NDI Camera: Easy Streaming

What it does

Turns an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch into an NDI video source, so broadcast software on the same network picks the device up as a camera with no capture card in the chain. NDI is NewTek’s standard for carrying video over a computer network at low latency with frame accuracy, intended for live switching. The app is close to bare: a viewfinder, one blue button that starts and stops the signal, and a settings panel holding a microphone toggle. One purchase covers several devices at once.

In the demo

Jade installs the obs-ndi plugin, turns on Do Not Disturb, mutes the phone microphone so it does not double up with her show audio, then adds an iPhone SE as an NDI source in OBS and resizes the feed inside her scene. She puts it alongside two screen captures from other devices.

Worth knowing

It needs Wi-Fi and software that reads NDI at the other end. Jade’s small router plus a Restream broadcast started dropping audio once she had three devices running. The app was called NDI HX Camera at the time of the demo.