Top 5 Technologies To Watch In 2025
I have never been a “New Year: New Me” guy. At the risk of sounding haughty, I have never thought “I didn’t do that year right.” I am aware though that the changing of the calendar is a time for reflection and excitement for the future. As I age, I am starting to do both of those things more and more. My children are 18 and 16 so I know my life is about to change greatly so this year is the first that I have actually sat down and actually made myself aware of where I am and most importantly what’s ahead for me personally and professionally.
As I look ahead professionally, there are things that I know will impact you in the classroom. This list isn’t all inclusive and truthfully, as I started to compile this I struggled to trim it. I think our world is about to change greatly when it comes to video production. There are things to be excited about and some things to be aware of but for the most part, I think your role as a pathfinder for your students is going to become more important each month of 2025 as technology continues to grow.
In this article, we will look at new Technologies that I expect to hit the classroom hard in 2025.
IP Based Connectivity
Starting here seems to be the simplest layup ever. We are headed into a world where cameras and switchers are no longer in the same room, building, town, or even country. This is truthfully kind of scary. Running and seeing a cable that connects the camera to the switcher offers a lot of peace. The idea of not being able to actually see the connection causes many anxiety but it’s going to be a norm in the next 5 to 10 years. Tools like NDI, SRT, Dante and other IP based connections are becoming more and more commonplace in live video production but this is also impacting recorded content as well. No longer does a production house have to send a crew out to every shoot to get footage back to the editors, cloud based - live ingestion of content is growing quickly.
I highly suggest you start to look into NDI and Dante as soon as possible as potential tools for your workflow. You need to work with your school/system’s IT team to discuss the potential workflow. Getting their buy in is essential to making this work for you. (You also have to get yourself and your admin comfortable with the idea of you being away from students working because it is impossible for you to be in two places at once… despite what most people think!)
More Software Switchers
Late in 2024, Vizrt announced the Tricaster Mini S. This is the first time that the Tricaster software was offered when it wasn’t packaged with the Tricaster hardware. Vmix, OBS, and the like have been around for years but Vizrt’s move to software based switchers is I believe the final major move to but software only offerings into the mainstream.
The move to these offerings only reaffirms the point above about IP based workflows. The newest range of software switching applications are only using, or highly prefer, the IP infrastructure. Vizrt has an offering where you essentially never own the software or hardware and, for lack of a better term, VPN into a computer in the cloud to operate a Tricaster with all of your video inputs being sent to the Tricaster via IP. The idea of a box with a software being sold together is going the way of the Dodo bird.
I have to admit, this is concerning for me. I know how school systems work when it comes to buying computers. The typical approach is “what are the minimum specs?”... “Let’s buy to those.” That is going to cause a lot of problems so again, if you are considering going that route, talk with your IT team well before you make the jump. The tech may work now but what happens when you want to increase your production… you need the right machine for that.
Prosumer Level Mirrorless
This item is more of me looking into my mirror ball than fact. I believe that companies are going to start pushing out more mirrorless cameras in 2025 and I think we are going to see more lower cost offerings. When Canon scrapped the M50 line, I was devastated (maybe that was dramatic) because I thought that line of cameras was great for schools. A sub $500 mirrorless camera was a gift. It worked so well, I bought one personally.
Again, I think this is going to be a big deal in 2025. To that end, go ahead and start thinking about what you want and how it will work with your current gear. You will most likely be able to use your current lenses but will need to get an adapter or two to make it happen. My M50 was paired with a Viltrox speedbooster and EF-M to EF mount adapter and worked great. I highly suggest that if you can get an adapter that is also a speedbooster, that is the way to go. If for no other reason, you don’t have to buy extremely expensive lenses. My adapter allowed me to buy a $400 f4 lens that shoots at f2.8. A f2.8 lens with the same range is about $1100.
More Wireless Audio At Cheaper Prices
Wireless audio has always been a pain point when it comes to price… actually let me add that QUALITY wireless audio has been the pain. A couple of years ago, I found a pair of wireless lavalier microphones that connected to my iphone for $30. I bought them as a gamble to see how they worked…. I use them all the time now. A couple of weeks ago, I bought several sets off Temu for much less to test their quality… I’ll let you know how the tests go later.
More AI Supports
“There it is… Tom jumped on the AI bandwagon and is telling us we can expect more AI.” I hate the phrase AI. I feel like people expect it to take over everything and remove the need for human creatives. Frankly, that’s a stupid way to look at AI. There will always be the need to create via the human perspective and accuracy. AI can’t be creative. It can ingest something that it is given and expel something else but it’s not that creative…
(Stepping off my soapbox)
We can expect to get more AI tools. Specifically in the editing and transcription space. Adobe seems to be the one pushing hardest to integrate AI tools into everything they offer. These tools are great. I have said for decades now that every time Adobe releases a new update it makes me angry. The things they are adding are the things that have been difficult and time consuming to do. For example, I let out a 45 second string of expletives when they released Character Animator. Three months before that, I spent weeks animating a bear for a 30 second spot for a client. With Character Animator, all I would have had to do was turn on my camera! I was livid.
Things we can expect to see:
More audio “quality” enhancers
More VO tools - More voices/smarter voices
More Video stabilizers
More Transcription tools - Editing by script is going to be such a thing in the future that those who know how to actually edit are going to be among the highest paid in the industry
Ultimately, it’s no secret and almost shameful for me to say this but the ever evolving technology of the video production world has a direct impact on education. The key to your success is to not be left behind because it’s really easy to lose 5-10 years in a classroom. The school years fly by fast and keeping up with the outside world is tough.
Meet the Author, NAME
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A new year is often seen as a time to start new things - diets, workout plans, etc. I think sometimes it’s just as important to stop doing things. Especially if they are negatively impacting you or your classroom. Here are the top 5 things I believe you should stop doing in 2025 to keep your sanity, engage more students, and grow your program.