/HEVC, H264, the Notch LC codec, and Avolites AiM codec. In addition, the team has designed HIVE to utilise a revolutionary 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.”
In addition to a dedicated Discord group, HIVE also launches with an expert-ready support subscription service, details of which are available online on the www.hive.run website. This will provide technical help with all aspects of using the HIVE media control systems.
Calvert comments: “We would like to say thank you to our existing clients who have trusted us with their important projects, enabling us to thoroughly benchmark and finish HIVE before we launched it publicly. Also, we want to thank our immediate team and dedicated freelancers ‘the Pixel Addicts’ for the endless patience and guidance they have given us on our next quest.
“HIVE development began three years before the pandemic, on a myriad of custom projects. However, the last two years gave us more time to question not only what we need to change and how we must adapt, but also how we should grow. Personally, we each focused on our immediate families, we relocated homes, we sold beloved offices and spent a lot of time within nature trying to reconnect and ground ourselves. From this time our new project blossomed. We are proud to have created products befitting the times and suitable for the changing market. We have developed HIVE to have less impact on the natural world. All of our components are recyclable, and our power consumption is a small fraction of previous generation hardware.”
Following today’s launch, the HIVE team will be presenting projects that use the HIVE products, including Dubai World Expo UAE and Qatar Pavilion, National Museum Of Qatar – Dugong Exhibition, the Towner Gallery in Eastbourne with Jananne Al-Ani, Davide Quayola in Rome, BICEP LIVE, Liverpool Museum – Aquarium, and Sub Focus Live, to name but a few.
Photo: © HIVE Media Control Ltd
Pictured: HIVE is founded by video industry heavyweights Dave Green, Trey Harrison and Mark Calvert.