The Power of NDI – How to Use NDI in Your Business
January 20, 2022
NDI, what is it?
NDI stands for Network Device Interface and you have probably heard of or even used it before in your broadcast career. NDI enables more video capabilities to exist by opening up the world of IP-based video transport over standard TCP/IP networks. It's a protocol that specifies an open architecture for streaming media between devices on the same network without requiring special hardware or operating systems. NDI allows nearly any device to capture live high-quality audio and video streams in real-time with low latency, which makes it ideally suited for live production workflows.
The Short History of NDI
NDI was originally a way to bring broadcast-quality video to more people. When NDI was created, the broadcast industry still relied on SDI cabling for audio and video signals. With several hardware components, you need to connect SDI cables. It can be expensive to use, but they are reliable. SDI also only allows you to carry one signal at a time but NDI allows broadcasters to send video signals over a network instead of using SDI. This change made it easier and more affordable for them to incorporate high-quality video into their productions with less time wasted. NDI also eliminated the need for dedicated hardware in order to encode or decode NDI streams. This made it possible to use NDI with just about any device that has an Ethernet port.
NDI in a live production workflow
Nowadays, NDI is used all throughout the broadcast world in many different workflows. One effective way to use NDI is for live streaming productions. With NDI, you can easily connect multiple cameras, audio devices, graphics systems, and computers together into a single production environment. This makes it easy to create a professional-looking live stream without having to worry about video and audio delay or synchronization issues. NDI even makes it possible to connect remote devices together without having to run long cables, which is convenient for streaming events that are far away from the NDI-enabled studio!
Since NDI was originally developed by NewTek, you can use NDI on pretty much any device made by NewTek. This includes cameras like TriCaster 8000 series switchers (which let you add NDI input/output cards), production PCs like the TriCaster Mini PC (which has an onboard NDI I/O card), and laptops with a Thunderbolt port (like the iMac Pro). It’s also compatible with many other brands of capture hardware including Blackmagic Design and NDI-enabled IP cameras.
News Rooms Workflow
How Is NDI Useful? - Remote meetings with NDI
Remote meetings NDI is also helpful for remote broadcasts! NDI can be used to send video and audio streams between any two devices in the same network. This means it’s easy to operate NDI over a standard internet connection even when you are thousands of miles away from your production equipment. This makes setting up live video conferences with people all around the world very simple. This is whether they are using an iPhone or Android device or just have a laptop open on their desk at work. View our article on how to use your phone camera as a webcam.
NewTek’s Network Device Interface (NDI®) has achieved massive growth and deployment, NDI has brought us into new territory that allows much more creativity in creating unique content no matter where we are situated.
We hope this article was helpful! NewTek’s Network Device Interface (NDI®) has achieved massive growth and deployment. NDI has brought us into new territory that allows much more creativity in creating unique content no matter where we are situated. Applied Electronics offers installation and consultation, so if you're interested in using this technology, please get in touch! We would be happy to answer any questions you have. Email: AELinfo@appliedelectronics.com Thanks for reading!