Send NDI out of the local network

Flame Tools and Tech
1

Is anyone using NDI and sending that signal outside the local network? I’m trying to round up the possible solutions for this and find the best option.

I think I know of two options right now:

  • Use OBS or similar on the local network to grab the NDI and send it out as ‘webcam’ to zoom/teams/skype. Client side connects to the zoom/teams/skype.
  • VPN the non-local client to make it ‘local’ and use NDI Studio Monitor.

I know the guys at the AWS booth at NAB were running flame on the cloud. The interface monitor was coming through Teradici and the ‘broadcast’ was coming through NDI. Anyone know what they were using on the client side to receive that NDI?

2

A few thoughts. @finnjaeger has a tool that is pretty good which converts NDI to SRT and puts it on a website for ya.

NDI is not really designed to go long distances and is very high in bandwidth. But, if you want to try it, all you have to do is be on the same network and a NDI Studio Monitor application on a Windows box or NDI Video Monitor on a Mac or even the Sienna NDI Monitor App for iOS or heck even the Sienna NDI Monitor app for Apple TV will pick it up. So fire up that vpn connection and boom.

1 Like
3

Or NDI Bridge could be an option.

4

Thanks Randy - I saw NDI Bridge is part of NDI 5.0 but I thought flame was still NDI 4. I’ll see if the client side can be 5.

5

I think they updated to the latest NDI a few months back.
Some questions though.

  1. What are your color fidelity requirements?
  2. What are your resolution requirements
  3. What are your latency requirements
  4. What type of receiver are you expecting? App-based, web-based, or hardware appliance based
  5. How much involvement are you interested in? Turn key service or DIY?
  6. Why NDI and not SDI?
6

Hi Alan -
I’m testing a cloud system and wanted to see if sending NDI for ‘broadcast’ would be smoother than dual UI monitors. So I’m looking for Teradici to send one 4k UI monitor and NDI to send HD broadcast.

Right now color fidelity and resolution aren’t the main concern. Resolution would just be HD and I’m trying to get stable 24/30fps playback.

It seems like NDI Bridge will work. I’m figuring out the port forwarding for that now.

7

18 days too late, but I’m hoping NDI Bridge has solved your issues. If not, and the intent is to deliver broadcast output for remote client sessions, you could consider using ffmpeg with NDI support for capture and then output to, e.g., Ant Media Server for WebRTC presentation at very low latency. Would go back to Alan’s question over colour fidelity though.

8

I’ve been using NDI at home (windows PC), but yep, having to VPN into the office network to get it. Not ideal or practical for clients. It’s bloody good when up and running. I sometime take the Sony OLED for the office and use that at home, and the quality is the same as sitting in the suite.

We are activly looking into get NDI 5.0 ‘bridge’ up for clients, but I think there’s no MAC OS support yet? 99% of out clients would have Mac, so it’s a show stopper at the moment for us getting pics out to clients via NDI.

(sorry to be clear… home set up is NDI for the broadcast monitor, and using Zremote Boost?? for the UI monitor)