Publications such as audioXpress look at the technology world from an audio-centric perspective, and sometimes we need to step back and look at a broader picture to identify important trends. As the audio industry has failed to support a single standard technology for audio-over-IP, it's only natural that it once again becomes increasingly dependent upon technologies created by other industries, where audio is effectively secondary. That's the case with the rising adoption of NDI, which is now firmly incrusted as another de facto standard that we will have to live with for decades to come.
At InfoComm 2025, multiple companies will showcase the world’s first HDCP-compliant content transmission over NDI, solving a longstanding challenge in enterprise and education AV workflows. And attendees will get an exclusive first look at NDI 6.2, releasing in June 2025, while for the first time, NDI will host an AVIXA-certified "NDI Basics" Classroom Session. Led by Technical Director Roberto Musso, this will be a 60-minute course for AV and IT professionals transitioning to IP workflows, which offers RU credits.
2025 marks the 10th anniversary of NDI, which was introduced at IBC 2015, at the time still a dedicated effort by the creative minds of NewTek, a company committed to disrupt the professional video and broadcast industry! NewTek was meanwhile acquired by VizRT, and NDI was spun off as a separate company, dedicated solely to breaking all the limits of video (and now audio) network connectivity, and focused on supporting development and licensed efforts by manufacturers (over 200 so far).
Already gaining predominance in modern media production, particularly since the global COVID pandemic, NDI is being used for remote production and cloud based operations in TV broadcasting and large event production. Many corporate TV operations that in the past relied on traditional professional video and broadcast equipment have meanwhile transitioned from SDI to NDI in order to gain flexibility, faster installation, enhanced efficiency, and above all cost savings.
The technology's versatility was originally proven in live event production and corporate AV and exploded with the interest in video conferencing and remote production. As it evolved, it gradually was embraced also as a viable tool for broadcasters. As more NDI capable systems were introduced, those operators gained a better understanding of the advantages and reliability of connecting multi-camera setups and devices to a central network, allowing real-time switches between feeds with minimal latency.
Today, the NDI protocol also supports different signal transmission variants. NDI HX2 is a compressed version designed to make video transmission over IP more bandwidth-friendly, allowing even multiple video sources to be connected over Wi-Fi. NDI HX3 is designed to offer a middle ground between NDI HX2, providing higher quality using advanced compression that delivers nearly lossless video with very low latency over standard networks. It is suitable for professional applications that need high-quality video but don’t have the infrastructure to support High Bandwidth.
Finally, High Bandwidth NDI is what studio productions and broadcast operations use, in environments where video quality and low latency are non-negotiable, but Gigabit Ethernet networks are available to support up to 300Mbps signal feeds. It uses the proprietary SpeedHQ MPEG-2 codec in its different variants (SHQx), but for live production many organizations are just embracing HX3, which uses very efficient H.264/HEVC compression, ideal for up to 80Mbps bandwidth, significantly lowering costs. In any of these variants, the NDI protocol always supports Audio, Video, Tally, and PTZ Control signals.
For audio signals, NDI is compatible with PCM, AAC, and Opus codecs, enabling a choice of bandwidth, and supporting multiplexed multichannel transmission (number of channels restricted by bandwidth) at any sample rate for input and output, resampling if necessary. Audio is processed in 32-bit floating point format, and everything can be software-based running on inexpensive Arm processors. Audio developers can implement support for NDI simply using the available SDKs and APIs.
With the launch of NDI Core Update 6.2, there are even better reasons to embrace it, as the protocol now offers enhanced discoverability features (see the announcement about NDI joining the OCA Alliance). NDI 6.2 introduces the NDI Discovery app in the Tools suite for macOS and Windows for NDI receiver discovery, monitoring and control. And it introduces the availability of the Metadata Lab initiative. This is a new set of metadata capabilities that leverage bidirectional XML metadata exchange between NDI senders and receivers, and introduces new official standard metadata "elements", developed in collaboration with other manufacturers to enable automation interoperability. That includes support for broadcast standards CEA-708 and SCTE-104, ToolsOnAir, MIDI, and DMX for lighting control. This means that NDI is expanding into an ecosystem that is able to integrate with even more systems and operations.
NDI 6.2 also updated NDI Studio Monitor (Windows) and NDI Video Monitor (Mac) tools that enable settings for receiver monitoring and remote source control when used with the new NDI Discovery Server, and an improved Access Manager for easier multicast configuration on Windows and Mac. The existing NDI Discovery Server is now improved, with new capabilities for receiver discovery, monitoring, and control, available as a standalone installer for Windows and Linux, allowing it to run as a service.
One of the most important initiatives for InfoComm 2025 will be the industry's first-ever High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection-compliant content transmission over NDI demonstration, simplifying and securing IP video for corporate, education, and live production workflows. Using a new metadata setting, this innovation enables the secure transport of HDCP-protected content.
On the show floor, NDI will demonstrate the full power of its ecosystem at its booth through live demos and partner pods featuring BirdDog, Bolin, NZBGear, NETGEAR, Ross, Vizrt, and Yamaha. K-array will unveil and demo brand-new NDI-enabled amplifiers at InfoComm. Two feature walls will also highlight products from BirdDog, Bolin, Canon, CND Live, Lumens, Magewell, Mevo, and Obsbot.
NDI will also showcase its growing collaboration with AWS. At the booth, attendees can explore how AWS MediaConnect now natively outputs NDI High Bandwidth streams directly to a VPC, or the new cloud-native version of Discovery Server available in the AWS marketplace.
www.ndi.video
