FROM THE INDUSTRY
in scale, quality and choice. We support all major compression formats in a single unit, so customers aren’t locking themselves into one technology decision. To put it into perspective, one 2U X Platform unit can handle up to 96 full HD channels. That covers the vast majority of live production scenarios. And I understand you’ve also just expanded that family. Yes, we’ve just started shipping the X5, which is the smallest member of the X family. Customers were asking for a compact, throw-down unit for smaller productions — maybe four channels — but with the same feature set and quality as the larger systems they were already using. We’ve worked hard on that throughout the year, and it’s now shipping. It’s been very well received. Where is demand strongest geographically? North America and Europe are our biggest markets, roughly split 50/50, and the UK is a very significant part of that. Asia is earlier-stage for us, but now that we’ve established a direct presence, we expect that to grow. Our headquarters and manufacturing are in Oslo, Norway, with strong teams in the UK, US and Sweden as well. From what you are saying, software feels like the next big chapter for Appear. Absolutely. We see the future of live production as hybrid. There will always be a need for physical infrastructure at the venue (you have to connect cameras, microphones and signals somehow) but more and more of the production tools themselves are becoming software-based. This year we’ve been beta-testing our VX software platform, which will start shipping shortly. A key principle for us is openness. Traditionally, broadcast has always been best-of-breed, vision switching from one vendor, audio from another, graphics from another. Software in live production has tended to be much more closed, and we don’t think that’s healthy for the industry.
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MARCH 2026 Volume 48 No.1
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