BirdDog 4K SDI to NDI Encoder/Decoder

New to the rangeBirdDog made bringing NDI into a studio incredibly easy. The Mini and Studio have seen multiple updates and over a gigabit Ethernet connection, you can now send or receive video signals for use in any regular studio application, digital signage and more. But with the world moving to making 4K video the standard and some people now working entirely within that type of workflow, BirdDog have come up with a solution.

The BirdDog 4K Family brings 4K video to your NDI workflow in the exact same, easy capacity as the last time and in a similar form factor.

Network Device Interface is an royalty free technology developed NewTek to adapt a network into transferring video signals over it to a destination. NDI is now the industry standard for network based video production and in the future, might begin to replace SDI and HDMI as the current hardware standard for cables, as Ethernet and inexpensive network switches are far cheaper in comparison.

Other VersionsClick to see more about the dedicated HDMI and SDI Versions.

HDMI Version Quad Version

Multiple Use Cases With the BirdDog, once hooked into a local network (which could be as simple as connecting the source to the device and then to your PC via Ethernet), it turns a once locked off, traditional source into a network point that vision mixers then pick up as a video source as you’d usually recognise. You don’t even need the traditional power adapter, as BirdDog devices can be powered over Ethernet with the correct switch in place.

Powerful and Easy BirdDog’s 4K Family upgrades the Ethernet port to a 10 gigabit one (SFP+), so the network setup from the previous series won’t work with older gigabit hardware for 4K footage. However, the 4K Family is still just as easy to get going as the previous generation through a portal via a web browser.

Full NDI Bit-rateBirdDog’s NDI tools are the ultimate, compact solution for enabling NDI within your workflow. BirdDog don’t just bring you NDI, but the full bit-rate NDI, instead of competition’s NDI HX, a compressed variation of the standard that reduces quality to compensate.

Resolutions Resolutions go from HD to 4K60, with encoding and decoding fully supported for whatever you need. All this is done through the 12G SDI and HDMI 2.0 connectors, which every device comes with in varying combinations.

All feeds coming in can be looped back out via the extra port included. SDI to HDMI and HDMI to SDI, giving you a built in Cross Converter to make monitoring the feed easier than ever.

Support for Fibre The SFP+ port supports all the way up to 10GbE, which you’ll need for 4K video. But because it’s this type of connection, the BirdDog 4K supports long range connections over fibre as well.

Communicate With The Team The NDI 4K Family also has a tally light that you can operate remotely, so talent know exactly which camera to focus on. On the side, an OLED screen clearly displays vital status information, including resolution, name and more. There’s a 3.5mm headset/microphone slot for talkback and it’s all able to be powered over Ethernet.

Birddog Software Included with all the 4K Family is a copy of Comms Lite. This free piece of software allows a director and 4 other BirdDog devices to have talkback and communication across an NDI feed for simple directing from afar.

Optionally, if you’re more interested in using NDI for distribution across screens, digital signage, etc., Central is BirdDog’s way of taking in all NDI feeds on a network and then decoding them by driving them to BirdDog 4K, Mini or Studio devices with an output via the device’s HDMI or SDI ports.