What is NDI?
NDI (Network Device Interface) Overview
NDI™ (Network Device Interface) is an open protocol developed by NewTek™ to enable video compatible products to share video across a local area network. We believe that the future of the video industry is one in which video is transferred easily and efficiently in IP space, and that this vision will largely supplant current industry-specific connection formats (HDMI, SDI, etc.) in the production pipeline.
NDI allows multiple video systems to identify and communicate with one another over IP, and to encode, transmit and receive many streams of high quality, low latency, frame-accurate video and audio in realtime. This new protocol can benefit any network-connected video device, including video mixers, graphics systems, capture cards, and many other production devices.
NDI can operate bi-directionally over a local area network, with many video streams on a shared connection. Its encoding algorithm is resolution and frame-rate independent, supporting 4K (and beyond) along with 16 channels (and more) of floating-point audio. The protocol also includes tools that implement video access rights, grouping, bi-directional metadata and IP commands. And its superb
performance over standard GigE networks makes it possible to transition facilities to an incredibly versatile IP video production pipeline without negating existing investments in SDI cameras and infrastructure, or costly new high-speed network infrastructures.
Published September 13.2019
NDI 4.0 is finally here
We have a professional services team that provides training if you are looking for a complete workflow implementation service. Additionally our community base is very active in engaging with others on what works for them and the many ideas on how NDI is being used in various ways. Here’s a few suggestions on what might be helpful
Community Forum: https://forums.newtek.com/forumdisplay.php/360-NDI-%28Network-Device-Interface%29
Tips and Tricks:
https://www.newtek.com/blog/tips/
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/ndiusers/
NDI.tv: https://ndi.tv/sdk/ (at the bottom of the page there are some great guides)
Published August 17, 2019
The latest summary. https://www.streamingmedia.com/Producer/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/The-State-of-PTZ-Over-NDI-133775.aspx
NAB Spotlight: NewTek Talks Vizrt Acquisition, NDI Recording, and Live Story Creator
NDI ~ Network Device Interface
The new era of live production is here.
The world’s premier software-driven IP video technology.
Explore unprecedented possibilities for connectivity, creativity, and control with IP—all while using the network infrastructure you have in place today. NDI®, NewTek’s innovative Network Device Interface technology, enables compatible systems, devices, and applications to connect and communicate over IP to share video, audio, and data.
Adopted and integrated into products by hundreds of companies, in development with thousands more, and readily accessible by millions of people worldwide, NDI® is the most widely adopted and used IP standard in the world, and presents compelling new opportunities for video within practically any workflow or environment.
Approachable Technology
Getting started with NDI® is equivalent to adding connected devices to your network at home or the office. But, with applications ranging from effortlessly simple to incredibly sophisticated, the potential for producers and content creators in broadcast, sports, esports, education, business, worship, live events, professional A/V, digital signage, and other markets to advance their video productions with NDI® is immeasurable.
Affordable Implementation
Concerned about the cost of transitioning to IP? Don’t be. NDI®doesn’t require you to invest in expensive facility upgrades, new network infrastructure, or proprietary hardware. High-bandwidth networking is optional, as Gigabit Ethernet network infrastructure can easily accommodate multiple NDI® video, audio, and metadata streams on a shared connection. WiFi is even a possibility with select compatible products.
Adaptable Workflow
Build on your existing investments and take full advantage of emerging IP models. With NDI®, you can use any combination of compatible technologies to design a seamless, interconnected production workflow—professional video equipment, cameras, converters, capture cards, playout devices, graphics systems, gaming rigs and consoles, mobile devices, monitors, displays, video walls, video communications applications, creative software, and more.
Available Today
Whether your plans involve transitioning from SDI, migrating to exclusively IP, interoperating with SMPTE ST 2110, or even exploring virtualized production, NDI® allows you to implement the workflow you need for your unique brand of storytelling through video—right now. And with the royalty free SDK, any manufacturer or developer can begin integrating NDI® into their products today and become part of the most prolific IP-based ecosystem in the industry.
Experience NDI® for yourself.
Start producing and delivering video content over IP immediately.
Knowledge Base https://support.newtek.com/hc/en-us
NDI Network Bandwidth
NDI operates most efficiently in a dedicated network with high bandwidth and high availability. This is in contrast to unmanaged environments such as the public Internet or networks where video rides along with data without priority.
While a single stream of HD video can easily be delivered on a Fast Ethernet (100 Mbps) network, Gigabit (1000 Mbps) networks are essential in production workflows. A typical NDI stream consisting of 1080i HD video yields a data rate up to 100 Mbps per stream. This extremely efficient stream is designed to have very low latency and allows multiple streams to be stacked together on a single Gigabit network.
Getting NDI Video Across The Network
Video, just like voice data in VoIP systems, is a very demanding data stream and will immediately expose a weakness in the network. The network must be capable of supporting multiple video, audio and data streams in a reliable, synchronized manner, without disruption. When delay, packet loss, and jitter reach thresholds where the video is impacted visually, the usefulness of that video drops to zero. It is important to understand the complexities of video in IP data networks so that these factors can be mitigated.
Networks that are designed to move NDI video streams should be thought of as being primarily utilized for video. IP networks are by their very nature “best effort delivery” systems and were originally developed for the transport of data. Data services, by contrast to video, can function happily with packet retransmissions, lost packets, and even packets arriving out of order. Video streams, while still data, are much more rigid in their requirements.
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NewTek Connect and NDI® Technologies Support and Supplement SMPTE 2110
June 05, 2017 by Chuck Baker
The quest for a standard for uncompressed HD-SDI video over IP is resolving down to the forthcoming SMPTE 2110 standard. SMPTE 2022-6 provided a standard for uncompressed HD-SDI video-with-embedded-audio-and-data over IP. Broadcast technologists prefer the ability to handle video and audio in separate signal streams, and for audio and other types of data they often want multiple streams. SMPTE 2110 is the under-construction standard that will allow video and audio as multiple separate media streams (“essences”) with synchronizing information, rather than as one composite media stream.
RedShark News has done a very thorough but engaging and understandable examination of what SMPTE 2110 will mean for broadcast production: What SMPTE 2110 is exactly and why it matters for IP production.
A key conclusion they come to, however, is that while IP methodology for high-end broadcast now seems to be well-settled, it is clearly not the full story for IP workflow across the full range of production and distribution. Expensive 10-Gigabit (10Gb) Ethernet and higher are required for HD, 25Gb for UHD, in a world where most productions need to operate within a 1Gb Ethernet infrastructure for both availability and cost.
To shed light on that aspect, RedShark News spoke with NewTek’s Will Waters about the state of NDI® just prior to NAB 2017. In the resulting article, they also share some insights on how the changeover to IP workflow is progressing for video production and broadcast. Within the broad range of production where the need is to maintain absolute quality in video over existing 1Gb Ethernet infrastructure, NDI has become the everyday working standard. NewTek’s royalty-free technology is deployed in hundreds of products in the hands of millions of users, from entry-level webcasting to national and global broadcast production. In RedShark’s words:
“NewTek’s NDI customers range from small indie producers to schools and churches, YouTube and Facebook streamers and corporates which are all increasingly looking to communicate with live video.
However, it also points to traditional broadcast networks and “very high visibility productions with viewers ranging into the billions” as NDI customers. These include Chinese state caster CCTV using NDI to create shows around the Chinese New Year.”
Waters notes for RedShark that while it has concentrated on NDI and making IP video possible in the 1GB environment, NewTek is also mindful of the high-end. “Some large traditional broadcast operators require specific needs in the IP network such as uncompressed video, dealing with multiple essences and tagging metadata for existing workflows. AIMS and SMPTE are aimed at solving these problems,” explained Waters.
AIMS is a consortium of vendors which advocates for IP standards to meet high-end broadcast needs. NewTek covers that base: the NewTek IP and Connect lines of products, including the new NewTek NC1 I/O Studio Input/Output Module, support these high-end standards. That includes SMPTE 2022-6 now (uncompressed SDI signal over 10Gb Ethernet or better) and will include SMPTE 2110 when it is ready.
NewTek’s NDI is the only practical solution that operates in the 1Gb Ethernet realm, and scales in capability from there upward, as bandwidth is increased. Taken with the support for current and forthcoming SMPTE uncompressed IP standards, NewTek’s IP technology capabilities thus span the entire range needed to offer IP workflow to every level of production.
Read the complete story at RedShark News: NewTek’s NDI-powered alternate on-ramp to IP
Read how over 40 companies collaborated in a massive IP live production demo at NAB 2017: NewTek NDI® Creates Interoperability
Tools
Download this free suite of tools to get started with NDI or expand video opportunities throughout your network. Integrate devices and applications into your workflow, add new content sources, and much more.
Applications
Shop premium NDI software applications for IP production workflows, including connectivity, recording, telestration, and mobile camera solutions—and try free and demo versions of select applications.
Software Developer Kit (SDK)
Join the largest ecosystem of IP products in the industry. Download the royalty free NDI SDK to access the tools and resources to integrate native NDI support into your systems, devices, and applications today.
What The Industry Is Saying
Adobe Pro Video
“Adobe Creative Cloud users appreciate our advanced tools which help them be their most creative. NewTek NDI for the Adobe Creative Cloud plug in delivers the efficiency that content creators need to help them do great work in today’s fast-paced production environments. It also opens the door for editors and producers who want to bring the streamlined power of Adobe Premiere Pro CC into their live production workflows.“
— Sue Skidmore, Head of Partner Relations
Evertz
“With over 40 global installations of Evertz SDVN, the addition of NDI support will expand that install base. By supporting NDI, media companies deploying IP live production can leverage an open architecture that handles small webcast productions to large UHD productions seamlessly. The inclusion of NDI in our SDVN solution also maintains our commitment to support open formats that are proven to work including ASPEN (SMPTE RDD37) and SMPTE 2022-x series of standards.”
— Eric Fankhauser, VP of Product Development
Panasonic
“The original vision of simple yet truly remote production from almost anywhere is now achieved with built-in NDI support in PTZ cameras and switchers. A single cable enables simplified video production without sacrificing quality or feature-set, in addition to the inherent features of Panasonic’s PTZ line-up including a family of controllers, image quality and smoothness in movement.”
— Delix Joseph T. Alex, Product Manager for PTZ Camera and IP Networking Systems, Panasonic Media Entertainment Company
Vizrt
“The Vizrt world is all about now and the future – and everything in between. What we are showing with our partners, Cisco and NewTek, is so close to “now” that one can touch it. This proof of concept (virtualized control rooms based on NDI) shows how software-based tools make live productions ever more flexible so that industry can be prepared for now and the future at the same time.”
— Petter Ole Jakobsen, Vizrt CTO
Cisco
“Virtualization and control room automation over IP are the future of live production. Featuring this first-of-its-kind virtualized control room along with NewTek and Vizrt is sure to be a draw for many of our customers this year at the (NAB 2018) show.”
— Roger Sherwood, Director of Business Development, Media Segment, Service Provider Business, Cisco
DELTACAST
“It is exciting to have over 60 video cards with different I/O options visible as sources in the large NDI ecosystem, creating new ways of thinking and working. NewTek NDI users will also gain access to SMPTE-2022-6 and in the future to other IP standards such as VSF TR-03 and ASPEN.”
— Christian Dutilleux, CEO of DELTACAST
Celebro Drives Live TV with NDI®
Wesley Dodd, CEO of Celebro Media Celebro Media Group has in just a few years grown from its initial …
El Salvador’s NDI® Video Revolution is Coming For You
The revolution has begun, and it’s coming straight for you. Like many revolutions, this particular uprising started in a relatively …
Connect Spark™ Adds Versatility, Flexibility, Quality to Live Production for JupiterReturn
Victor Borachuk has stayed at the vanguard of streaming video since its early use. As a result, his company JupiterReturn …
Panopto Announces Support For NewTek NDI® Standard
Video over IP enables Panopto customers to save significant time and costs on video platform deployment
April 9, 2018, Seattle – Panopto, the leading enterprise video platform provider, today announced support for the NewTek NDI® standard. NDI enables businesses and universities to connect IP-based cameras and other NDI-enabled devices to Panopto’s video capture and encoding software. By connecting these video sources over a standard Ethernet LAN, Panopto customers eliminate the need for HDMI/SDI cable runs and video decoding hardware, saving significant time and costs on video platform deployment.
Since its introduction in 2015, NewTek’s NDI standard has generated widespread industry support from video camera, production switcher, and capture card vendors including Panasonic, JVC, Magewell, Osprey, AverMedia, Telestream, Teradek, and Matrox. With today’s announcement, NDI-compatible devices from these manufacturers can directly connect to Panopto as part of a live or on-demand video streaming workflow.
For many organizations, Panopto’s support for NDI will add a new level of flexibility to managing video capture infrastructure. NDI-compatible equipment can be moved from room to room whenever necessary, without the need to maintain a hard pairing between camera and encoder. In this environment, a virtualized fleet of Panopto encoders could be reconfigured on the fly to different video capture devices.
NDI also works in concert with Panopto’s distributed video capture. This unique capability enables organizations to synchronize physically separate video sources in the cloud and stream them as a single production. For example, Panopto could synchronize an NDI-enabled camera at the back of an auditorium with a demo laptop on stage, capturing both feeds simultaneously and streaming them to a live audience without the need for physical connections between the video sources.
“Since Panopto’s founding in 2007, we’ve had a relentless focus on simplifying video capture and management workflows,” said Eric Burns, co-founder and CEO of Panopto. “Today’s support for NDI is the next logical step toward this goal, making it easier and less expensive for our customers to deploy their video infrastructure and reconfigure it as the needs of their organizations evolve.”
“Software-driven IP workflows are quickly becoming ubiquitous in video production,” said Michael Kornet, executive vice president and general manager of NDI for NewTek. “NDI-enabled products like Panopto create efficiencies and opportunities in live and on-demand production for customers that didn’t previously exist. NDI is the most widely adopted IP technology on the market, epitomized by the millions of customers with access to it today.”
About Panopto
Panopto helps businesses and universities create searchable video libraries of their institutional knowledge. Since 2007, the company has been a pioneer in video capture software, video content management systems, and inside-video search technology. Today, Panopto’s video platform is the largest repository of expert learning videos in the world. Headquartered in Seattle, with offices in Pittsburgh, London, Hong Kong, and Sydney, Panopto has received industry recognition for its innovation, rapid growth, and company culture. For more information, visit www.panopto.com.
About NDI
NDI is in use on millions of devices and allows multiple video systems to identify and communicate with one another over IP. NDI can encode, transmit and receive many streams of high quality, low latency, frame-accurate video and audio in real time. This benefits any network-connected video device, including video mixers, graphics systems, capture cards, and many other production devices. This makes it possible to exponentially increase the number of sources available for live production switching, without directly attaching to devices, changing locations, or investing in expensive, high-bandwidth networks that simply replace SDI-based workflows. #NDIcentral
For more information on NDI, visit https://www.newtek.com/ndi/.
Published: April 06, 2018
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Affordable Streaming: How to Look Like the Pros
See the whole article here: https://www.streamingmedia.com/Producer/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/Affordable-Streaming-How-to-Look-Like-the-Pros-128410.aspx
Dr. Andrew Cross talks about the new open standard for video over IP called NDI, Network Device Interface.
https://www.tvtechnology.com/broadcast-engineering/newtek-ndi-and-the-future-of-video-over-ip
Ten misconceptions about NDI
https://www.redsharknews.com/production/item/4846-ten-misconceptions-about-ndi
Paving New Roads With NDI®
July 18, 2017 by Jimmy Goucher
Have you ever had one of those conversations that was so deep and packed full of knowledge that it took days to digest? The kind of conversation that made you feel as though your brain had actually gained mass? (read more)
https://www.newtek.com/blog/2017/07/18/paving-new-roads-with-ndi/
The Next Evolution of NDI®
April 08, 2018 by Dr. Andrew Cross and Steve Bowie
From its start, NewTek’s mission could be distilled to one imperative – to give storytellers a voice through video. We are convinced that computers, software and networks are the three keystones of the next generation of video tools, not for high-end markets only, but for anyone who wants to produce a show, or stream their team, class or congregation – and have fun while doing it. (read more)
What Are The Free NDI Applications and Where Do I Get Them?
August 12, 2016 by Chuck Baker
https://www.newtek.com/blog/tips/what-are-the-free-ndi-applications-and-where-do-i-get-them/
How to Acquire, Install and Use the Free NDI Tools Pack
https://www.newtek.com/blog/tips/getting-and-using-free-ndi-tools-pack/
NDI Powered applications for IP Video Workflows
NDI 4 announced for 2019 Q2 delivery
https://www.newtek.com/press-releases/newtek-vizrt-annouce-ndi4/
A curated list of awesome tools related to NDI
Video over IP is the last standard you’ll ever need Aug. 19, 2019