How NDI Enables Professional-Grade Production for Webcasts | Sound & Video Contractor

Live streaming productions are becoming more integrated into our lives as viewers and consumers. Whether it's a podcast that is also streamed out live on YouTube or a helpful live webinar, we all have probably watched and absorbed a live streaming broadcast of some kind. With any medium, as time progresses forward so does the technology and techniques used for it. From once being a one or maybe two camera shoot with fixed in connections, streamers have been able to add more cameras and switching capabilities between them. And now with the introduction of NewTek's NDI, cameras don't necessarily need to be plugged into the encoding/streaming device. For anyone using PTZ (pan, tilt, zoom) cameras especially, give them power and a source of internet and you're able to remote the camera feeds in and monitor them. Doing anything as a one-man production is difficult enough, but it's looking like live streaming is becoming easier and easier to accomplish with less man-power behind it.

Content consumers expect webcasts to appear produced and professional, with multiple camera angles, graphics, and all of the elements we've traditionally associated with television broadcasts. This hasn't happened as quickly as it might, in part because of the cost of dedicated video networks and the limitations of SDI or HDMI connections.

Many of these obstacles are quickly falling away as a result of NewTek's royalty free NDI (Network Device Interface) technology, which allows for SDI and HDMI camera outputs to be connected to a standard GigE network. This significantly reduces network and bandwidth requirements for multicam webcasts, eliminates the distance restrictions of HDMI cabling and permits 4K video streaming without the cumbersome limitations of using four SDI cables.

By using NDI in a video-over-IP network, content creators can also use the same Ethernet connection to control remote cameras, such as the PTZ (pan, tilt, zoom) units that have become very popular for live webcasts that don't have the budget or crew that would be necessary for a traditional style multi-camera production. Customers adapting quickly to all-live production spaces—including those from sports, schools, government, houses of worship, and corporations – are making the most of the combination of NDI and the high-quality imaging recorded by the latest generation of PTZ cameras....[continue reading]