Live stream

Hello,

I need to make a set-up with a live stream through Touchdesigner into a projector. I researched a lot in the rtsp streaming and all of that but it seems that streaming on ip/rtsp is really laggy.

So I am trying to figure our a way in which I could transmit 1080 30 fps with as minimum lag as possible but still stay in a budget.
Did anyone experiment with this kind of set-up.

Is there any chance that windows/touchdesigner will recognize the stream with a thunderbolt to usb type c adapter?

Down is a flowchart i made really quick for visualisation.
The laptop that is going to be used is this
rog strix gl553vd
IntelĀ® Coreā„¢ i7-7700HQ 2.80GHz
gtx 1050

I would appreciate your help about this. Thanks

Cheers

Or do you have another recommendation for capturing the stream?

Itā€™s is a bit confusing to me as youā€™re using the term ā€˜streamā€™ for multiple different things in your question., so maybe I understand wrong.
But it looks like it boils down to two issues:

  1. is the live video feed which you want captured in TD.
    I donā€™t recommend any usb capture solution from Blackmagic. You can find many bad experiences on this forum as well. And combined with an additional usb to thunderbolt converter, this sounds to me like trouble until you have it seen working on your own hardware - so make sure to test this way before your deadline, while still having the optjon to buy something else!

If it must be USB capture I would try to get a Magewell HDMI-to-USB3 capture device, which is pkug&play as it doesnā€™t need drivers.

  1. issue 2 is how to get video over longer distance?
    I usually use SDI cables or fiber extenders, or what works really well these days is NDI over ethernet (which needs an addional computer or NDI device on the other end. TD has an NDI In/Out TOP.
    There are also cameras now with NDI output, so maybe worth looking into.
1 Like

Sorry for the misunderstandings.

I am trying to capture from a camera over a long distance into TD and the project it back on a screen.
I know the about the fiber solution but is to expensive for me right now. So I will use powered utp extenders.

My maine concern is in the part that I have to plug it in the laptop and see that it doesnā€™t work.
I checked the capture card sounds good but unfortunately I have like aprox. 500 $ for extender/utp/capture card. Maybe the Elgato Cam-link would be a cheaper option?

Thanks!

Hello,

As Idzard said, NDI is nowadays one of the best option.
If you search the web you may find a few converter HDMI >> NDI.
for example : bird-dog.tv/

than just plug Ethernet to your computer and you are set .

2 Likes

Hi, thanks for your answer. Finally I did some work around with a capture card. Latency wasnā€™t an issue because there were mostly static scenes to live feed in the laptop. A year passed by and have been pushed into the same problem. I was looking at bird dog product and it seems that it might be the solution. Just for making things clear because I donā€™t have budget for testsā€¦basically you can run through an Ethernet cable (ex. 100m) from the bird dog converter to the lan socket of your laptop and then directly in Touch with Ndi in TOP? Did anyone tried this kind of setup? how much latency appears over a long cable as 100m? Cheers!

Iā€™ve tested the bird-dog, it does indeed work with about 1s of latency (sorry it was awhile ago and my recollection of that # is hazy). Not sure about over a 100m ethernet run but I donā€™t see why not.

Not sure what camera you need to use, but if an iphone camera can make do for your needs there is NDI HX Camera, which NewTek is offering for free as of recently (praise be) BUT I havenā€™t been able to get the NDI source into TD. This is most likely bc I am a beginner. I can see my phone source in NDIā€™s tool video monitor, but when I put in an ā€œNDI in TOPā€ nothing shows up in the source. Is there something Iā€™m missing? I would like it to work on my windows 10 machine, but nothing is working on there, i dont even see the source in the studio monitor let alone TDā€¦ TD wizards?

NDI HX is slightly different than NDI. Itā€™s designed to be lower bandwidth but as a result is actually slower than normal NDI. Iā€™m not sure if the NDI IN Top supports NDI HX as well? Sorry canā€™t answer that with certainty without some testing.

Good luck

Thanks for the insight, I think its possible just based upon this post NDI last version - #2 by malcolm the person in there seemed to be able to get it to work. Gives me hope.

Heya, based on that post it seems your problem might be networking related if you donā€™t see the NDI signal on any application on your Windows machine?

Yes, my problem doesnt have anything to do with TD I am realizing now, I can send NDI locally (jut on my windows machine) just fine, (using the NDI tools) but the issue is NDI HX is not being picked up by my windows machine. I think it might just be impossible right now (I think the SDK isnt being downloaded correctly from the NDI tool install). Alas :slight_smile: thanks for your helps thus far.

Hey,

I just did a little test with the NDI HX Camera app you linked above and it shows up in an NDI IN TOP just fine on my Windows 10 machine. I didnā€™t change any settings to make it work.

Youā€™re going over wifi right? Maybe something in your router is causing the issue.
Are you sure the phone and the computer are on the same network?
Or maybe your iPhone needs to be updated?
Are you on the latest build of Touchdesigner? That might be a problem if not.
Just FYI you do NOT need to install NDI drivers on your computer for NDI to work with TD. The NDI SDK is embedded in Touchdesigner which is why itā€™s important to be on a recent build (to ensure you have the latest NDI SDK that TD supports).