BirdDog NAB 2019 – the next generation of NDI has landed
By Adam Noyes
NAB Booth C6330- Today is a truly exciting day in the history of BirdDog, at NAB 2019 with the companies biggest and most comprehensive booth in it’s history, biggest product announcement to date and are showcasing workflows of all kinds which allow anyone from the smallest production through to the largest broadcaster or AV installation to simplify their workflow. BirdDog’s motto has been ‘Live Production. Simplified’, and this NAB they are not only talking about it but living this mantra.
BirdDog has some very exciting product announcements this week that cover their existing products, adding more features and increasing the value of their existing customers investments as well as some brand new products that shift up a level what can be done with Video over IP.
NDI® was the catalyst for the start of BirdDog and remains center to the companies product design and functionality.
4K NDI® taken to the next level.
At NAB 2019 BirdDog will be featuring their brand new 4K family. Factory fresh these 3 products are set to take the live video production industry by storm. All three versions feature full NDI® encoding at rates up to and including 4K60p, feature BirdDog’s trademark and unique large and useable Tally indicator, Power over Ethernet, Comms integration and Central routing abilities.
BirdDog 4K – HDMI $895
HDMI 2.0 input – up to 4K60p
HDMI 2.0 active loop out – including Tally border overlays
12G-SDI active loop out – live cross conversion and Tally border overlays
Full NDI® Encode and Decode
10Gb SFP+ cage – ability to extend NDI over Fibre optic cables for increased cable length
OLED display – Immediately see all settings and status on the clear display
All-Aluminium construction – beautifully designed and tough design.
BirdDog 4K – 12G-SDI $995
12G-SDI – up to 4K60p
12G-SDI active loop out – including Tally border overlays
HDMI 2.0 active loop out – live cross conversion and Tally border overlays
Full NDI® Encode and Decode
10Gb SFP+ cage – ability to extend NDI over Fibre optic cables for increased cable length
OLED display – Immediately see all settings and status on the clear display
All-Aluminium construction – beautifully designed and tough design.
BirdDog 4K – 12G-QUAD $1995
4x 12G-SDI bi-directional independent ports – up to 4K60
HDMI 2.0 active loop out with multi-viewer
Full NDI® Encode and Decode
10Gb SFP+ cage – ability to extend NDI over Fibre optic cables for increased cable length
OLED display – Immediately see all settings and status on the clear display
All-Aluminium construction – beautifully designed and tough design.
The 4K product family is the product of thousands of hours of research and development of BirdDog’s custom silicon solutions and is the most advanced in terms of engineering product range in the companies history. BirdDog is looking forward to shipping these units in Q3 and demonstrating them in some upcoming roadshows near you much sooner than that.
BirdDog Eyes series cameras – on display and in manufacturing.
BirdDog launched the Eyes series of full NDI® cameras at IBC in Amsterdam to a huge amount of excitement – the BirdDog Eyes series is the first full NDI®enabled camera range which means the lowest possible latency and the benefit of high-bitrate NDI® quality. They have been preparing for shipping of these cameras for some time and are very excited to announce that the products are now beginning manufacturing.
Featured on BirdDog’s booth at NAB- the BirdDog Eyes P200 demonstrating end-to end NDI utilising BirdDog’s record breaking speed of full NDI encode and decode, this shows not only the speed and quality of the Eyes series Sony sensors but also the amazing flexibility of NDI® with Power, Video, Audio, Comms and Tally all connected down one single cable.
The BirdDog Eyes series cameras are not only the world’s first full NDI®cameras but the image quality of our hand-picked Sony backlit imaging modules sets them apart from the pack.
Software assisted workflows.
At NAB this year BirdDog is showcasing their very latest versions of BirdDog Comms Lite and BirdDog Central Lite software. Both of these applications are free of charge and work with any BirdDog hardware. In addition to making the best hardware it is important to unlock the full potential of a production with complimentary software tools.
Central Lite is a video routing and control application that allows you to see any full NDI® source on your network, preview the source and immediately switch a BirdDog decoder to that source with a beautiful touch-friendly interface. Central automatically finds all sources and destinations on the network and is simply the easiest routing platform available for video distribution.
Comms Lite allows your crew to communicate easily and effectively. All BirdDog devices are equipped with a headset connector, by installing Comms Lite on a computer on the same network you are able to connect up to 4 camera positions and a Director into a communications group where everyone can remain in contact and on the same page. Utilizing the same easy to use, touch friendly paradigm as Central, Comms is intuitive to use and automatically discovers all devices on the network.
These free tools avoid thousands of dollars of additional equipment needing to be purchased for smaller productions and make BirdDog NDI® devices the only choice for a truly collaborative production.
NDI® Decode and Dual-channel encoding.
Existing BirdDog customers who have purchased either a Studio NDI or a Mini have some great new features available in the latest firmware.
In another first, BirdDog has enabled NDI® Decode on all hardware products, further adding to the feature set of Studio NDI and Mini. Simply update to the latest firmware available now from bird-dog.tv and your BirdDog NDI® encoder is transformed into an NDI® encoder AND decoder. Built on the custom BirdDog platform this allows for the lowest latency and highest possible decoding of an NDI® signal. Couple BirdDog NDI® decode with BirdDog Central and you have the easiest to deploy, highest quality, lowest latency video distribution platform available today.
For larger AV based installations BirdDog also released remote control abilities to the NDI® decode functions to allow for integration with 3rd parts control systems or web sites, simply send a command to the BirdDog over the network and it will instantly switch sources.
Studio NDI has an additional update which makes it the lowest cost full NDI®encoder per channel. Dual-encode capabilities have just been launched which allows both the SDI and HDMI inputs to be active simultaneously. This free update allows asynchronous sources (each input is completely independent and can accept different resolutions and frame rates) and real-time cross conversion lending itself extremely well to esports, corporate and fixed AV installations.
The future of NDI®.
BirdDog is extremely excited about NDI®, with this week’s announcement of NDI 4.0 and NewTek’s acquisition by VizRT, we feel the future has never been brighter. Having more robust underlying networking functions combined with a larger, software-defined focussed company means NDI® is solidified as the industry format for interchange of audio and video for many years to come.
BirdDog is out to prove that video production can be easier with IP, hardware can be better, and your investments can be extended by consistently updating and adding features.