Watch the whole playlist here - [ Ссылка ]
Get the book free here - [ Ссылка ]
Early access to the course on Udemy here - [ Ссылка ]
Video Index:
0:00 - 2:26 - How to use NDI with your smartphone and OBS
2:27 - 3:29 - Setting up an NDI network switch for OBS
3:30 - 4:07 Adding NDI to OBS
4:08 - 5:29 - Output NDI video from OBS
5:30 - 6:49 - Input NDI video into OBS
6:50 - 7:09 NDI Bandwidth considerations
7:10 - 9:09 - Monitoring LAN bandwidth for NDI
9:10 - 10:04 Free NDI tools
10:05 - 12:33 - Dedicated NDI Output Filter in OBS
NDI stands for Network Device Interface and it is an IP video production protocol originally developed by NewTek. NDI was released in 2015, and it has since become one of the most popular IP video production connectivity options for professionals around the world. The NDI plugin is available for OBS Studio users on Mac, PC and Linux computers. The plugin was originally released in June of 2017 by a french developer named Stéphane Lepin with the user name Palakis. As of 2022, OBSProject.com shows the NDI plugin has been downloaded over 1.7 million times. Over the past few years, Palakis has made regular updates and improvements to the plugin.
NDI itself is not open source and therefore it can not be developed into the core OBS application. NDI is royalty-free and the plugin that Palakis has developed uses the royalty-free software development kit (SDK) to add NDI functionality into OBS. Once installed the plugin allows users to bring NDI audio and video sources into OBS and send NDI audio and video sources out of OBS.
Adding NDI sources to OBS
The nice thing about NDI is it’s ease of use when discovering video sources on your network. You can bring NDI video sources into OBS using the “NDI Source” option available in the sources menu. This allows you to name the NDI source and search through a list of available NDI sources on your network. The current OBS plugin integration allows you to connect to NDI sources in two bandwidth modes “highest” and “lowest.” You can also choose to connect with “audio only.” An important option to understand when using multiple NDI cameras is called Sync. NDI is able to synchronize multiple cameras or video feeds together using time codes that can come from the device itself or the network. Most NDI video sources can be set up to synchronize with a common Network Time Protocol (NTP) server. Your network should have an NTP server in place or you can use a commonly used server such as time.windows.com or time.google.com. NTP settings are so important to IP video, they will be covered in more detail in an upcoming chapter.
Outputting NDI sources from OBS
You can send NDI video out of OBS easily using the NDI Output Settings found in the Tools dropdown menu. This area allows you to send two main NDI outputs. You can send the “Main Output” which is your “Program” window in OBS Studio and you can send your “Preview Output” which is your “Preview” window. Simply check the outputs you want to send via NDI, give them a name and press OK. Once you have done this your NDI video sources coming from OBS will be discoverable on your local area network (LAN).
The latest version of the NDI plugin for OBS also includes a special NDI filter that can be applied to any audio or video source in OBS. This is an ideal way to take a specific source and make a dedicated NDI output available on your network regardless of whether it is in preview or program. To access this filter, you can right click on any source and select the “Filters” option. Here you can choose to apply a dedicated NDI output with both audio and video or a dedicated NDI output just audio only. Once you create a dedicated NDI output filter you can name the NDI source and click “Apply Changes.” Once done, your NDI source will be made available on your network.
It’s worth noting that OBS will never have native support for NDI. All code in the OBS project must be 100% open source. NDI itself is royalty-free, but the code is not open source. Therefore, the plugin provides a legal way for OBS to interface with NDI. So why is OBS so important to the NDI ecosystem overall? NDI essentially opens up thousands of new video input and output opportunities for OBS users. Because OBS is free, it has become a go-to solution for creating NDI video and sending it out into a LAN.
