NDI: How This Company’s Technology Is Helping Facilitate Virtual Broadcasting Studios In A Multi-Billion TAM
By Jennifer P
The blog post delves into the trajectory of NDI, a technology that originated within NewTek and has now transitioned into an independent entity operating under the Vizrt Group. In a detailed interview with Pulse 2.0, Miguel Coutinho, NDI’s Head of Strategy, shares his background and the company’s strategic vision. Coutinho, who joined NDI in October 2022, brings a wealth of experience in strategy consulting, having led innovation projects across various sectors in Europe and taught innovation strategies in Portugal. His decision to join NDI was fueled by the aspiration to contribute to building a company that could proliferate the adoption of NDI’s revolutionary technology and integrate it into every multimedia device globally.
NDI, which started as a proprietary technology within NewTek, underwent a transformation to establish itself as an autonomous company with a refined business plan. Coutinho elucidates that the journey involves understanding user and licensee needs, projecting revenue potential, defining product and technology roadmaps, and fostering a robust company culture. The team has grown from a 5-person unit to nearly 30 hires, demonstrating the company’s commitment to its mission. NDI’s 5-year projection plan extends beyond media, entertainment, and Pro AV markets into sectors like communication, video conferencing, security, and healthcare.
Coutinho reflects on his favorite memory at NDI, recounting his experience at CABSAT 2023 in Dubai. He was impressed by the community of NDI users who readily shared insights and solutions, showcasing the flexibility of NDI. The platform, designed as an almost LEGO-like piece, allows users to explore various applications in a highly flexible manner. Challenges faced by NDI include the demand from millions of customers worldwide, each with unique needs. The company aims to perfect a universal standard, addressing different requirements across industries while maintaining interoperability and compatibility between NDI-enabled hardware and software.
As Coutinho delves into NDI’s core features, he emphasizes its role as a platform for connectivity, acting as the invisible glue in an expanding ecosystem of products and users. The instant discoverability and registration of devices on an NDI network, along with the control of multiple devices remotely in real-time, are highlighted as key features. NDI’s technology has evolved over time by reducing complexity and expanding possibilities, supporting multiple video formats. The recent announcement of NDI 6 signifies an update to the core tech platform, allowing NDI to support high-end applications that require superior image and color depth.
Significant milestones for NDI include its adoption by the corporate and video conferencing industry, integration into products by major OEMs and ISVs, and its presence on over 600 different hardware SKUs, approaching a million devices. Customer success stories underscore NDI’s flexibility, finding applications in professional broadcasting studios, AV installations, healthcare, education, retail, and entertainment. NDI’s Total Addressable Market (TAM) is assessed as multi-billion, spanning professional to consumer markets, aiming to provide a video connectivity solution for the entire universe of video devices.
Coutinho distinguishes NDI from its competition by solving a broad spectrum of challenges and offering a unifying video connectivity platform. Looking to the future, NDI’s goals involve releasing updates targeted at specific sectors and enhancing WAN connectivity. The company is actively working with major cloud providers to enable support for NDI connectivity and workflows, aiming to break down barriers between local and wide-area networks. In conclusion, Coutinho emphasizes NDI’s role as a unifying standard, making video connectivity equally accessible to all content creators, users, and consumers across brands, products, technical knowledge, and contexts.
Read the full blog post by Amit Chowdhry for Pulse 2.0 HERE
Learn more about NDI HERE