BirdDog NDI Play

[Anexus]

Hi everyone,

I´ve just seen that BirdDog have a cheap NDI to HDMI converter called NDI Play. Its cheaper than any other ndi to hdmi converter I´ve seen before. (Less than a half of the price of the next choice available)

Anyone here using it? It´s intended for use on tv, but maybe it could be useful to use with resolume if it have decent latency spec.

I´m wondering if I can have more outputs than the phisical outputs in my pc using this. I think it should be no problem while the pc has free cpu power.

Any advice could be great!

Thank you!

[Arvol]

Screenwworks had one of those out at a festival with us and couldn't get it working in the 3 days we had shows lol. If you use it, I would suggest NDI High Bandwidth as HX1-2 aren't that great.

I've been playing with this guy for $150 and it is a transiever that also supports HX3: https://www.amazon.com/Zowietek-Convert ... B0CGRZ9DQ2

These guys has been super solid for me and has both SDI and HDMI since Birddog is lame and took away a dual flavor box after gen1 (boo!). We ran an entire arena tour using these for our larger cams we wanted to send to NDI rather than SDI for less latency when running through post processing on a PC: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/ ... _full.html

Each NDI stream is taxing on your CPU so keep that in mind (nothing is free). There also isn't anyway of syncing the outputs so if you're trying to mosiac a single raster you will have tearing. But if you just need outputs to various displays across a site, the boxes I listed work great!

[Anexus]

Thank you Arvol, I will give it a try

[cosmowe]

When they came out I ordered 5 but never was happy with the performance of those little B*****ds . It was not possible to get a smooth framerate out of them.

I was in touch with the Birddog Support for quite a while and also agreed to be part of the betatester crew for a new PLAY firmware....sadly....nothing happend.

I've send 4 PLAYs back to the seller and kept one, just in case.

But for now - No recommendation from me.



best wishes
cosmowe


EDIT:
But, I have to admit...I did not checked the brand new firmware. I will, when I am back home in a couple of weeks, hopefully I remember to post my results here.

BD PLAY FW Release notes

[Anexus]

Thank You!

I ll be waiting for you to check the new software before I bought anything

[cosmowe]

Hi Anexus,

I am back home and had some time to test the newest firmware version 1.0.30.

I have to say that they managed to significantly boost the overall performance. Now, I was able to achieve some smoother motion with 50Hz content. However, 60Hz was less smooth that 50Hz

Don't get me wrong, there are still some frame drops, but they are so infrequent that I would now actually consider using this device to feed a downstage monitor. I would still not use it for any main signal routes.

Additionally, I noticed that Birddog released a new hardware revision and also offers owners of the old hardware revision, like mine, the opportunity to exchange it for the new model.

Nice, but I guess they are having some really good reasons to do so....so in your case, good for you, you will receive the newer version anyway ( indicator: they added a fan )

So, I will now try to exchange my device.....


Best wishes
cosmowe

[cosmowe]

For anyone who is interested.

The Birddog Play exchange was flawless.
Just contact the support via mail, fill out a simple form, and the support will tell you where to send the device in your country.


greeeeeeetz

[Arvol]

That HX3 box I've been testing has been great for $140 as well. Even has a LCD display for troubleshooting

[cosmowe]

howdie again,
just a little follow-up.

After I received the new hardware revision (Rev 4) of the PLAY in exchange for free and made some tests, and after I brought some more Plays ...I have to say, they obviously done more to the hardware than just adding a fan

These "nuggets" now are waaaaaay more performant than before!


Like them now!



Best wishes
cosmowe

[Anexus]

Thank you cosmowe, I´m purchasing one for try.