2013-14年度流媒体年度装备

When I was a kid in the 1970s, one of the most popular records in my house was a 1965 LP called 那年就是这样 汤姆·莱勒著. A Harvard graduate who later taught mathematics at Harvard and MIT, Lehrer rose to modest fame in the late-’50s for his satirical songs and singing and dextrous piano-playing, eventually winning a regular gig as in-house songwriter for the BBC TV show "That Was The Week That Was" (aka TW3). 一张在旧金山录制的现场专辑， 那年就是这样 由莱勒在1964年为TW3创作的14首歌曲组成. 其中包括他最热门的材料, 对核扩散发表讽刺的评论, 第二次梵帝冈, 污染, 美国军国主义, 诸如此类. Listening to this record marked my introduction to not just political satire but to irony itself (much of which I missed).

在我小学的大部分时间里, knowing nothing of the last decade’s British TV programming, I also misunderstood the title of the record (for reasons that seem inexplicable now), reading it as a complete sentence: “That was the year that was Tom Lehrer.我猜想，在1965年，这个人一定是 巨大的.

I didn’t start attending technology trade shows until three decades after Tom Lehrer’s heyday. But an equally credulous reading of the bold type at the shows I attended might have left me similarly deluded that 1995 was The Year That Was Interactive Television; 1997 was The Year That Was WebDVD; 1999 was The Year That Was Live Streaming Everywhere; 2002 was The Year That Was Blu-ray; 2004 was The Year That Was HDV; 2008 was The Year That Was 3D 首页 Theater; and 2013 was The Year That Was 4K. (可能也是2014年.)

在大多数情况下, the “Year That Was” misfire wasn’t so much about technologies that would never have their day (or year) in the sun, but typical cases of the hype and excitement running a few months (or years) ahead of the reality, or some enabling technologies simply arriving ahead of others. 但这正是展会有趣的地方. Who wants to go to a video trade show like this month’s NAB to see last year’s gear, 处理你已经处理过的产品, 听听大家都在用的东西?

Trade magazines (and their associated websites) are a little bit different. 负责任地为读者服务, we need to walk a fine line between foreshadowing what’s coming and explaining what works. 事实上，我们需要两者兼顾.

So, at the risk of ceding the cutting edge to the carnival barkers at NAB and looking retrograde by planting two feet squarely in the present, 流媒体 is proud to present a “Gear of The Year” comprised entirely of products introduced in 2013. That’s right: 而不是用“下一个大事件”来诱惑你 that may someday knock you off your feet and render all you know obsolete, in this production-focused issue we’ve invited three contributing writers—and producers in their own right—to choose four products each that have proven themselves indispensable to professional online video production and webcasting workflows, or represent the best currently available choices in their particular category. It’s a highly subjective list, and one that’s sure to start arguments. 但就这样吧.

这是一个齿轮 is 年度齿轮.
——斯蒂芬·Nathans-Kelly