It enables high-definition video to be transmitted, received, and communicated over a computer network with low latency and high quality.
NDI 3.x has options to use UDP multicast or unicast with forward error correction (FEC) instead of TCP, and can load balance streams across multiple network interface controllers (NICs) without using link aggregation.
[4] This directional metadata system allows for functionality such as active tally information fed back to sources to understand that they are on-air.
The NDI software development kit (SDK) is available for Windows, Linux, and MacOS,[5] and has also been ported to iOS, tvOS, Android, Raspberry Pi, and FPGA.
[6] The NDI Advanced SDK offers OEMs direct access to and from compressed data and other features, with a commercial license.
[18] NewTek had previously created a predecessor of NDI called AirSend to get video from external devices into their TriCaster products.
In April, Magewell announced seamless integration of their PCIe and USB capture devices, allowing access to any video source on the network.
This solution created one of the most efficient broadcast video production scenarios possible with unlimited source choice and ubiquitous operating system compatibility.
[citation needed] On 12 July 2017 NewTek announced NDI 3.0 which added multicast, NDI|HX and other new features, introducing support for specific PTZ Cameras with H.264 chipsets and updated firmware.
[22] In April 2018 at the NAB Show, Microsoft announced they had added NDI support to Skype for Content Creators.
[25] Version 3.4 of FFmpeg added input and output support for NDI when optionally compiled by the end-user to a non-open-source NewTek library.
While not a requirement, NDI will take advantage of Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX) and AVX2 instruction sets for additional performance.
The release of NDI 5 brings full support for encode and decode on ARM-based processors that include Neon instructions.