Back in May 2023, I released our internal NDI Multiviewer tool. It turned out to be one of my most popular utilities for NDI ever.
But, it had a lot of limitations.
- It ran only on Windows 11
- On Windows 10, it had poor performance
- Using more than a few sources brought most machines to their knees
- Adding new features was becoming an absolute slog
I wanted to make a better version of this tool - not just for those using it, but for our own productions.
Many of our live and hybrid production setups use NDI. We use it for IMAG, video mixing, sending signals up to confidence monitors, you-name-it. That’s the magic of NDI - it doesn’t matter where the signal originates from in our mix, we can send it anywhere.
But controlling NDI sources can sometimes be a challenge. Often, I’d have crazy Bitfocus Companion shortcuts set up on my Stream Deck to make everything work. And for those in-the-moment adjustments, I would usually have a Studio Monitor instance up. Or several.
I wanted to solve the following problems with my new NDI Multiview.
- Eliminate the need for Studio Monitor and/or a separate PTZ control application
- Shift the responsibility for PTZ/camera control to another operator
- Monitor all NDI sources from one machine
- Allow control of PTZ sources via an HTTP API in the multiview
- Be cross-platform and run on Windows and macOS
The old application wasn’t up for the challenge. It depended on Windows. Thus, a rewrite was needed.
Over the last few months, I rewrote the app in .NET 7 and C#. Using Simple Directmedia Library 2 (SDL2), I was able to create a core engine that would run the multiview… and be portable across Windows and macOS.
Along the way, I open-sourced my .NET Wrapper for C#. This is based on the NDI SDK’s C# wrapper for .NET Framework, but updated to be cross-platform and support .NET 7.
This brings us to the initial release of the Windows and macOS Multiview for NDI.
With the rewrite, my vision was achieved. Plus, I added some other useful features along the way.
- Audio monitoring, calibrated to dBFS
- NDI source routing
- HTTP API control of PTZ sources
When talking about this utility, I call it, “Everything you wish Studio Monitor was.”
And it’s available now.
NDI® is a registered trademark of Vizrt Group.