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4 video feeds, for cheap!


Richard Ragon

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Hello, everyone. 

Been a while since I posted here.  I have an idea, that I want to run by everyone here.  On a lot of Films and TV shows, and some reality shows, were increasingly finding ourselves on 3+ camera shoots.  What if I were to tell you, that I think there's a cheap way to get a 4 camera feed from video village, to your cart using your current cart monitor set ups.

Is anyone here familiar with NDI?  NDI is a extremely low latensiy video feed over IP, similar to the same way Daunte works for sound over IP.  You simply just 'encode' your HD-SDI, HDMI, or video picture, into an encoder box at video village, plug it into a network Ethernet, then run that Ethernet 500-1000 feet to your sound cart, and use a small mac or PC to decode the NDI signal to however many monitors at your cart.  The NDI signal can be software downgraded to 1080p, 720p, 480p and even placed in a window on your monitor.  This future proofs any set up that you have for many many years, and you don't have to ever buy 4K monitors to match the 6G-SGI or 4K or 12G-SGI signals coming from the camera department that keeps upping the signal.. Many sound mixers seam to be in that race to keep getting multiple faster rates from the camera these days.

So, here's the gear. 

#1 - I'm looking at the NDI birddog encoders that you place at your video village.  You just tap into your video village with a short HD-SDI patchs.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1472919-REG/birddog_bd4kquad_4k_quad_4_channel_12g.html/?ap=y&ap=y&smp=y&smp=y&lsft=BI%3A514&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI_fOHnY-m6wIVjSCtBh1OVAplEAQYBCABEgLaGfD_BwE
 

#2 - Next you place an SFP+ into the BD box.  An SFP+ is a 10G Ethernet transceiver.  And you plug in a fiber link (any size you want) and move your cart 3 miles away if you like. You'll need one for both ends.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/912698-REG/tactical_fiber_systems_tf_tfr2lc500_500_tactical_fiber_cable.html?ap=y&smp=y

#3 - You plug this into a fiber to thunderbolt 3 adapter on a Mac mini.  The mini Mac is cable of doing 2 HDMI outputs, and more if you add in adapters.

#4 - You boot up the computer and run instances of VLC media player with the NDI plug in.  (Freeware)

This set up would allow you to use any monitors that you have, or any cheap 60 dollar monitor or get one of those large monitors on your cart, and set up a quad video view for 4 monitors because all the settings are in software definitions.  All this is a pretty cheap way to get 4 high quality monitor feeds to your cart with only one cable.

but there's more..

Because your encoding the video feed to NDI IP, now it's possible to even send those feeds over the internet in real time.

So, in theory, we could place a cheap WiFi6 router at the video village, and then a WiFi6 receiver at your cart, and run a pretty cheap wireless 4 camera feed from video village to your cart.

So, anyone have an interest in this?  Let me know...  We can set this up, test it out, and maybe make this a common thing?

-Richard Ragon
 

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There is also a single channel for $995 if you wanted to use a quad multi viewer at village. If you owned one already or if village was feeding it could save you $1000. I like the idea though. Could you also feed it to a switch and run it over a fiber run together with Dante?

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If you're ok changing your cart monitor, and using a quad multiviewer - you can get there even cheaper.

 

Get the birddog multiview Flex – which can take POE and spit out an extra 15w at 12v.

https://www.bird-dog.tv/flex-overview/

 

Get the Decimator DMON-QUAD Multiviewer, with a short power jumper and short hdmi cable you can get 4 SDI inputs into a video stream – you'll need to pick a layout that works for the number of cameras but there are many options with the Decimator

https://decimator.com/Products/MultiViewers/DMON-QUAD MultiViewer/DMON-QUAD.html

 

Get a mobile POE Switch for your cart (or just a regular switch if you can provide 12v power at village)

Get an iPad and iPad ethernet adapter

https://www.apple.com/shop/product/HMJU2ZM/A/belkin-ethernet-power-adapter-with-lightning-connector

 

Run the NDI monitor app on the ipad

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ndi-monitor/id1196221514

 

You're looking at around $1500 all in for the above gear, if you have a large cart monitor already just get the Flex output box.

 

You may need a computer to set this up, but once configured with static IPs your devices should just find themselves

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44 minutes ago, Shastapete said:

Could you skip the enthernet adapter and connect to a WiFi Hub instead? 

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3 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Could you skip the enthernet adapter and connect to a WiFi Hub instead? 

an HD NDI stream is 125mbps, so yes. You could run it over a Wifi N or better connection – but it would need to be rock solid. You'd just be limited by your wifi range.

 

The benefit of using the Ethernet adapter is you can run your NDI streams on the protected network and still use the Wifi to connect to an internet hotspot for internet between takes.

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1 minute ago, Shastapete said:

The benefit of using the Ethernet adapter is you can run your NDI streams on the protected network and still use the Wifi to connect to an internet hotspot for internet between takes.

Ahhhh.... so if you connect to a NDI stream (even if only streaming 240p 15fps) over WiFi, then you can't use that WiFi connection on the tablet for anything else? (such as browsing jwsoundgroup during your downtime)

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Here is a link to Tactical Fiber's web page for a roll of 1000' of fiber on a reel, but the cool part is that they terminate it with what they call Bullseye connectors.  They make 1U rack plates with the mating connector and then run out short lengths of fiber with LC break-outs.

 

https://tacticalfiber.com/proddetail.php?prod=2BE1000TFR

 

I am considering this setup for my Dante AoIP rig.  Quick, clean and much less prone to damage than simple LC ends.  Nice stuff!

 

D.

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10 hours ago, Richard Ragon said:


I think this is possible yes.. which would make this the cheapest 4 video feed wireless setup ever, right?

 

richard


If you have a computer on your cart that can connect to an Ad-Hoc wifi network you could get the Kiloview N2 Wireless NDI device, with the Decimator quad you come in at around $800 for a 4 channel wireless link. Limited, of course, by your wifi range.

https://www.adorama.com/kvkvn2.html


The Kiloview uses NDI-HX which is a very inefficient h.264 encoding, upside – the stream is only 30Mbps, downside – it isn't compatible with most other NDI devices and therefor you need a computer to decode the signal.

 

There is a new HX2 spec that is out that is similarly low bandwidth but uses a much better system for encoding h.264/265 video into a native NDI stream making it much simpler to decode, the iPad app I mentioned above can decode that stream, I just haven't seen any hardware that uses that spec yet.


--

 

If money was no object I'd certainly go with the Birddog 4 channel box and throw a wireless video system on the HDMI multiview out as a fallback/boom op feed, but at that point you're a Qtake license away from being able to do the video assist's job as well as mix the show. 

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Here’s a fun thing that might not be perfect for your current needs (but it eventually will be 😎)....

 

I helped develop a program called TETHYR which enables you watch multiple streams from different sources simultaneously on a single display. 
 

Tethyr harnesses content from different sources and gathers them together in one convenient program, letting otherwise conflicting codes play nicely in a singular interface. Then, you can streamline your workflow by running the content from these different sources simultaneously in the same display, thereby increasing your productivity and effectively eliminating the cumbersome process of switching between applications or screens, as well as cutting costs by removing the need for multiple displays / devices / monitors. 
 

The interface has a dynamic MultiView layout where you can watch up to 16 of these separate feeds in one single display (picture a standard multi-cam grid display with one larger Program window, and that’s kind of what the Tethyr interface looks like). It can also support HTML Sites and some other programs (like Google Docs) alongside your other streams so you can actually do work (or enjoy a leisurely scroll on JW Sound) in the Main Window while all the others are still running in the same display. And, you can do it all from a laptop, tablet (or even a smartphone) so that everyone on set can see all the cameras in real-time. (In fact, since the source material is internet based, the agency folks can sit at home and watch your Tethyr display— and stay out of our way.) 

 

No more expensive monitors. No more multiple devices. No more switching between apps to see different content from different sources.... just Tethyr everything together!

 

The program actually does so much more than this, but if someone needs to handle multiple feeds from different sources and doesn’t want to buy a dozen monitors, endless runs of cable and other gack, Tethyr is the way to go. 

 

So, in your situation:

If you can livestream all the camera feeds separately (from VV I suppose), you could Tethyr them and use the MultiView display and save yourself some serious money. 

 

Cheers,

Evan Meszaros

 

 

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2 hours ago, tourtelot said:

Evan.  Link please?

 

D.


We’re in beta testing now and about to roll out a big update in the coming weeks, but you can DM me and I’ll send you a link for a “lite” version of the current interface you can play around with.


The cross-platform playlist is a pretty amazing feature. I’ve got playlists stacked with content from a multitude of sources. (When the protests were going full throttle I had a MultiView command center with live-streams from all over the world on my single laptop screen— it was wild.) Once we integrate the APIs for sub services like NetFlix and HuLu, my days of switching back and forth between them all will be pretty much over.

 
**anyone interested can feel free to dm me if you have any questions— I don’t want to hijack this thread if it’s not relevant to the OPs needs**

 

Cheers,

Evan

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3 hours ago, hobbiesodd said:


We’re in beta testing now and about to roll out a big update in the coming weeks, but you can DM me and I’ll send you a link for a “lite” version of the current interface you can play around with.


The cross-platform playlist is a pretty amazing feature. I’ve got playlists stacked with content from a multitude of sources. (When the protests were going full throttle I had a MultiView command center with live-streams from all over the world on my single laptop screen— it was wild.) Once we integrate the APIs for sub services like NetFlix and HuLu, my days of switching back and forth between them all will be pretty much over.

 
**anyone interested can feel free to dm me if you have any questions— I don’t want to hijack this thread if it’s not relevant to the OPs needs**

 

Cheers,

Evan


Sounds cool, but to circle it back to our conversation – do you have NDI support in your multiviewer?

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2 hours ago, Shastapete said:


Sounds cool, but to circle it back to our conversation – do you have NDI support in your multiviewer?


We can certainly support it because it’s an open source thing (that the company really wants everyone to adopt). We would just have to build code for it.
 

I think my partner can put out an ndi stream from qtake and test around that. I don’t know about the authentication side of it — that’s something I’d have to ask our CTO. 
 

We have a pretty extensive list of features we’re working on implementing at the moment, but if there was notable interest in using Tethyr for NDI then I could make a case for pushing its support to the top. 
 

Cheers,

Evan

 

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On 8/22/2020 at 7:32 PM, hobbiesodd said:


We can certainly support it because it’s an open source thing (that the company really wants everyone to adopt). We would just have to build code for it.
 

I think my partner can put out an ndi stream from qtake and test around that. I don’t know about the authentication side of it — that’s something I’d have to ask our CTO. 
 

We have a pretty extensive list of features we’re working on implementing at the moment, but if there was notable interest in using Tethyr for NDI then I could make a case for pushing its support to the top. 
 

Cheers,

Evan

 

 

Im interested in learning about this too.. 

I haven't pulled the plug on anything at the moment, because I have another huge project in the works right now.  But, when we get back to normal times, I can work on this.

 

-Richard

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've spent the past few weeks testing out basically this exact setup. I reached out to the various NDI players with my idea, and the Kiloview distributor here in Canada agreed to send me their NDI.HX E1 encoder and D300 decoder to test out. Happy to report that it integrated seamlessly into my Dante network.

 

My current setup is:

- 16 channels of Dante running both ways between my Scorpio on my sound cart and my mobile RF rack (via Ferrofish Pulse 16DX)

- Up to 4 channels of video being sent from a Decimator MD-QUAD which I'll put on the video assist cart down a single SDI cable to my RF rack where it hits the E1 encoder

- The E1 encoder converts the video to NDI.HX and adds it to my network alongside the Dante audio using a Cisco SG350 switch

- Everything gets sent down a Cat5E Ethercon cable to my sound cart

- At my sound cart, I have another Cisco SG350 sending the signal to my Scorpio, a Mac Mini, and the Kiloview D300 decoder

- From my sound cart I can either use the D300 decoder to send the video into the SDI input on my 17" monitor, or simply open VLC on my Mac Mini and tune into the RTSP stream directly from the E1 encoder. This lets me use my Mac for other uses like Wireless Designer at the same time, and frees up my iPad for Scriptation

 

I initially figured I'd have to keep the NDI and Dante signals on separate VLANS for stability, which I found a bit daunting as a networking newbie, but luckily the NDI.HX stream takes up so little bandwidth that it all lives happily on the same VLAN together, which makes it much simpler to connect to everything with the Mac Mini (so I can run Dante Controller, Wireless Controller, and VLC at the same time). I listened for quite a long time and did not hear any audio issues, and no clocking issues, latency issues or other warning signs. I even tested it on unmanaged switches and it seemed to work fine, but I will stick with my Cisco routers so I can use QoS and set up static IP addresses for easy troubleshooting.

 

Long story short, for simple Dante networks like ours, there's no reason you can't add an NDI.HX stream to your network.

 

 

 

IMG_2306.jpg

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