NewTek NDI Camera Questions Answered
This week we will discuss our new NDI™ compatible cameras models with Nick Smith from JB&A. PTZOptics has recently announced four new NDI compatible broadcast quality PTZ cameras which use NewTek’s industry leading IP video transmission protocol. Today we will talk about NDI Spark the new HDMI and HD-SDI converters for NDI which will feature WiFi support for NDI video signals. The NewTek Spark conversion boxes have interesting features such as local recording, HDMI and/or HD-SDI pass through functionality along with WiFi and hard-wired Ethernet.
Nick Smith will help us uncover the world of NewTek NDI possibilities for Churches in video production along with regular broadcast studios. We will announce a new upgrade path for existing PTZOptics customers with Gen 2 HD-SDI camera models who would like to upgrade their cameras firmware to support NDI. We will also look at some restrictions for multi-casting with NDI using a WAP (Wireless Access Point) and discuss the benefits of video over IP using the Newtek NDI.
NewTek’s NDI 3.0 will be released August 1st 2017, which is a topic of much interest in the broadcast industry. We will discuss how this new technology is being used in the PTZOptics cameras and talk about budget numbers between the different camera models.
We are joined LIVE by Nick Smith, Director of Technology at JB&A Distributing. Today we’ll cover the major Newtek NDI announcements this week. How can NDI help your live streaming production? We’ll show you that today.
Learn more about the NewTek NDI for live streaming PTZ Cameras
- Check out test results from NDI Cameras with wirecast, vmix, xsplit and Livestream here.
- NDI HX is the new “High Efficiency” version of the NewTek NDI. Learn more here.
- Your NewTek NDI questions answered from Dr. Andrew Cross here.
- 20 Minutes on the NewTek NDI w/ the chief engineer here.
- The world of video conferencing w/ IP Video & the NewTek NDI here.
- All your questions about the NewTek NDI cameras answered live here.
- PTZOptics releases four NDI compatible PTZ camera models here.
- H.265 Streaming, VLC integration and the NDI plugin here.
- How to add cameras to the Newtek Connect Pro App here.
- How to use NDI Transmit for video conferencing with the Newtek NDI here.
Video Transcript:
Newtek Connect Spark, Wireless NDI & More w- Nick Smith from JB&A
NewTek Connect Spark NDI Cameras Wireless
Paul Richards: Okay. Eight seconds, it’s time to start the show. Ladies and gentlemen, here we go.
Speaker 2: You’re watching, PTZ Optics Live. Our 1080p broadcast available exclusively on YouTube Live every Friday. Streaming at 11 a.m. Pacific, 2 p.m. Broadcast quality made affordable. Thank you for tuning in.
Paul Richards: Welcome, welcome, welcome to PTZ Optics Live. We are so happy to have you here on this beautiful Friday, July 14th, two days after some amazing Newtek NDI news for released hot off the press. We have to bring in Nick Smith from JB&A to help with some of this cool new stuff.
Nick Smith: Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me.
Paul Richards: My pleasure. As you guys all probably know unless you’re brand new, I stream every Friday at 2p.m. eastern that’s 11 a.m. pacific and we actually broadcast to Facebook and YouTube using the Newtek NDI, which we’re going to show-off today with all its glory. I just want to let you guys know, I’m covering up Nick for a second to let people know our charitable donations, if you hit that like button you are helping us at one dollar to our charity up to $250. Now that we’re on Facebook we can probably up our charitable donations for a bit.
Tess Protesto: Hopefully that includes Facebook likes.
Paul Richards: We recently, this is super recent, we recently released four NDI camera models have been announced. There’s going to be shopping sometime in the fall. We’ve got some really cool, if you’re a current STI Gen 2 customer we’ve got some new news for you that’s going to make you pretty happy and then we’re going to unveil that with Nick today. But first I want to start off with a social media update from Tess.
Social Media Update
PTZOptics Facebook User Group
Tess Protesto: Thank you very much, Paul. Hi everybody in YouTube and on Facebook. Welcome, welcome. Talk to me in the chat. We have our latest Facebook users up here on a vMix title. So this is our latest ten users. We’re pulling them in. They are data sources. We just want to show some love to you and welcome to the family.
If you haven’t yet joined the Facebook user group, head to Facebook.com/groups/PTZOptics pal, live I’ve been saying that on overload. But if you didn’t catch me saying that 500 times in the pre-show, I’ll swear that’s the last time I’ll say it. Actually, that’s not true. I might be at the end of the show, too.
Anyways, thank you guys. It’s a great place to come and be a part of our community and hang out after the show.
JB&A Video Production Distributor
JB&A NewTek Distributor
Nick Smith: So, JB& A is a distributor of your product along with your Newtek and other stuff where you need bunch. We’re a bunch of nerds that loved technology and we’ve decided well if we’re going to love it, let’s sell it. And, we worked through the dealers in North America to help them place really cool products and unique applications.
We do a lot in live production and post production and broadcast. And, all of our products we partnered with our dealers to help find the right fit and the right products for them.
It’s that you know we’re kind of like the consultants / distributors / best friend.
Tess Protesto: I love it.
Paul Richards: It’s true and you guys definitely have that feel, which I love. Okay, so that gives us a little insight. Our next topic is about the Newtek NDI specifically I want to jump right into this because there were a lot of questions. Tess, you’re watching the chat?
Tess Protesto: Yup, those fast.
Paul Richards: As soon as those questions come up, we’re going to be answering them. I just want everyone to know that we will be having Andrew Cross on the show next Friday. So prepare your tough questions for Andrew.
Nick Smith: I will write them down, man. It’s worth a grill.
Paul Richards: I think we’re allowed to. We’re allowed to grill him and I’m excited about grilling him. So just bring those questions.
But I got a little presentation and Nick and I and Tess are going to kind of chime in here and take us through just the basics. I think the first question I want to ask you Nick is what is a world, explain to me a world where we don’t need RS232 and HDSDI cabling because that’s the world we all grew up in, that’s the world we know and love and now Newtek is kind of flipping us on our head and saying you don’t no longer need those cables.
Ethernet vs HD-SDI vs RS-232
Ethernet vs HD-SDI and RS-232
Nick Smith: Yes, I get it. Let’s just take the RS232 first. First, nobody even knows what it is because is it a Visca, is it a Sony 8 pin, is it a DB9, what is it, right? And, what’s the correct pin out? So let’s jump that cable because everybody’s gone to IP control of their cameras so now finding the switchers can take control of that and a loop it into the same stream and it’s all it really is control, guys. It’s a serial string of data that says move left, move right, move up, move down, zoom in, zoom out.
We’re saying let’s not do it over a fixed cable because there are distance limitations with that fixed cable. There is pin out mismatches if you’re trying to use it in the [00:07:37], there’s all this mess. Let’s like junk it. What we’re going to do now is just use the network the same way we’re transmitting video with MDI.
So, now that’s off the table. Now, I don’t have to worry about people not having the right serial cable, the right 232 cable.
Next, now we can talk about SDI. SDI has been awesome. I built so many studios around SDI because look at the cable and that one cable carries a lot of data. It carries the video, it carries the audio. You know, most people don’t realize they can use up to 16 channels of audio down an SDI cable. So it’s a phenomenal piece of technology.
But also it also a cable. In the end, cables have limitations, distances, crimping that cable, making sure it’s been done correctly so now that’s off the table. What do I need? A cat 5 cable, perfect. You can’t mess that up because you can go buy from Fry’s or Best Buy or whatever I need or Amazon and I can plug that cable in and then I now have video and I have control and I have audio and I have all kinds of other insularly data and I’m just using my network. Does that sum it up?
Paul Richards: Yes. You did a great job summing that up. Just using your network is something that I don’t think a lot of people today— I know that Tess and I just did a live stream a couple of weeks ago, we didn’t bring a network with us. A lot of people they go do portable, they run SDI, they run serial just to make sense. I was like, “I’m not going to setup a network. I’m not going to set up a wifi router which I wish I would have done.” After thinking about it with the automation through IP, next year when I do this event that we do every year I’m definitely setting up a network switch.
I have to mention this, I guess. I should have put this further down the presentation.
Nick Smith: Oh, you blew the— the big story came out early. Fair enough.
Paul Richards: What I want to talk about is the network and all that. But let’s just, all cards in the table here everybody. If you have a Gen2 PTZ Optics camera that’s SDI there will be a limited time promotion for $300 you can upgrade to the NDI form where when it’s available, so it’s going to be available for a pre-order. That’s a $300 savings.
Newtek really wants to help people get on board, bring their workflows in the IP, look at things differently which is what we’re talking about today.
PTZOptics NDI Camera Model Upgrade
PTZOptics NDI Camera Model Upgrade
This $300 upgrade cost is going to be a steal of a price. It’s only available for a limited time. We’ll talk about that next week with Andrew. But I wanted to get in to what is a network?
Can you explain to me Nick, just for those who are just out there who might not be understanding this. A local area network different than a WAP, which is a wireless access going different from a WAN, which is a wide area network. Can you just kind of explain to us, I think a lot of people are going to be bringing power over Ethernet, gigabit, five gigabit, 10 gigabit switches with them when they live stream and why are they going to that?
Nick Smith: Hold on because I’m in the nerd cave. So let me go grab something that will help us tell this story.
Paul Richards: Okay, good.
Tess Protesto: He’s a character.
Paul Richards: He is character. I don’t know if anyone saw.
Tess Protesto: I don’t even know what he’s bringing but I’m excited.
Paul Richards: The funny thumb nail where he is like the [00:10:49] character which is funny.
Nick Smith: Alright. That’s exciting TV when your commentators get up and leaves.
Tess Protesto: That’s live streaming for you.
Nick Smith: Let’s talk about WANs versus WAPs versus networks. I mean, how do we [00:11:05] video is one of these. It’s not necessarily a TP-Link, that was just a cheap one I had you know sitting in the office. But it’s a network switch and it’s the core of everything you’re doing. All these ports are your network ports where you’re going to plug Ethernet cables into and string those to all your devices.
Most people don’t know they exist because the reality is they’re in the space in office where there is just a jack on the wall and they plug items into it, the internet cables that run to their computer, their laptop, their switch or whatever their device.
At the heart of every network is one of those switches or in many cases a bunch of those switches depending on how big the network is. So I’ve seen rooms with just stacks and stacks of them all connected together. What this allows is that everybody has the ability no matter what room you’re in in the building to connect to the network.
And once you’re on the network that means any device that has its sharing capabilities turned on can be seen by other devices that can share that. An NDI camera at the other end of the building can be connected to the network and we can access it from this room in the building because it’s all on the same network.
Now, that’s different from obviously a WAN which is meeting on wires as if you connect it. I am no longer a tethered by a cable. I’m now flexibly remote like my phone is flexibly remote but I’m on the same network and I can access the same content. You know, be it in creating and in the eye stream and pumping it into the network.
But that inherently comes with problems and then if you want to talk about that now or we’ll hit off that a little bit.
Wireless NDI and WAP (Wireless Access Points)
Wireless NDI WAP
Paul Richards: I have a slide for that.
Nick Smith: Okay, so we’ll come back to that. But the point of it is that right network switch right there connects all of our devices together so they could communicate together at the highest speed each device is at possible is obtaining. Right, so be it 10 megabit, it’s a 100 megabits, a gig or as we get into the larger networks 10 gig and 40 gig and yes then you’re talking about the new, you’ve got the 5 gigabit on there which is a new protocol that’s just been ratified in the last year which is 5 and 25 gig networks.
All of this is wonderful because it gives us more capability to push more data down at single cable.
Paul Richards: The slide that we didn’t touch on yet the vMix, the wire cast, the live stream, the tri caster, the VLC, the LVS. This is what Newtek I really have to give them credit for is they’ve went out and it’s been up for a little over a year I guess, NDI, and already all the major live streams and platforms inherently support NDI. This is something where you can have an NDI camera on one side of the building and connect to it with your wire caster, your vMix, your try caster, and I think that’s the story we’re going to try bring to life today.
Nick Smith: Yes. Well, that can take at me from the building. Like, I go to college campuses where look if you think about it every building on campus is actually on the same network. Whether I’m in the stadium or the auditorium where they’re doing the play I’m on the same network. Now if I want to broadcast a production that’s live on stage but I don’t have the broadcast facility right there, it doesn’t matter.
I can encode the NDI tools or plug in PTZOptics cameras into the network and go pick those cameras up in the broadcast studio in the stadium across campus. Now, we just opened up the ability to produce content anywhere on campus and share that content out, you know, without having to worry about going and setting up an SDI router and all that other gear that we would have in the past.
Paul Richards: Let’s talk before going to the next slide, 10, 100 gigabit, 10 gigabit, you mentioned it. Generally, at this point it seems an NDI stream is 90 to 100 megabits. What that means is that if you have a 10/100 you pretty much shouldn’t be using NDI at all. If you’ve got a gigabit switch that means you can get nine, 10, maybe 11 but probably just 10 NDI sources on your network and that means you’re sending, receiving video camera and stuff like that.
I feel like really realistically it’s the five gigabit, the 10 gigabit, the 25 gigabit switches where we’re really going to see this stuff coming to action. Would you agree with me there and comment?
Local Area Network for NDI
Gigabit network NDI
Nick Smith: Yes. We struggle with this one all the time and the data world is people go, “I got a giga port so I should be getting a thousand megs, right?” Well, the reality is no. You’re not going to get a thousand megs just because you have a gig big port because the way network protocols work is that the data that’s been streamed is it has to be checked and balanced to ensure that it’s getting there. You never really can saturate the full gigging pipe because of the fact that you’ve had that certain network protocols there that ensure data is flowing and data is reverseful. Remember that cable goes unlike an SDI cable it goes one direction but even that cable goes two directions. We’ve got data flowing across that unique port. You never can get full saturation unless you’re using things like icecozzy and all these other network protocols.
We do want to ensure we’ve got the best possible connection to the device that’s going to suck the most data. If we look at some of the new switchers coming out they’ve got 10 gig and 40 gig ports on them because they’re the hub of all the data coming in. They’re sucking in 10, 15, 20 and in the eye sources I think you can have the most bandwidth available to them.
Whereas, the camera itself like the PTZ camera is only spinning a stream in one direction. So it means to have you know a minimum gig port so it has enough bandwidth to push full motion video.
But we definitely want to be thinking about that we’re designing a system for client to say, okay, well, let’s look at your network top hold you. Let’s look at where you’re going to be generating content, where you’re going to be consuming content to ensure you’ve got the most bandwidth available at that location.
Paul Richards: Yes, so again eventually we’re actually going to talk about multi-casting. But before we do I want to talk about simulcasting, a very different thing than multi-casting.
Tess Protesto: Yes, we got corrected on that five days ago.
Paul Richards: But we are simulcasting right now. We’re using NDI to do it. Our main broadcast PC is sending out 1080 P stream to YouTube and then via NDI we’re connecting to Tess’ PC over here which is sending out a 720p stream to Facebook and that’s how we’re connecting the two. So that’s I think simulcasting, the ability to do that is going to be huge for people out there who are just getting in to see what NDI can do for them. This is a great— anybody can do this whether you’re using [00:17:33] or wire cast or live stream, VLC, or a tricaster, you can do this with NDI. I think it’s a great like stepping stone. It’s tipping your toes in.
Now, I wanted to show a little bit of cost savings here and it’s teensy bit cut off that if you guys can follow me here.
Simulcasting to YouTube and Facebook with NDI
Simulcasting to YouTube and Facebook
Nick Smith: I’m trying to get around to see the rest of it.
Paul Richards: There we go.
Nick Smith: Okay, I got it.
Paul Richards: I just wanted to throw this out there from a cost saving standpoint. A 100 port of SDI cabling from PTZ Optics is a $189. A 100 foot of RS-232 cabling is $109. So right there, $300 in cabling where you can replace with a $25 from Best Buy. So, $275 of savings.
Nick Smith: Or $10 from Amazon.
Paul Richards: Yes, right.
Nick Smith: I can say more cables from Best Buy fail on me than ever had, than never works. I just stayed away and find a local pricer a techgrader or something does better cables because those cables matter in the end. The connectors matter, the cable itself matters, the jacket matters because those things do break down and you want to make sure you got the best going.
Paul Richards: I mean, if you’re going to replace $300 worth of cabling don’t throw it with the cheapest cable you can find but it’s going to be a huge savings. The frame grabber is a huge savings, right? We’re going to be using IP. It congests the video not a hardware based expensive frame grabber. And then, the Joystick, use the standard HC-JOY-G2. We don’t need to buy that anymore. So, right here is a thousand dollars worth of savings for one camera. So we’re opening up some doors.
Now, let’s think about it from a four camera system. Times like cabling times four, a four port HD-SDI switcher, a joystick, now we’re talking about $2390. So there’s huge cost savings to be had here but the biggest advantage is price list and that’s you’re inter connected workflow, which is what we’re going to dig in with Nick here. I wanted to take a church example.
I did this for a customer so they can understand. Nick, this is nothing new to you but can you explain kind of what’s going on here for those churches out there who are thinking about how can I use NDI?
Nick Smith: Yes, I mean for the church, one of the things we hit on earlier which is, with churches they usually, most of the buildings they’ve been around forever so video wasn’t part of their workflow when they built the building. So they slowly added overtime so usually infrastructures are major problem for them.
They don’t have SDI everywhere they needed to be. But they typically have network or they can put network at a much lower cost for simpler ease of use. Suddenly being able to put a camera anywhere, I mean, churches are fluctuating beast because at one Sunday they want the camera on stage, the next they want it up in the catwalk. Being able to say I can put that camera anywhere not after worry about expensive cabling and you’re running through conduits. I just got to drop a network cable and bam I now have a camera wherever I want it to be.
Newtek NDI Example in a Church
Church Example of NewTek NDI
Overflow rooms are a great one that you call out right there, it’s the ability now say cool. I also want to certainly have live video that’s not done over co-axe or through digital signage on the fly wherever I want in so now, we’ve got a laptop or the right receiving device like the [00:20:55]. You can have video anywhere, you know, as long you’ve got network connectivity.
So it’s really about giving these churches the flexibility of defining what they want to do on a week by week basis and modify their system to enable that. I worked one out a year ago and we had six locations that the cameras could go, and that was it. You could put those cameras in the NFP. Production supervisors something say, I love the camera on the other side of the stage. I’m like, well, go buy me a 200 ft., $4000 multi cord cable so that I can get that camera on that side of the stage. That’s out the door now, all you need is a Cat 5 [00:21:33].
Paul Richards: Very interesting.
Tess Protesto: How really quick we’re getting some repeat audio just from you. I don’t know how it’s happening.
Paul Richards: I think it’s coming…
Tess Protesto: They’re hearing it on Facebook and YouTube now.
Paul Richards: I think it’s got to be coming back from Nick because I couldn’t understand because we’re both going through the same audio.
Tess Protesto: Yes, I don’t know.
Paul Richards: There’s a little bit of an echo coming from you, Nick. Are you listening to your audio through your headphones?
Nick Smith: Yes.
Paul Richards: It can’t be coming from you.
Tess Protesto: Yes. Nick has ear buds, Paul has ear buds, I have ear buds. Can it be from my vMix input or my vMix?
Paul Richards: No. I’m not sure what that is.
Tess Protesto: That’s something that’s never happened to us.
Paul Richards: Never had to happen with me before.
Tess Protesto: There’s also ways something new every time you go live.
Paul Richards: Yes, I can hear it. Let me see if I can…
Tess Protesto: I don’t know how many times you’ve done it.
Paul Richards: I’m just going to close a bunch of browser and put to see if it has to do with it.
Tess Protesto: It might have been a browser input which that gets us all to a—
Nick Smith: [00:22:38] It’s the little things.
Tess Protesto: But that can be very distracting so just to make sure that we cover that before we move on.
Nick Smith: Thank you to the listener who cut that one and put it through.
Tess Protesto: Yes, absolutely. That’s Johnny on Facebook and Danny also.
Paul Richards: Thank you, guys. Alright. So, the next thing I want to talk about are these Newtek connect Sparks.
Nick Smith: Yes.
Paul Richards: How can— so tell us a little bit about that. Let’s jump into this. You know what? Can we jump over this in the post show because we’re run out of time? We’re going to pick this up in the poll show and we’re going to answer your questions, guys. We have a lot of fun stuff to talk about. So hold on. We’ll be [00:23:25].
Speaker 1: And, that’s all folks. We appreciate your participation in the chat room and can’t wait to host our next informative Q&A session. If you have questions drive the conversation forward for live streaming professionals around the world. Until next time. Happy streaming.
Post Show Q&A
Live Q&A – NewTek Connect Spark, Multicast, Wireless & Network Setup
Speaker 1: Now, it’s time to announce this week’s live technology give away winner. As noted in the contestant rules, all winners must be present in the chat room to claim a prize or a new winner will be drawn. Drum roll please.
Paul Richards: Yey. Let’s draw our winners. We’ve got three winners this week.
Tess Protesto: Three winners today.
Paul Richards: Everyone’s winning the Chat Connect Pro App. We have George, Mark Baker and Matt Kerner. Let me know if they are in the chat test and we’ll continue our conversation with…
Tess Protesto: George is geoi11@aol.com. This is George. You are aol.com, you are @geoi11
Paul Richards: Nick, let’s pick up where we left off here and I want to ask you a little bit about these NewTek Connect Sparks. We’ve got an SDI version, we’ve got an HDMI version and I also want to talk to you about this wireless portion of it all as well. Let’s jump into that.
Nick Smith: Yeah. You sort spoken as is, you got HDMI and you’ve got SDI. Decent cost, $499 and $799 to convert any old source that meets one of those two specs. Each of those have a loop out which is nice because if you want to drive them into a local monitors, you can still see whatever it’s outputting, that’s phenomenal. The interesting piece is that they announce the local recording, where you can plug a USB drive into it and record right off that box. I think that’s pretty powerful as well. It’s a nice little layout there. The wireless side of it…
Paul Richards: I have a slide for the wireless portion because I want people to understand how it works with our cameras in particular. So first of all, like Nick mentioned, we’ve got WIFI, w’eve got Direct Recording, we’ve got Tally Light, Super Fast Set-Up, Ethernet and Production Freedom and in a perfect world this is the set-up for a camera that’s not pan tilt zoom. Right? Why don’t we talk a little bit about wireless and how this could work properly with multicast Nick and then we’ll talk about how it can work with PTZOptic Scanners.
Nick Smith: Totally. I mean with wireless, whenever we are doing wireless videos, there’s always this scary thing. Because the question isn’t what the NewTek transmitter there, the spark itself but what’s in between the spark and the NDI receiver and what WAP are you using. When we say WAP it’s Wireless Access Point, which you know are using something cheap off the self or using something enterprise level so that’s really important to determine.
If you’re building an infrastructure, where you want to be wireless, having a good quality wireless access point that, that spark is connecting to because at some point, it doesn’t go wireless all the way to the laptop. At some point, it does get put into the standard network, the Ethernet network and becomes just another NDI signal.
You’ve got the weakest link in any chain. It’s going to be the WAP in this case. We want to make sure you’re using the good quality WAP. We also want to make sure that, that WAP can support things like streaming video and multiple devices because if we start to flood some of these really inexpensive, cheap off the shelf consume WAPS with multiple NDI signals you might crush them.
We’ve instances with other manufacturers that do wireless video transmission not NDI protocols but similar streaming protocols, where you put one of them on the network, no problem. You put two on the network probably not a problem. The third one crushes the network and now you have a problem.
When we’re building this kind of opportunity for this kind of system, we want to make sure that the WAP is a good solid WAP and that you test it and burn it in and make sure it can support, not just one device but maybe multiple devices.
Paul Richards: We’re hoping that this is going to be multicast enabled. There are some multicast enabled WAPS out there. In fact, we have one in here, in our office. We actually use Ubiquiti and Ubiquite, they are about a hundred dollars each. They are multicast enabled and I believe, I don’t know how many gigabits you can get off them but you’re going to need a nice quality WAP. Now this is one of the things we wanted to mention.
The other thing I wanted to mention is—here it is with the PTZOpitcs Cameras so what we want to remember is that the connect spark is not going to pass control or power to the PTZOptics camera. Think about that, you’re still going to need to run Ethernet cable for [00:04:56] and for control of your PTZOptics Camera. You can plug HDMI or HD-SDI to the spark and that will transmit your video but we’re still going to recommend and I think this would be pretty much everyone will recommend, plugging that indirectly to the Ethernet if possible because you are already running an Ethernet cable for power and control for your PTZOptics and now you can have a direct hard line for your connect spark and a direct hard line for your PTZOptics and I think that’s going to be your best scenario for using this.
Nick Smith: Yeah, it almost seems like I just want to buy a PTZ camera that has a built in so you can just go back to the one cable function. But if you got an existing camera and you want to upgrade it and you don’t have the funds to swap to a new camera, this is a great opportunity to engage that camera.
I think it’s going to open the opportunity to add more inputs to what your existing production. It’s not just cameras, it might be laptop, play out device. There’s always other kinds of other items that we can start to put into the next year, and suddenly broadens out the scope of what production means for you as a particular client.
Paul Richards: I want to jump to Q&A so I’m going to really skim through this next spot. Here’s an example for the connect spark in a gaming environment, in a conferencing environment. Here’s a traditional SDI workflow for large facilities, where they got a baseband router and vision mixers. Now we’re simplifying over IP. I’m just going to whiz through this because I want to get to the Q&A, I know there’s a lot of questions out there, right Tess?
Tess Protesto: Yeah, there’s some good questions out here.
Paul Richards: Here’s video production software and they’re switching it. There’s a ton of NDI tools, we’ve got a free course on this that digs an NDI transmit, ISO quarter, video monitor, telestrator, the Adobe Cloudy Plug-in, there’s even other third party platforms.
NewTek Transmit allows you to take any NDI source to make it available as a USB device for web conference. There’s an example of it being used with GoToMeetings, Skype, Webex video. The ISO quarter app allows you to record any camera on your network, that’s NDI capable. The free one is two channels, the pro one 16, there’s video monitor, which is a perfect pair with our IP Joystick, the PT Joy. So you can have a monitor of what you’re looking and have a joystick right over the network.
The telestrator allows you to drawl on top of things on any NDI source, great for sports. Adobe creative cloud plug in the [00:07:38] and I want to definitely get o the Q&A so let’s jump in to Tess and yeah.
Let’s jump into that. Nick I’m sorry I have you muted.
Tess; First I want to say that we have one of three winners, Mark Baker claimed his prize, we do need to withdraw I believe for the other winners. In the meantime, MKB Webinar says, “Is it possible to use NDI over a power line because in that case, you can use the camera power also for sending NDI signal to your switch?
Nick Smith: Power line converters are interesting monkey. I would say need to one, look at that particular converter and determine that it’s get the bandwidth because not all power line converters are built equally. What I see usually [00:08:38] 270 megs so there not a giggy port effectively In the amount of data that can transfer.
They also can inherently add noise to the signal because they’re are going cross power and [00:08:54], you can create other problems along that side so I won’t say you can’t do it. What I would say is test it burn it in and make sure you like the experience and then put it on Facebook so the rest of us can see that you pulled it off because that’s a great idea.
Tess Protesto: Penny Hampton is asking about IP control over the network. He says, he is still confused with IP joystick. Can you control the PTZOptics over the network, wireless or wired?
Paul Richards: The IP Joy and the camera themselves will be connected to the Ethernet but as we explained a little bit in this presentation, there can be wireless access points in between potentially but yeah, I mean those two devices are hardwired Ethernet devices so the cameras hardwired to Ethernet, Ethernet port right on the back and the joy stick but it all can be over these large local area networks that we are talking about.
Nick Smith: Paul that’s a great point to bring up because you talked about, you know, there could be multiple devices and multiple network hops and it might possibly go through a WAP at some point too. Some of these buildings are large campuses are spread out. It’s good to test these things and to look at what the latency is. With the more network drops you have, the more switches it cascades through, the more latency you’re inherently adding ito the system. It’s always good thing to test, test, test, test.
Tess Protesto: Right. Ted had a question come in a little bit ago but he’s comparing CAT5 rather than CAT6, why not the higher rated cable?
Paul Richards: I would definitely suggest CAT6. CAT5 is a little bit less expensive and it’s still going to give you a gigabit of Ethernet connection. The main differences I believe is the shielding, would you say Nick?
Nick Smith: Yes, it’s the shielding and the thickness of the wire as well inside. The longer the distance is I would recommend the CAT6. Small interact wiring things CAT5 is fine. When you start moving into the 10-gig, the 5-gig and some of the newer protocols coming up, you are going to want to stick to CAT6.
You will not find a lot of CAT7—I’m sorry you will find CAT7 in a lot of the 10-gig environment, when it comes to 10-giga of a coper rather than Fiber.
Paul Richards: Let’s just quickly—while we’re on that subject. I want to ask you a little about Multicast, it’s going to be come very important with any NDI 3.0, which I think we’re going to be grilling Andrew on next week but multicast is the ability that take up 1 channel of bandwidth but haven’t opened up in multiple systems. I think Nick’s going to give us something cool here.
Nick, I think we lost your audio.
Tess Protesto: There’s a huge…
Nick Smith: Yeah, yeah. I muted myself for the feedback.
Tess Protesto: I got nervous.
Nick Smith: Let’s talk about Multicaster, that’s really important. JT do we have one of the DAs? Hold on. I’ve got a DA here that will explain what multicast is or we can even use the switch.
Multicast is utilizing this as your DA. The network switch itself says that when I pump video into the switch that if I want to have five people viewing that video where five destinations pulling that video downstream. That the network switch is actually going to duplicate the signal to only the destination that are asking to receive it versus the Unicast, which would flood the network on every port, regardless if you want it or not.
Yu can create some sort of bandwidth conflict on the network. What we’re doing is effectively saying, if you have the right switch and that switch supports QoS, MPEG, or layer 3 technologies.
This switch will intelligently say I’m only going to send the video to the person who request. Therefore, preserving the amount of data flooding across the network. But it also acts as a DA. If we think of DA, distribution that means I have one source coming in and I need to carbon copy it to however many sources I need.
Typically, you would buy an SD ID, those can be a couple of hundred dollars. You’re limited in the number of ports. I buy 4 port AJ or black magic. I’d be four ports down stream. I can only feed four monitors, play out devices or whatever they might be. Your networks huge.
Suddenly you have a gigantic DA for all that signal. That means, I can have multiple NDI monitors, multiple recording locations, sucking those NDI Streams and recording recording those to disc. Now he’s got a whole massive, massive matrix type facility. Again, built in onto this device right here.
Another questions to ask?
Tess Protesto: MKB Webinar says, “I’ve been using the IP Joystick for camera control and two cameras on sports broadcasting. It works fine but just because of the latency over the video over IP on it’s way back. It was not possible to control the cameras accurately, with NDI would that problem be solved?”
Paul Richards: That is a great question. First of all, NDI is going to be it’s own protocol, which is interesting. It will actually be able to control PTZ cameras so it may become the preferred method in the future because NDI is going to be extremely low latency. I don’t know if you could speak to the latency on NDI a little bit Nick.
Nick Smith: It’s not the one that I would want, no. No, I won’t. It’s all over the map. Because it has to do with the source the destination, the network, there’s so many variables with latency. It is frames and in some instances down to lines.
When we’re talking to what latency actually is so it’s not one that I would comment because it has to do with what’s your network like what’s your source, what’s your device, what’s your destination device. That’s all those are parameters that goes into how much latency you’re going to see.
Paul Richards: I do have a tip for MKB, which is—our IP Joysticks use a protocol called “ONVIF.” Just like NDI where NDI has a bunch of tools and you have a video monitor or NDI video monitor, there is an ONVIF video monitor. If you’re using the ONVIF video monitor, and the IP Joystick, which is using ONVIF, those should match up better than like a direct STI signal, which is going to have less latency than anything over your network, except for NDI.
NDI should be at the same or better than HDMI and STI, which is why everyone so excited about it. Even our TSP streaming has gotten a lot better, latency wise. I think you are maybe seeing like a half a second of latency over the IP joysticks control. If you match up ONVIF with ONVIF, it should be a little bit smoother of a joystick operation workflow for you.
Nick Smith: Paul the official line is between 6 and 8 lines of latency depending on the source device and the network. It might be as low as 8 scan lines, which is really low and I know those people wouldn’t recognize scan line and don’t know what it is and that’s less than a frame effectively on video. It could go as high as 16. Again, depending on is this computer source, a camera source. It’s all over the map based on the network and other pieces.
Paul Richards: Do you have another question that you want to ask?
Tess Protesto: Ted says, “For used with portable systems, where your rolling up and unrolling internet cables Ethernet cables. What should users be looking for any specific manufacturer’s cable model numbers?
Paul Richards: that’s a good question. Look who’s that?
Tess Protesto: This is Ted Lindell. A new name for me. He’s watching on Facebook.
Paul Richards: Ted Lindell.
Nick Smith: Hey, Ted.
Paul Richards: Ted is thinking forward here, forward thinking from you Ted. He is actually thinking about rolling out a network switch in a portable scenario. From the guys they’ve talked to they say “Ah.” The portable guys are never going to switch to IP or they’re going to do SDI RS-232 and that as me,like two weeks ago.
Then I then realized that automating IP Controls and workflows and then I thought about it and I couldn’t have my wireless Ipad controls, Wifi, WAP and I should have done it. Now that I look back. I’m with you. I would just like to answer that one NIck.
Nick Smith: That goes back to the cable right. Buy a good cable. Cable rollers a dime in a dozen. They are out there they exist on the market. That’s not the problem.
It’s getting the right cable. There are different types of jackets on the actual cable itself and there’s different quality in the connectors. If you’re a professional whose going to roll out cables on a regular basis, I would look at the— there’s a Neutrik connector that looks like and XLR but it’s got an Ethernet cable connector on the sides. You get a nice hard shell exterior that’s deigned to be unhooked and hooked into a chassis a blocker or a cart on a regular basis so that you’re protecting that connector in the end from breaking.
We all know that little that tab breaks off. You’ve got nothing to hold the cable in. When somebody trips over your cable, then you’re cable is going to come out and you’ll lose your camera signal. The whole benefit to, DNC, which was the traditional SDI over the years is that. You have that locking connector that locks that SDI signal and I will just kind of pull it out like an HDMI or LESS video cable.
Look for a good quality cable with a rubber jacket so that it can be flexible it can be rolled dup and can be unrolled and can be twisted and look for a good hard connecter like the Neutrik ones so that it’s solid chunk when it goes the place and it’s not going to be kicked or broken.
Tess Protesto: One more quick thing before you move on Paul. Michael Raynard is curious abou the price about the four different cameras. Is there a price increase? What’s the price difference?
Paul Richards: The price increase for a normal PTZOPtics without NDI to NDI is $600 so it’s $2,199 is the map for NDI cameras from PTZOPtics. If you have a gen 2 SDI camera. We’re doing a special promotion. It’s going to be $300 until we start shipping.
Tess Protesto: We are?
Paul Richards: Yes. $300 upgrade special promotion until we start shipping the NDI models.
Tess Protesto: For the next couple of months probably.
Paul Richards: We need to do—it’s going to be basically our job to get the word out here.
Tess Protesto: This is the first time I’m hearing this.
Paul Richards: Yeah. I haven’t even told Tess yet.
Tess Protesto: Top Secret.
Nick Smith: My team if you ere on the phone, you better start making phone calls right now.
Paul Richards: It’s going to be—were opening it up. We haven’t even really a lot of this stuff is so brand new but basically…
Tess Protesto: You don’t have to send your cameras in. It’s going to be firmware update. Pay that $300 upgrade .
Nick Smith: Paul I need to clarify, that’s just going to be the SDI, not the HDMI only.
Paul Richards: Just the SDI models. The USB models, where building this for the SDI models so the NDI models are the essentially the old SDI models with NDI built in and the chips. It’s what inside that matter.
Tess Protesto: Paul with his non-verbal communication. It’s what’s inside.
Paul Richards: You want to keep going? I have question for Nick.
Tess Protesto: Go ahead.
Paul Richards: Nick, my question for you, a lot of corporate networks are not built for multicast and they’re not planning to build for multicast. From what I understand some of these higher end switchers, network switchers they allow you to have VLAN, where you can segment off a portion of your network and enable that portion of network to be multicast. Can you elaborate?
Nick Smith: Most switch is supported. At least not your cheap off the shelf switches or your going to find at your local Fry’s. You’re going to find it on most of your enterprise level or big corporate switches.
Most network admins don’t turn it on because one, they don’t want video on their network. The number on thing you can do to save yourself is to call you IT guy now and say, “Here’s what we’re planning, work with me on this.” Because most IT guys are afraid of video on their network, it’s going to crush their network, it’s going to flood there traffic, it’s going to make their lives miserable. I would say in our consulting, 90% of the time we end up with the IT guy at some point, sitting down with him saying, “Okay, let’s work on this together. Let’s VLAN this. Let’s build out a protocol for putting video on the network. Call your IT guy now and start the conversation. Start working with him to help you build out a subnet or a VLAN that allows you to manage videos independently.
Paul Richards: Either way just realized the Facebook Chat room was not —it was on and connected and set-up but I didn’t have the auto next going.
Tess Protesto: Nobody called us out on that I’m surprised.
Paul Richards: Someone called us out on that. Now the Facebook and the YouTube comments are showing up and we are using Chat Connect Pro to do that, which is free on all PTZOptics Cameras and we’re using vMIX Data Sources to pull that in. Questions?
Tess Protesto: Will power over IP will also work after the upgrade?
Paul Richards: POE is already part of all PTZOptics SDI models that are gen 2, regardless of whether it’s NDI or not. That’s not a feature that’s being added, that’s a feature that’s is included in both.
Tess Protesto: That covers us.
Paul Richards: That covers us. Great. Nick we talked about—that was just a couple of small thins that I thought, I think it’s definitely a learning process for a lot of us. A lot of us—a lot of people are really just getting into streaming. If you call B&H and you asked them, “Hey, how should I set this up?” They’re going to say, “Buy an input switcher, buy a Tricaster mini, run SDI to all these cables.” I don’t think they’ve been trained. It’s going to take them years to figure out how to set up these IP Netwroks. I fee like we’re definitely on the bleeding edge and we’re trying our best to make it so that in layman’s term I feel that a lot of this is super new like we just streamed an even two weeks ago. We used SDI and used our RS232 that’s what we knew and I still haven’t done a fill all NDI production yet. Have you?
Nick Smith: No. Everything we’ve done has been hybrid. It’s been mostly directly cable with a couple of add-ons, a couple of sources here and there. It’s not yet. I’m looking forward to it.
We’re building out a facility here so that it can be a hybrid with a couple of local sources and the rest NDI and thank you for the upgrade to the existing cameras so that we can make that Hybrid system.
There’s a few clients that we know about that are doing it. I would say even if you look at—we had a great panel discussion in NAD a couple of months ago, the ones who are at the bleeding edge are hybrid as well. I don’t think anybody is ready to do a complete cut over yet because they have existing infrastructures. They’ve been doing it for some time. Unless your building from the ground up, you’re probably always be a hybrid.
Paul Richards: I will say, I don’t know if you’ve seen our PTZOptics producer kits but it’s an [00:24:52] and i7 with 32 gigs of RAM, solid state hard drive in the latest i7 processor. It comes with two frame grabbers.
Now that we have the NDI cameras, essentially there’s going to be a package with a POE switch. And it’s going to be significantly less expensive. There’s STI cable and there’s RS232 cabling in the kits today. I don’t’ know if those kits will go away because I think some people are still going to be more comfortable with that but here’s going to be like a professional level with—were’ going to take a switch and I guess basically optimize it for a video POE and it’s going to be easier to set up. One cable for each camera boom, boom, done, switch in the middle and probably a gigabit, maybe a 5 gigabit, probably a gigabit switch, for these small portable systems. You don’t need a a check of a lot of data.
It’s going to be less expensive but it’s going to be a little bit more— What I have to say is NDI makes it easy. It should actually be easier and less expensive.
Nick Smith: Here’s what I would say, what makes it easier the NDI signal, when it hits the network and announces itself and says, “Hey world, here am I.” You don’t have to go in and then search for it. You just whatever your receiving device is be it your switcher or your recorder or whatever it is, you just go to a pull down menu or a feed and say, “Show me what NDI signals are available to me.”
I can’t say that about most of the other IP protocols on the market becuase most of them require you to understand what’s the IP address on the device? [00:26:31] I have to go in and manually configure to find that device or know that devices exist and then punch in the correct IP Address. What we have now with NDI is dude all I got to do is plug the camera into the switch and it’s ready to go. No configurations from the heavy level of trying to understand all of this networking protocol. Just plug it in and then go. Those kits, yeah, killer, killer, killer because the NDI makes it easy.
Paul Richards: Yeah, that I have to agree with. That’s what make them stand above and beyond some of the other protocols is it just not only it works but it’s built in to you favorite software that you already have. Millions of people are using it already. Looks like there’s a good question there Tess.
Tess Protesto: On YouTube. Last one with Gary.
Paul Richards: It’s on YouTube. I see a text but it’s too small for me to read.
Tess Protesto: Gary just said, “I did some research and NDI isn’t that difficult to understand. I’m guessing NDI needs a license to work with other cameras, if they want to include it in their firmware too.”
Paul Richards: Yes.
Tess Protesto: We’re lucky enough to be a part of that. We’ve been working with NewTek for a long time. It’s a serious commitment with engineering and development and back and forth. And one of the things that I wills say, we’re very lucky and dedicated working with NewTek, w’ere having the CTO Andrew Cross on the show next Friday and he’s going to probably talk about some of the challenges that we’ve overcome in the industry together to bring something like this to market.
I think I give them so much credit because it’s not like they could have probably had the only NDI camera but they decided no, we want to release with partners like Panasonic and PTZOptics and show that it is an open platform for development and I think that’s just proves to me and hopefully the rest of the industry that this is a company that’s looking to grow not just— I t think Andrew is not just out there to make money, I think he has a heart and I think he’s trying to spread this, the love.
Nick Smith: It’s always been the core competency of what they do right. They’re bringing production down to a level that anybody can do. They’re making the tool set easy to use and accessible and there you go so NDI just exemplifies that. It’s video for the masses.
If you follow the broadcast standards of [00:28:56] and you realize how expensive it is, how hard it is to implement form a network standpoint. Then you got something like NDI, which you just turn it on and plug it in you and like, “I’m doing business now, it’s great.” I’m excited for you guys to have— I look forward to watching that one. It’s going to be a blast.
Paul Richards: Thanks so much fro being here. We kind skipped out on— that’s what I want to do.
Tess Protesto: WE got to finish the giveaway too.
Paul Richards: We’ve got to finish eh giveaway.
Tess Protesto: One question that just sneak in right here that you might want to address.
Paul Richards: Sure.
Tess Protesto: 5-6 NDI sources will overload a gigabit network on a software [00:29:32] for example what’s the solution for that problem?
Paul Richards: Did you get that Nick?
Nick Smith: Yeah. I’m just reading that one. There’s anther question on the Facebook side I want to answer as well.
I would look at the sort of every link in the chain, what’s the computer that you’re using to switch with? Is it getting good bandwidth? Make sure you are not doing it wirelessly. You are wired to the network. And then your long term is you know, “Is that computer capable of pulling that mini simultaneous streams coming in?”
There’s a lot of angles and variables to it but look at the network. Look at how the data is coming into the computer during the switch. If you can upgrade a faster connection for that computer and that might help the problem a little.
Paul Richards: Yeah, most computers have a gigabit NIC, right? Now one of the things I want to throw out there while we’re talking about this, some of the higher end computers that are really bit to do this live streaming and video production. They have a second NIC card and from what I understand is that you can have—wait one of the best ways to set up an NDI system is that to have a 5 gigabit switch, completely island off by itself. How did that secondary NIC just running to that secondary switch and then you’re other NIC card is the one that goes out into the internet. That one that whole gigabit connection is open for you. If you have gigabit connection, on your computer, you can only probably pull in ten sources at a time.
Nick Smith: Yeah, I wouldn’t even say that just due to network constraints. You’re going to limit yourself to maybe, you know sub ten. Remember also the NDI protocol is one that it allows the bandwidth to change whether or not it’s on air. When the stream hits your computer, your watcher a lower less preview stream until you take it to preview or to air and then the bandwidth opens up to give you the full range, full version video. You’ve done a great point.
We’ve done this on the networking site for a lot of their recording, NDI recording machines, where recording 6-8 streams at a time to add a second NIC port so that we can segregate some of the feeds across the different NIC ports and to ensure we are getting the maximum bandwidth with the cost, you know, that machine.
Paul Richards: Which question was that?
Tess Protesto: That was Martin Stucky.
Paul Richards: Martin the one thing that vMix has in there is that you if bring in an NDI source, I think you mentioned he was using vMix, if you bring in an NDI source, you can hot swap that NDI source by right clicking and switching so you don’t have that many—if you don’t have that many sources, you need at any given run time, you can just bring in one or two sources and then right click and switch them until it’s only attaching to one at a time.
I think NDI 3 that’s a question that I want to bring to Andrew next week because I think there’s some new updates for bandwidth and low bandwidth, like lower definition feeds, and higher definitions depending on how you’re using them.
Nick Smith: Yeah, let me add to that. Martin made a comment on the follow up that he’s using a notebook. One, I would look at the notebook, does it have the horsepower? If you look at the NewTek specs, for most of these they are recommending a minimum of i7 or at least using an i7 to handle certain number of streams. Look at the horsepower of the computer too to ensure it can handle that number of streams. Yes, you can add the 10-gig port to a notebook by using a thunder link adapter, there’s plenty of adapters that give you their USB 3 or thunderbolt to add 10-gig.
We see that the editorial world, where the editors are on the Macbook that they want, 10-gig connection or fiber connection back to the sand. It’s very easy to do. Not cheap by any measure but it is possible. Call one of my guys and we can show you what a thunder link adapter looks like and how it fits in the workflow but that’s a great one.
There was a comment on the Facebook side about simulticast versus multicast. I want to attack that for a second. Because we’re missing one angle of that, which is unicast. There’s unicast, simulcast, multicast.
Let’s separate simulcast for a minute, that’s what were doing right now between YouTube and Facebook, which is one software layer, creating two different versions of the vide that meets two different CDM’s requirements. We’re simulcasting out. When we’re going to satellite into TV and to other locations that would all be part of the simulcast.
Multicast is something that, that’s done in network on the LAN, so we’re just using our network switch to multicast.
Unicast is a point to point. I’m making single webcast from my transmit device to my received device and that all these things go to how much bandwidth it’s going to be used on your network. Because if you unicast and if you have five devices receiving that unicast that’s going to be five times the bandwidth on the network, whereas multicast will do that to your network. That’s why with NDI 3 multicast is one of the most powerful things they are doing here. Because it’s going to allow them to better perfect control a video on the network and not saturate the network too much. That’s amazing.
The one way I always think about is like, if you’re watching television, there’s a million channels available to you and then those are all simulcasts. When you start on demand and you pay for a movie, they send an extra unicast to you and you know take some minute to load then it locks in, does that makes sense?
With all these movie channels, they are all multicasting to you. You’ve got 900 channels that there’s no load but you can just go through them all, that’ s multicasting and then when you go on to On Demand and you pick a movie, you are opening up a new unicast stream, because there’s not streaming all of those thousands of movies
Tess Protesto: At the same time. Okay.
Paul Richards: Yeah, we got tons of great questions. I knew there was going to be a lot of questions on this show. If there’s —I hope everyone watches this show on “On Demand,” throughout the next week. Just remember, if you’re watching this, Andrew is going to be in the show next Friday. I’m hoping that a lot of us are going to be bring the heat, the fire.
Tess Protesto: Nick it was great to have you on today.
Paul Richards: Thank you for being on Nick.
NicK Thank you very much for having me. Apologies to the audience on the delay of audio, we see that we have some networking issues up here.
Paul Richards: No problem. Thanks for joining.
Tess Protesto: Don’t’ forget to join the Facebook User Group. I’ll slide it in one more time, facebook.com/groups/ptzopticspals thanks so much guys.
Speaker 1: That’s all folks. We appreciate you’re participation in the chat room and can’t wait to host our next informative Q&A sessions. Your questions drive the conversation forward for live streaming professionals around the world. Until next time, happy streaming.
