DistroAV - Network Audio/Video in OBS-Studio using NDI® technology

DistroAV - Network Audio/Video in OBS-Studio using NDI® technology 6.1.1

lc-shane

New Member
I've been working on this problem all day and just discovered the known issue from Microsoft. The only thing that works for me is Single-TCP. I have to disable all other protocols in Access Manager. I tried just disabling Reliable UDP (such an ironic name) and video was better but still not smooth.
 

MECHa 4293

New Member
Hello everyone,

Do not install NVidia's Newest driver 581.29 It cause distro AV to studder while gaming. If you did update would suggest redownloading 581.15(or the pervious driver depending on your GPU), also I don't know if AMD has this problem(because I have NVidia in both of my systems).
 
Hello everyone,

Do not install NVidia's Newest driver 581.29 It cause distro AV to studder while gaming. If you did update would suggest redownloading 581.15(or the pervious driver depending on your GPU), also I don't know if AMD has this problem(because I have NVidia in both of my systems).

Curious, how recent are you on your Windows updates, and which release of Windows are you running? There's a chance you may be looking at entirely the wrong problem. There have been serious problems with NDI thanks to some bum updates last month's Patch Tuesday (August 2025). One workaround is to use the NDI bundle's Access Manager and setting inputs to "single TCP". I did, arguably, the right thing by keeping those bum updates off my computers entirely because it has even more serious problems, like either seeing SSDs fall offline which a reboot can bring back, SSDs fall offline which a reboot can bring back but with corrupted data, and worse, it outright turns SSDs into very expensive and very useless bricks. This affects primarily drives with PHISION controller chips.

I am going to run the Windows Update rigamarole to see if it hoses my NDI setup.

More soon on both the NDI-vs-Microsoft and NVidia (which I have not gone past 575.whatever yet) fronts, separately and together.

--Katt. =^.^=
 

MECHa 4293

New Member
Curious, how recent are you on your Windows updates, and which release of Windows are you running? There's a chance you may be looking at entirely the wrong problem. There have been serious problems with NDI thanks to some bum updates last month's Patch Tuesday (August 2025). One workaround is to use the NDI bundle's Access Manager and setting inputs to "single TCP". I did, arguably, the right thing by keeping those bum updates off my computers entirely because it has even more serious problems, like either seeing SSDs fall offline which a reboot can bring back, SSDs fall offline which a reboot can bring back but with corrupted data, and worse, it outright turns SSDs into very expensive and very useless bricks. This affects primarily drives with PHISION controller chips.

I am going to run the Windows Update rigamarole to see if it hoses my NDI setup.

More soon on both the NDI-vs-Microsoft and NVidia (which I have not gone past 575.whatever yet) fronts, separately and together.

--Katt. =^.^=
Okay, on my gaming pc I am running windows 11 (I had deleted KB5063709, KB5063878, and KB5063875), within OBS in the advance settings there is a single TCP toggle and it is active. Also, the studdering only started happening after I update to Nvidia 581.29 (also when into Cmd to check if windows did a drivers reinstall with the ones I deleted).

On my streaming pc, nothing is going to change with that, because that is on windows 10. also, with testing with my phone with NDI app no studdering (to my knowledge).
 
Okay, on my gaming pc I am running windows 11 (I had deleted KB5063709, KB5063878, and KB5063875), within OBS in the advance settings there is a single TCP toggle and it is active. Also, the studdering only started happening after I update to Nvidia 581.29 (also when into Cmd to check if windows did a drivers reinstall with the ones I deleted).

On my streaming pc, nothing is going to change with that, because that is on windows 10. also, with testing with my phone with NDI app no studdering (to my knowledge).

Curious, how much is it "studdering"[sic] (stuttering)? As in is it REALLY choppy as all (naughty word of choice here)? Or what's happening? Which driver were you using prior to that, like an earlier 581.x or something in the 57x series? It might be something visible in my install of 581.x series, but I'm not 100% sure. I haven't tried on my super-high-speed Beam setup which requires 10GbE ethernet (I use uncompressed video there) to see if it affects things there.

--Katt. =^.^=
 

MECHa 4293

New Member
Apologies, If I use the word incorrect I did not mean any rude.
Curious, how much is it "studdering"[sic] (stuttering)? As in is it REALLY choppy as all (naughty word of choice here)? Or what's happening? Which driver were you using prior to that, like an earlier 581.x or something in the 57x series? It might be something visible in my install of 581.x series, but I'm not 100% sure. I haven't tried on my super-high-speed Beam setup which requires 10GbE ethernet (I use uncompressed video there) to see if it affects things there.

--Katt. =^.^=

What is happening, is that before update the graphics drivers from 581.15 to 581.29 OBS and distro AV were have the same problem similar to the pervious problem with the windows update. To clarify, the frame drop from one pc to the other would only happen when the pc that is sending video encounters high GPU demand, like in-game camera shake, fast mouse movement, or loading in maps. And, had fix the problem with windows updates and when rolling back to 581.15 the problem went away.
 

KUCTech

Member
Hello DistroAV/NDI Experts: Can anyone see the cause of this error, or any version incompatibility in the NDI components?

Thanks. . .

 

RayneYoruka

New Member
I've answered within the other thread but I'll paste it here too.

Hello DistroAV/NDI Experts: Can anyone see the cause of this error, or any version incompatibility in the NDI components?

Thanks. . .


There has been some users with 13th and 14th gen Intel cpus having crashes with NDI, nothing has been found as the case and the most likely cause is the silicon degradation that intel has had this far.
 

RayneYoruka

New Member
Pardon my possibly sounding clueless, but for some context, what is Moonlight? I might give it a check to help with any troubleshooting here.

--Katt. =^.^=
Moonlight is a self hosted remote streaming used primarely for gaming.

I'm reporting back with 581.29 and Windows 11 with no issues so far, I'd suggest doing a clear driver install in between drivers to make sure it's a bug and not just windows messing with the priorities and all of that
 
Moonlight is a self hosted remote streaming used primarely for gaming.

I'm reporting back with 581.29 and Windows 11 with no issues so far, I'd suggest doing a clear driver install in between drivers to make sure it's a bug and not just windows messing with the priorities and all of that

Thanks for the rap against my head to shake those memories loose. I remember installing it but I could never figure out how to make it work. Will have to give it another go to see if I can actually figure it out, then help with any troubleshooting.

--Katt. =^.^=
 

napochan

New Member
First, thank you for providing such a useful OBS plugin. I am a newbie using this with an AVKANS PTZ camera in OBS for a church livestream application. I see the NDI Source properties has a section to specify PanTiltZoom. I thought these settings might be relative to the camera's Home position but so far Zoom is the only setting that actually moves the lens. Pan and Tilt settings have no effect.

I want to define Scenes that include the PTZ source with a unique PTZ setting so the operator simply selects a scene and the camera framing along with other sources in the scene appear correct.

Would appreciate further understanding how this works along with other methods to accomplish the stated objective.
 

AaronD

Active Member
I see the NDI Source properties has a section to specify PanTiltZoom. I thought these settings might be relative to the camera's Home position but so far Zoom is the only setting that actually moves the lens. Pan and Tilt settings have no effect.

I want to define Scenes that include the PTZ source with a unique PTZ setting so the operator simply selects a scene and the camera framing along with other sources in the scene appear correct.

Would appreciate further understanding how this works along with other methods to accomplish the stated objective.
I'm not familiar with that part of NDI. My understanding until now was that it's only a picture and sound, nothing more. Pan/Tilt/Zoom then, is a digital crop after OBS receives the picture. I could be wrong though.

My PTZ's are controlled from a custom app that I wrote because I didn't see anything that did what I wanted. More preset buttons than anyone else has, and a few other controls. Sends VISCA commands over a TCP network connection, and gets feedback from that same connection to show on the control screen. My cameras also take VISCA over UDP, which is easier, but I didn't see that until after TCP worked. Oh well. My later utilities do UDP, and that works too.

Anyway, it's really not very hard to do all of that, with today's programming tools. The hard part is figuring out how to connect it to OBS. I don't. At least not directly. That's what my small utility programs are for. The Advanced Scene Switcher plugin handles a LOT of automation, and part of that is to call those utility programs, which then do their own thing outside of OBS.

If you really don't want to build a set of custom tools like I did, you might try the PTZOptics plugin, and then use the Advanced Scene Switcher to send hotkeys to it. You don't have to register those hotkeys to anything physical - they can be blank in OBS's assignment - Adv. SS can just send the hotkey straight over without that.
I don't use the PTZOptics plugin - my custom tools do far more - so I can't comment on it beyond its existence.
 

Lawrence_SoCal

Active Member
First, thank you for providing such a useful OBS plugin. I am a newbie using this with an AVKANS PTZ camera in OBS for a church livestream application. I see the NDI Source properties has a section to specify PanTiltZoom. I thought these settings might be relative to the camera's Home position but so far Zoom is the only setting that actually moves the lens. Pan and Tilt settings have no effect.

I want to define Scenes that include the PTZ source with a unique PTZ setting so the operator simply selects a scene and the camera framing along with other sources in the scene appear correct.

Would appreciate further understanding how this works along with other methods to accomplish the stated objective.
What @AaronD said and

My PTZ vendor (not AVKANS) provides its own VirtualUSB driver that takes NDI feed and makes it appear like locally attached USB camera. NDI Tools may do similar? or plugins like this one. First I'd check your PTZ vendor offerings.

My understanding is the same as Arron's - NDI is a protocol for transmitting video (including audio)... it is NOT a control protocol. (Sony's) VISCA over Ethernet being the most common, but not only method. And some vendors have their own 'dialect', so what works for one PTZ vendor cameras may or may not work for others.

There are numerous options for controlling a PTZ camera. But... you have to deal with compatibility as not all control systems compatible with all NDI PTZ cameras (see dialect comment above). That's on you to check/confirm. PTZ Optics seems to have both a software (base capability is free) and physical PTZ controller (the SuperJoy) that has fairly broad compatibility, at a price.
The more sophisticated tend to be those NOT integrated with OBS Studio. However, there are multiple options for having an interface (often OBS Studio plugin) that enables a single 'click'/command to handle both scene selection and camera position commands. OBS Studio has websockets, so if PTZ controller software is outside OBS Studio, but allows command arguments to be associated with PTZ Preset, that command line could be configured to send commands to OBS Studio (including Scene selection). Or you could possibly do it the other way around, with a Scene having a Source that is a command line argument that gets sent to other software (like advancing a PowerPoint slide show, or to PTZ control s/w, etc.

OBS Studio, is powerful/complex, and being typical Open-Source, is flexible, but with that comes flexibility and no single way to accomplish things, especially of the type you are asking about. Numerous different approaches, each with their own Pro's & Con's.
For our House of Worship, I set up the Scenes such that we have 3 we basically use, as we broadcast the printed Service Bulletin along with the video (vs sticking to typical full width video, and just using lower thirds or similar for printed content). ymmv. Personally, due to different scenarios, we have NOT linked PTZ presents with Scenes (Full PPT slide, partial, and no slide (ie full screen width video)] . We select OBS Studio Scene based on Service Bulletin content and situation, and then use PTZ Presets (PTZ controller s/w running on 2nd monitor) and manual PTZ controls as appropriate.
 
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Lawrence_SoCal

Active Member
Couple of extra thoughts
1. When it comes to PTZ controls, a common premium capability to a multi-step (Trace) Preset... ie, instead of the simple go to position X, it is instead a more sophisticated sequence (Trace) of Pan, Tilt and Zoom changes. [The name Trace comes from the old process of recording a sequence of camera movement steps, and Recording (Tracing) that movement ]. Some software control systems have made Trace available at MUCH lower prices than was the case a few years ago (if not free in some cases)

2. There is work on an NDI video transport protocol alternative called Open Media Transport (somewhat akin to AV1 is to H.265 for video encoding)... something to keep an eye on
 

mishakim

Member
First, thank you for providing such a useful OBS plugin. I am a newbie using this with an AVKANS PTZ camera in OBS for a church livestream application. I see the NDI Source properties has a section to specify PanTiltZoom. I thought these settings might be relative to the camera's Home position but so far Zoom is the only setting that actually moves the lens. Pan and Tilt settings have no effect.

I want to define Scenes that include the PTZ source with a unique PTZ setting so the operator simply selects a scene and the camera framing along with other sources in the scene appear correct.

Would appreciate further understanding how this works along with other methods to accomplish the stated objective.
I use two AKVANS PTZ cameras, they are basically clones of PTZ Optics products, so PTZ Optics' utilities work. I previously had URLs called by A-S-S that trigger the cameras' HTTP-based remote control for PTZ presets, but those stopped working when I moved to a new computer, and I haven't sorted out why.
 
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