[This article is part of a series where I invited media industry leaders to share their thoughts on 2025 and what it means for the future. Abe Abt is a Senior Product Consultant for AJA Video Systems. Since joining AJA in 2008, Abe has helped connect AJA’s products with real-world workflows and guiding future product development to meet the needs of professionals in the field. Website: AJA Video Systems. ]
IP (Remote) Video Moves From Experimentation Into Mainstream
Reflecting on 2025
2025 was the year that IP video experimentation turned into real-world deployments across broadcast, live production, and large-scale AV installs. IP video continued its steady move from a future roadmap consideration to a daily operational reality, particularly in sports, live events, and distributed production models. SMPTE ST 2110 matured beyond early adopters, with more facilities committing fully to IP-first designs. As network infrastructure became more affordable and better understood, the conversation shifted away from whether IP was viable to how it could be deployed reliably, at scale, and with a smaller footprint.
Remote production workflows also took a meaningful step forward. Although they may have begun as a necessity-driven response to global disruption, they’ve since become a strategic choice for many organizations. Centralized control rooms, distributed acquisition, and cloud-adjacent workflows proved they could deliver consistent, high-quality results while offering flexibility. As they did, latency, synchronization, monitoring, and operational confidence became defining challenges.
At the same time, image quality discussions evolved. Rather than chasing ever-higher resolutions, many in the industry embraced the idea of better pixels rather than more pixels. HDR moved from limited use cases into broader production and distribution, driven by more capable displays, improved delivery pipelines, and growing audience expectations. To this end, color science became a core consideration across broadcast, live production, post, and the AV world, with an increasing focus on accurate color management, consistent transforms, and predictable HDR behavior. They became essential to delivering a coherent viewer experience across platforms and environments.
Across all of these shifts, standards and interoperability mattered more than ever. Open architectures, predictable behavior, and respect for metadata proved critical to building systems that scaled cleanly and avoided unnecessary complexity. Teams increasingly prioritized solutions that fit into established workflows while remaining flexible enough to evolve.
Looking Ahead to 2026
If 2025 was about validation, 2026 looks set to be about acceleration. IP video workflows will continue expanding beyond core broadcast into venues, corporate production, and hybrid AV environments, with fewer distinctions between those worlds. I anticipate remote production will feel less like a workaround and more like the default production model, particularly for organizations balancing scale and geography.
HDR and advanced color workflows will likely see even broader adoption, with better tools and deeper understanding driving consistency from acquisition through delivery. The emphasis on image integrity over raw resolution will also continue, reinforcing the value of strong color science and reliable signal management at every stage.
For AJA customers, 2026 should be an exciting year. The pace of change is accelerating alongside opportunities to simplify complex workflows while maintaining quality and reliability. I expect there will be a growing focus on open standards, practical IP deployment, and solutions that bridge existing infrastructure with future technologies. The industry is clearly moving forward, and the next wave of innovation is already taking shape.
