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NDI Troubleshooting

Welcome to the PTZOptics forum(s)!


This thread has been created for end users to discuss the topic of NDI troubleshooting for the PTZOptics camera line.


Please make sure to respect the experience level(s) of all users at all times when posting within our forums or your account may have access removed.


General Notes 


It is always recommended to download the latest NDI Tools from NewTek when you are experiencing any issues as updates are regularly made to the software from NewTek to ensure the best compatibility between products. Link for NDI Tools


It is always recommended to download the latest camera firmware from PTZOptics when you are experiencing any issues as updates are regularly made to the firmware from PTZOptics to ensure the best compatibility between products. PTZOptics Firmware Finder


  • Studio Monitor is not finding my PTZOptics camera(s)
  • (Note this also applies for Upgrade Tool discovery issues)
    • Different Subnets
    • mDNS is not configured
      • Typically only an issue with more than 1 switch
      • (Note a router with switch built in counts as one switch)
      • May require static entries in the NewTek NDI *.json for each camera (PTZOptics NDI JSON Generator)
    • Network Configuration (VLANs, subnets, segmentation, etc…)
      • Attempt to launch NDI Test Patterns on a separate PC connected to the same network as the PC with Studio Monitor; if you are unable to see the test patterns, NDI source, you must contact your network administrator for further help.
      • May require ports 49152 - 65535 to be opened noting if NDI devices are used on networks with firewalls positioned on the internal network, configuration to allow for traffic between devices in this port range is required.
  • Studio Monitor finds my PTZOptics camera(s) but only displays a black screen
    • Multicast Issues
      • Network is not properly setup for multicast
        • Disable multicast on the PTZOptics camera until the network configuration can be resolved
        • Note this will limit the NDI source to only be pulled to one station at a time.
      • More than one (1) camera has the same multicast address
        • Check the multicast address of each PTZOptics camera and make sure they have a unique multicast address
    • Video Settings aren’t configured properly
      • Make sure the NDI Mode is enabled (High / Medium / Low)
      • Make sure that the i-Frame interval is set for double (2x) the current frame rate (fps)
  • Studio Monitor finds my PTZOptics camera(s) but jumps between more than one NDI video source once connected
    • IP Conflict
      • Make sure no other camera has the same IP address as the camera you’re trying to connect to
      • Make sure if multicast is enabled that each camera has a unique multicast address 231.1.2.XX
  • Studio Monitor finds my camera(s) slowly but takes a long time to connect and or eventually crashes studio monitor or causes the camera to reboot
    • Typically occurs when the VISCA ID has been changed via the WebUI
      • Network Settings
        • Make sure the VISCA ID is set to 1 via the WebUI Network Settings page
  • Studio Monitor finds my camera(s) but displays a NewTek NDI splash screen with a Register button
    • NDI|HX Driver not properly installed
      • Please make sure to reinstall the HX Driver package
      • If using the latest NDI Tool makes sure the HX Driver is selected when re-installing
  • Studio Monitor finds my camera(s) but displays a NewTek NDI splash screen without a Register button
    • NDI|HX Driver not properly installed
      • Please make sure to reinstall the HX Driver package
      • If using the latest NDI Tool makes sure the HX Driver is selected when re-installing
    • Need updated firmware for the PTZOptics camera(s)
  • Studio Monitor finds my camera(s) but displays a NewTek NDI splash screen with a message to upgrade my firmware
    • NDI|HX Driver not properly installer
      • Please make sure to reinstall the HX Driver package
      • If using the latest NDI Tool makes sure the HX Driver is selected when re-installing
    • Need updated firmware for the PTZOptics camera(s)

Good Morning.  I am going to post this in both the PTZ Optics and Wirecast forums. In short, I am having problems syncing video and audio in either a stream or recording with my NDI cameras. The most troubling part is that the sync varies during a one hour church service.  I have loaded a recording in to Primer Pro, split the audio and video and synced at a point in the middle (usually the sermon) but the sync is off again by 1-2 sec at the start and at the end.  The audio is ahead of the video.

Here is the setup and configuration we are using.

Network is all PoE 1Gbit with 10Gb fibre links between switches.  I separate Video and Audio on to there own switches and fiber links.  Switch 1 has 2 cameras attached, Switch 2 has 1 camera attached and the PC running Wirecast Pro, Switch 3 has 3 cameras attached.

The PC is a fast i7 running Windows 10 Enterprise 32GB of memory, 2 500GB SSD’s (1 for the OS and video capture the other as a page/swap volume and temp space, 2 striped 4TB 7200 rpm drives for video storage after capture.  I have three 1 GB/sec network ports, Motherboard is the building/internet access, The other two are on a PCIe adapter one connected to the video switch and the other to the Audio network. Video card is Nvidia with GPU support.

Audio is connected via Dante using DVS (Dante Virtual Sound Card) running on the PC and is just a simple 2 channel connection.  Dante latency is set at 5ms (the minimum for DVS).

I have tried this with Wirecast 11, 12 and the version 13 beta.  13 works much better except for a few quirks, but that is another post.

I have looked at performance on the network and the PC and while running high, none are saturated.  The dropped frame count seems high in the 1-2 thousand in a hours’ time.

Thanks in advance for your help.  Any Ideas you have are welcome. 

Take care

Steve Cearley

 Wellshire Presbyterian Church

 

Hi Steve,


This is quite a doozy so I am going to start with something simple to see if we can begin to isolate the issue.


If you have access to another PC capable of running the NDI Pattern / Signal Generator, included with the NDI Tools from NewTek, and can attach it hardwired to one of the switches where you have a camera experiencing this 1 -2 seconds of latency you can try running the generator with audio and see if you are getting out of sync with the signal generator also.


If you want to try two (2) things at once try logging into one of the WebUIs for one of the cameras experiencing this latency and go into the Video Settings section. While there for your Stream 1 or First Stream scroll until you see "I Key Frame Interval" and set it as high as it allows, note that maximum number to report back here if possible, after applying this will require a reboot of the camera to commit.


Let me know how the tests above go and if necessary I'm happy to help with continuing down the path of diagnosing the root of the issue with you.


A few other things to mention...


Are you are running the latest NDI Tools on the PC with Wirecast as available from NewTek?


I noticed you mentioned Dante Audio in the network, even if using the PC as the router between switches, have the Dante devices been setup in a unicast or multicast mode and if multicast has the network been configured to support multicast?


Happy to offer any additional help possible to get to the bottom of this one.


I hope this message finds you, other than having a sync issue, having a wonderful day.



Matthew, Thank you for your reply.  I will check on the NDI Tools version and make sure it is up to date.  I have a laptop I can load the tools on and will try the generator.  I will also make the changes you requested to the cameras.


As far as the Dante goes it is setup on it's own set of switches (Primary and Secondary)  Every switch has IGMP Snooping enabled.  The links between switches are 10Gbe on OM3 Fiber.  The console is a Yamaha M7CL with 3 MY16-AUD2 cards installed.  Each has 2 multi-cast flows enabled.  In the PC I have separate 1Gbe ethernet interfaces for the Video and Dante networks.  For the Dante links the Console cards and the PC with the Dante Virtual Soundcard are all plugged in to the same Mikrotik CRS328-24P-4S+RM.  The audio is ahead of the video.  I have added 1.190 sec delay to the audio coming in to Wirecast.  


I can deal with the offset between audio and video, it is the variability that is the problem.


I will update with the results of the tests you requested.  I will try the generator on each of the switches with cameras attached.


Take Care

Steve

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