It’s safe to say that 2009 was the year that television discovered the Internet in earnest, and not in a particularly good way. The incredible explosion of content that is YouTube, the drift away from packaged programming towards on demand delivery across the broadband pipe, and even the decline in our traditional nightly news addiction as the immediacy of the Web took hold. All of these factors served to reveal the cracks in the dominance of mass broadcast in ways not seen before.

So for us to award the Livestream Livepack our Imaging Product of the Year award is to acknowledge that television is about to undergo the kind of disruption that has already struck at the heart of the music and print industries. As we said back in September last year, the fact that you can use the Livepack system to hook a digital camcorder up to a backpack and literally broadcast high quality images live from anywhere you get a mobile phone signal is simply staggering. And at a price point that is not out of reach!

What makes this evolutionary product even more important of course, is the fact that at the low end, we’re also seeing the rise and rise of the citizen video reporter, delivering the kind of immediate, vibrant and sometimes shocking footage which is defining the birth of a hugely important new medium. Every way you turn, video is coming of age, in the kind of ubiquitous, consumer friendly manner that few of us could predict.

The shortlist for the year also included PowerGenix NiZn batteries which promise to improve digital camera power performance significantly, and the Flipbac low cost angle viewfinder and LCD protector.