AJA Io Xpand: a chassis with Thunderbolt 5 to take the Kona and Corvid to more demanding productions

The PCIe Io Xpand expansion chassis from AJA, aimed at creative or live production environments, unleashes the potential of Kona and Corvid video and audio I/O cards on laptops and mini-PCs with Thunderbolt 5 on Windows, macOS and Linux.

Users can combine the new chassis with I/O cards Kona 1, Kona 4 o Kona 5 and a computer equipped with Thunderbolt 5 to create a “powerful and compact” workstation with video capture and playback functions. Likewise, AJA development partners can deploy this equipment with the E/S AJA Corvid to “develop smaller solutions.”

AJA's new Io Xpand chassis includes a cable Thunderbolt 5 0.8 meters, a security lock for the Thunderbolt cable, a power cable and a universal power adapter. It will be marketed as stand-alone unit or in three packages, each including the Io Xpand and a single Kona 1, Kona 4 or Kona 5 card. This latest version gives laptop and mini-PC users with Thunderbolt 5 access to the E/S 12G-SDI high performance of the PCIe card, additional frame stores and a full I/O stack (including AES/EBU audio and equipment control) in a portable, plug-and-play solution.

Nick Rashby, president of AJA, delves into the benefits of solution: "In both the media and entertainment and ProAV sectors, we are seeing a trend towards more compact and highly configurable workstations. With this change, creative and video professionals demand high-quality I/O solutions, such as our KONA and Corvid cards, capable of delivering revolutionary performance in the latest laptops and mini-PCs equipped with Thunderbolt 5."

Io Xpand will be available soon through the distributor network of AJA.