Receiver Discoverability, Monitoring, and Control Overview

Introduction

NDI 6.2 introduces new functionality to all NDI receivers, any device or application capable of receiving an NDI stream. This functionality allows NDI Receivers to be discoverable, similar to how NDI Senders are discoverable on the network. Users can also monitor the Receivers and get information on the stream they are connected to. Finally, users can control the Receiver to connect to any available sources.

Network Model

A high level overview of how the relevant parts of the system connect together.

NDI Receiving Device

In the NDI device or application receiving NDI streams, the feature introduced in NDI SDK 6.2 will be used to create a Receiver Advertiser which registers individual receivers. The Advertiser is responsible for communicating with the Discovery Server using an IP address configured at the application layer.

NDI Receiver Inputs

Individual receivers need to be grouped together to create a Receiver Input. The individual receivers represent the different stream components of the NDI stream such as video, audio, and metadata. This grouping facilitates discoverability, monitoring, and control by allowing users to view and refer to these as distinct inputs instead of the individual receiver components.

NDI Discovery Server

While the NDI Discovery Server continues to be available as a command line utility, it is also available as a Windows or Linux service. This makes it easier to manage or integrate directly into software applications.

The Discovery Server registers all NDI devices on the network and collects their information, accessible via the new NDI Discovery tool or any third-party application interfacing to the Service.

It essentially acts as the central broker for all discovery, monitoring, and control. The Discovery Server is lightweight and can be run on very small, lower end systems.

NDI Receivers can only be discovered by the Discovery Server when they are registered to it. NDI Senders can still be discovered automatically without a Discovery Server and do not change from existing functionality.

NDI Discovery Tool

This is a Windows and Mac based client application, packaged with NDI Tools to provide a user-friendly front-end interface for the Discovery Server. The client allows users to see a list of discovered Senders and Receivers. Users can expand the Receivers tab to see monitoring information and select a source for it to connect to.

Third Party Access to Discovery Server

The ability to monitor and control NDI Receivers is available to any third-party developer via the NDI Advanced SDK. Using the Advanced SDK, a Receiver Listener is created which communicates with the Discovery Server receiving information about all discovered Receivers and allowing control of them.

Available Monitoring Parameters

Alpha presence	Indicate whether there is alpha in the stream
Audio channels	Number of audio channels present
Audio Format	Audio format and codec
Audio presence	Indicate whether there is audio in the stream and per channel
Audio receive mode	Will indicate the transmission method for the audio stream (SingleTCP, RUDP, multicast etc)
Audio sample rate	Will indicate the sample rate for the connected source that has audio
Connection state	Will indicate if the receiver is connected/disconnected to a source
Frame rate	Frame rate of connected stream
Resolution	Resolution of connected stream (width x height)
Source name	Name of sender and stream that receiver is connected to
Source URL	Will indicate the IP address and Port number for the connected stream (e.g. 192.1.15.11:5961)
Video codec	NDI format and codec
Video color primaries	Indicates the HDR color information if connected stream is HDR
Video frame type	Indicates if the video stream is progressive/interlaced/interleaved streams
Video matrix coefficients	Indicates the HDR color information if connected stream is HDR
Video presence	Indicate whether there is video in the stream
Video receive mode	Will indicate the transmission method for the video stream (SingleTCP, RUDP, multicast etc)
Video transfer function	Indicates the HDR color information if connected stream is HDR

Control

In this release, it is possible to control the receiver to select which NDI source it connects to.

It can only connect to sources that have also been discovered by the Discovery Server.

Communication and Security

All communications between NDI Receivers, the Discovery Server and NDI Discovery tool, and third-party applications using the Advanced SDK use XML messages with a basic level of security.

In this initial release there is no encryption or authentication applied. A Receiver need only register to the IP of a Discovery Server to communicate with it. Applications must use NDI's propriety API calls provided in the Advanced SDK.

Developers can add authentication at the application layer to prevent unauthorized access to the application and the ability to monitor or control NDI devices.