HIVE Media Control has launched a new generation of media playback and control systems positioned to actively disrupt the market.

Four new hardware video media players are now available, which aim to dramatically reduce the cost and complexity of media player solutions.

HIVE Media Control is founded by video industry veterans Dave Green, Trey Harrison and Mark Calvert, which the company claims are all “well-known and respected innovators in the field of high-performance media control”.

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.

“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,” said 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.”

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.

“To put it simply, HIVE is less expensive,” said 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.”

“HIVE products deliver flawless playback of industry standard video codecs at the highest quality and highest resolutions,” concluded Harrison. “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—there is no comparable solution at anywhere near this price point.”

In addition to a dedicated Discord group, HIVE also launches with an expert-ready support subscription service, details of which are available at hive.run.