Hi

I am lucky enough to have a fully NDI enabled infrastructure, where all sixteen of my cameras are NDI and I feed my final outputs (NDI 1,2,3 & 4) to some NDI to H.264 encoders for encoding and multiplexing into a single TS stream ready to up link to satellite.

Everything is produced, mixed and broadcast in 1080i50, and runs on a 10Gbit local LAN.

I am using the current release of NDI across my platform. Waiting, like everybody else, for the 3.5 release, I am unsure how much CPU and GPU are required for a system that has no physical capture or playback devices (i.e Decklink, AJA or Magwell cards) for NDI capture and broadcast, and what is required by VMIX itself. I will not be using either of the fullscreen outputs as these VMIX machines will be compleatly headless and controlled via API from 1000 miles away.

In addition to the NDI input signals, each NDI output will support its own unique set of overlays (skins) - i.e overlay 1 is used on output 1, overlay 2 is on output 2. This is so I can produce 4 different skinned versions of the production for diffrent distribution platforms (Terrestrial, Satellite, Cable, and Webstream). The webstream which uses output 1, will actually be RTMP encoded on the VMIX using the ffmpeg codec, with hardware (NVENC) acceleration enabled. Does VMIX use NVENC in ffmpeg?

Graphics for each output will be composited in VMIX from two inputs, a background skin (.png), and then data composited on top of that using VMIX titles pulling unique text elements for each output from a google doc. The final composition being DSK'ed onto each output using VMIX's 4 internal DSK's. Stingers (Overlay 5 |& 6) will be set to display on all output's

What CPU / GPU cards would be recommended to run VMIX with 8 x 1080i50 NDI inputs, 4 x 1080i50 NDI outputs, 1 x hardware assisted RTMP stream (5Mbps)?

I understand that NDI 3.5 will make greater use of GPU's, so it maybe that using a 1080-Ti GPU is best, but what about CPU?

Does VMIX or NDI benefit from Hyperthreading? I have so many systems using i7's when i5's would have done as some applications do not take advantage of Hyperthreaded CPU's. Don't want to be buying i7's if i5's would have done the job. Similarly I don't want to be installing 32Gb of DRAM, if 16Gb or even 8Gb will do the job. I can always upgrade if I need more, but need a base configuration that will do what I need.

I know everybody says buy the best of the best, but I need to build several of these systems, and cost is an issue. If I only need i5-5500's and GTX 1050-Ti based systems, then that's where I want to be, but if I need i9's to get to 22 cores, with Titan GPU's then that's what I will use.

If my only PCIe device is a PCIe x16 3.0 GPU card, how many lanes should my CPU have? Will a domestic 16 lane CPU be OK or should I be looking at 28 or 40+ lane CPU? What about using Xeon CPU's is that allowed?

I am obviously planning to use VMIX 4K or PRO for this project, as I will require all 4 NDI outputs, although it is VERY unlikely that my customer will want to go 4K for at least another 4 to 5 years, he has only just gone HD.

Martin: There is potentially an order for 16 VMIX systems here, so any help appreciated. Been a hardcore VMIX installer since VMIX 16, and have had 4 VMIX based systems being used 24/7 for 'real' broadcast TV for almost 4 years with VERY few issues. Just need to get the next 4 years right. Its taken a while to convince my customers that an IP workflow based on VMIX / NDI is the way to go, but looks like they have been finally convinced.

Any Help?

All the Best

Keith