what is ndi?

Network Device Interface (NDI) is a royalty free standard developed by NewTek to enable video-compatible products to communicate, deliver, and receive broadcast quality video in a high quality, low latency manner that is frame-accurate and suitable for switching in a live production environment.  NDI is designed to run over existing 1 Gigabit networks allowing easy adoption of the protocol without new infrastructure. This is achieved through the use of video data compression with the NDI codec which delivers 1080 full HD video at VBR data rates typically around 100mBit/sec.

NDI was designed to work on good quality gigabit local area networks using TCP and Bonjour technologies. Mobile apps like NDICam have shown that NDI can also work well on Wifi networks, although the need for c. 100mBit communications requires very good quality communication between the device and the Wifi router to achieve full frame rates.

NDI 3.0 with NDI HX introduced a lower data rate codec which can be used more easily over Wifi and even potentially 4G connections. NewTek recently released NDI 4.0 which introduced a wealth of new features.

Products using ndi (THIS LIST IS DATED).