Hello,

Just an update I received an email from Birddog today to update my postal address it will be shipping to those who pre-ordered soon.

Within the next 3 weeks specifically. I'll let you know if mine turns up and actually works :)

Been waiting for so long.

Regards,

Speegs

I'll leave it deep inside...

Has anyone heard any news about these shipping or not?

Thanks Kane - Any idea how close they are? Are they RTM yet?

Just providing and update. No signs of the new product yet.

Email from the Birddog CEO, after asking if my package got lost:

Heading across to the USA tomorrow morning to oversee the first assemblies come off the line, so it should only be a matter of days from there.

Disclaimer: Don't blame me if the information is wrong, I'm just passing along what I received, so just another small delay it seems.

A product really made in the USA ain't seen that for a while.

I'm pretty confident it will be Spark.

Kane Peterson
NewTek

Yes with the SMPTE approach we will wait before they get the standard released and them more time after that before everyone gets their equipment working together. :)

I jest, but it isn't far off from the truth. I get the advantages of standards, but the real standard here is IP. Both SMTPE 2022/2110 and NDI can run on the same network because both are IP based.

I know that there are discussions between NewTek devs and BirdDog. BirdDog needed to get deep level NDI information since they are trying to build a FPGA version of the CODEC. NDI 3 is compatible with NDI 2 software and devices, so anything that BirdDog is working on will still work just as it would before. Beyond that we growing that world of NDI, giving them more opportunity to sell more devices. I'm sure that BirdDog (given time) can add any new NDI 3 features to their product, perhaps even as a paid upgrade feature giving them more revenue opportunity down the road.

Lastly not all NDI 3 features on the sending side, everyone gets to benefit from the performance improvements just by having NDI 3.

Kane Peterson
NewTek

It would indeed be cool if NDI became a more open standard, or at least that future development would be announced with some dates and details.

This doesn't mean it should go towards a bureaucratic oldschool slow standards developments such as SMPTE, but the way in between would be nice. Fast development with a clear roadmap.

We were looking for an NDI converter with the specifics of the spark, and although we are very happy it's there, we put a lot of time and research ourselves into finding hardware and software solutions in order to achieve the same result.

In a way I'm happy we can stop the research, go to a shop and buy the thing. But I can imagine this product doesn't come from nowhere. If we would have known this was coming, it could have saved us some time :)

Hey rkay

For clarity, to the best of my knowledge Spark isn't using FPGA or Raspberry PI, and its not designed to deliver the ~ 100mBit bandwidth traditional NDI which BirdDog is designed for.

NDI HX is a different animal designed to extend NDI's reach and scope in places where the traditional 100mbit NDI codec can't easily fit (like PTZ Cameras), but it almost certainly wont replace the 100 mBit NDI as the core codec, and so there will continue to be a market and demand for the BirdDog and anything else using regular NDI (like NewTek's NC1). The 100 mbit NDI will remain the choice for people wanting minimum latency and maximum quality.

I am sure BirdDog will respond themselves, but Spark doesn't compete *directly* with BirdDog apples for apples - even tho it might seem like that.

I wish them luck - coding NDI for FPGA is *proper* old fashioned honest toil - and in this new electronics world of 'just bolt together some modules off the shelf from China' and the software world of 'copy and paste some code examples and a bit of open source' - it's becoming rarer to see that - and it deserves credit.