NDI Wireless Webcam Connect To Smartphone

WHEN TO USE AN IPHONE AS A WIRELESS WEBCAM VS. NATIVE APPS

Before you dive into a whirlwind of workarounds, consider whether you can skip the laptop video conference experience completely and just use your smartphone itself. There are times to use an iPhone as a wireless webcam and then there are times when you should just keep things simple. Many web conferencing, video chat and webinar services like Zoom, Skype, GoToWebinar and others currently offer native apps for the iPhone. Using those native apps require zero workarounds. You can just hit the link to join and the app pops up immediately for for a high quality experience. You can even leverage you’re iPhone’s 4G wireless signal if WiFi proves unreliable.

TURN AN IPHONE INTO A WIRELESS WEBCAM WITH NEWTEK’S NDI TECHNOLOGY

A relatively new technology called NDI (Network Device Interface) is a royalty-free software standard designed to allow video-compatible devices to broadcast and receive broadcast quality video over a WiFi network.  If both the transmitting device (in this case your phone) and the receiving device (your computer) are on the same network, the experience is nearly seamless, but note that it requires you to be using a very fast WiFi router. We’re talking about router speed and not Internet connection speed since the technology sends the video signal over your network. A fast router results in lag free wireless video transmission. It was developed by NewTek and has been built into some high-end cameras for broadcasters, but is increasingly finding its way into more consumer level products. One of them is your smartphone, so let’s look at how to turn an iPhone into a wireless webcam with NewTek’s NDI technology.

NDI HX CAMERA APP FOR IPHONE

The main app you’ll need on your iPhone is the NDI HX Camera app (currently $19.99 on the App Store). Download the app, connect to WiFi and you’re ready to start broadcasting on your network. Most of us will need software to receive, view and route that video on our computer (more on that below), but some software is already incorporating NDI natively so that once you’re transmitting a signal from your iPhone, all you need to do is select the NDI video source within the computer software. NewTek also makes a version of the NDI HX Camera app for Android, but there have been some reports of instability.

One of the great things about the NDI HX Camera app is its simplicity. You have basic controls for exposure level, muting audio or switching between the front and rear camera, but that’s it. Perhaps the most important button is the video quality toggle. It offers three video quality levels and automatically starts at the highest quality, but if your WiFi signal isn’t super strong (NewTek advises a high end 5ghz signal), you may want to toggle down to the middle quality level. The lowest level could work in a pinch too, but it reverts to a 4X3 cropped screen instead of 16X9, which would still be fine for a lot of applications, but is not ideal. The app also uses whatever microphone you have plugged into the iPhone to stream audio as well. Have a professional shotgun microphone plugged into your iPhone? Then you’ve just set up a great looking and sounding studio camera. Another nice bonus is that the NDI HX Camera app won’t let your iPhone go into sleep mode as long as it’s broadcasting, so rest easy there.

If you’re looking for an easy way to live stream your iPhone’s screen in addition to another webcam, they also make the NDI HX Capture app (currently $9.99 on the App Store). It works much the same ways as the video streaming app, but it transmits whatever is on your iPhone screen like other screen share software. Even if you’re using a computer’s webcam for your video presentation, this could give you an easy way to show presentation slides or a demonstration in real-time without fiddling with multiple windows on your computer. Lots of great possibilities there.