I am about to take the plunge and buy four NDI cameras for my studio.

Several years ago I heard Dr. Cross from Newtek say that NDI-HX delivered the same quality of image as regular old FULL NDI except for two things:
1. NDI-HX used less bandwidth 20MB vs 140MB
2. the NDI-HX has more latency due to encoding long chains of data....this higher latency being the cost of keeping the image the same quality of FULL NDI.

All in all, he strongly implied that the images were identical.

Now that I am shopping for Cameras I see that some companies make a big deal that their signals and converters are FULL NDI. Other companies like PTZ Optics make a big deal that the images are pristine with NDI-HX

So here is my question.

For a small studio (4 cameras) with plenty of bandwidth (10GB dedicated ethernet) is there an advantage in going with "FULL NDI?"

If all of the cameras are NDI-HX the latency will be consistently higher, but, isn't that not a big deal if they are all the same latency?

Please help me with advice. I am ready to purchase these cameras now; but, can't seem to find a straight answer on this.

Thank you very much,

Rob

Agreed. Only the Birddog cameras have full NDI built-in. I've used the P200. It's a very good camera for the $.

BirdDog encoders are similarly full NDI, so you can make any camera full NDI-capable.

It's also worth noting that Kiloview encoders allow you to vary the bit rate of NDI|HX. This might be useful, although I've not had any opportunity to perform a hands-on evaluation.

Guys, this helps me a lot. Thank you.

I am going to just use NDI/HX and be happy.

The following recommendation raises one issue I have been thinking about which is related, I think.

You wrote:



This forum and the Vmix site has plenty of good relevant and up to date info on Converters. So, that is easy to make a decision.

The issue I am unsure of is how fancy does a High Definition Camera with a good lens need to be to give a stellar HD image. How good is good for a camera to allow clear wonderful jucy and marvelous HD images in an open well lit studio environment. Sound doesn't matter, just the image transmitted to the Vmix computer needs to be good.

I am tempted to buy an expensive complex professional several thousand dollar cam corder like the folks at Vmix use in their fun time live show because they are rumored to be "the best" for independent television....

But, doesn't NDI/HD look the same everything else being equal whether or not the shooting camera is a 4000 dollar fancy cam corder or a nice PTZ Optics type HD NDI camera or a plain old 500 dollar camcorder with a good converter.....

... in other words, won't a solid well lit image from a 500 dollar or so solid HD speced camera converted to NDI/HX look the same or is the thousands extra for the fancier cameras noticeable. Ir it is obvious, then I buy the fancy cameras. I think I need to say that all cameras will be in a fixed location and PT is not necessary, just focus and zoom now and then.



I hope this makes sense and I appreciate you all. I honestly don't want to waste thousands on cameras which aren't going to be apparent in the product.... but, if they are then I will spend. Thank you all for the well studied advice.... It takes a lot of experience to just know this stuff.

Rob