birddog NDI VideoWall User manual

VideoWall
USER GUIDE

Table of Contents
Welcome to BirdDog........................................................................................2
Using This Guide............................................................................................................2
Welcome to the Future ...................................................................................3
What is NDI®? ................................................................................................................3
Overview...............................................................................................................4
Features.............................................................................................................................4
System Requirements......................................................................................4
Installation.............................................................................................................5
Connections .........................................................................................................5
Compatible display devices.......................................................................................6
Conguration ......................................................................................................6
Settings window.............................................................................................................6
Assigning a panel to a device....................................................................................7
Glossary.................................................................................................................8

1
Copyright
Copyright 2023 BirdDog Australia all rights reserved. No part of this manual may be copied, reproduced, translated,
or distributed in any form or by any means without prior consent in writing from our company.
Trademark Acknowledgment
and other BirdDog trademarks and logos are the property of BirdDog Australia. Other trademarks,
company names and product names contained in this manual are the property of their respective owners.
•Microsoft, Windows, ActiveX, and Internet Explorer are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation
in the U.S. and/or other countries.
•HDMI, the HDMI logo and High-Denition Multimedia Interface are the trademarks or registered
trademarks of HDMI Licensing, LLC in the United States and other countries.
•Other trademarks, company names and product names contained in this manual are the property of
their respective owners.
•NDI® is a registered trademark of NewTek, Inc.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION
Legal Notice
The contents of this document are subject to change without prior notice. Updates will be added to the new
version of this manual. We will readily improve or update the products or procedures described in the manual.
Best eort has been made to verify the integrity and correctness of the contents in this document, but no statement,
information, or recommendation in this manual shall constitute formal guarantee of any kind, expressed or implied.
We shall not be held responsible for any technical or typographical errors in this manual.
The product appearance shown in this manual is for reference only and may be dierent from the actual appearance
of your device.
Due to uncertainties such as physical environment, discrepancy may exist between the actual values and reference
values provided in this manual.
Use of this document and the subsequent results shall be entirely on the user’s own responsibility.

2
Welcome to BirdDog
Thank you for using VideoWall. We hope you enjoy this simple and powerful way to display an NDI® stream across
multiple display panels to create a a video wall.
Using This Guide
VideoWall is sophisticated software, so please read this guide before use and retain for future reference.
We’re Invested In Your Success
We pride ourselves on being approachable and easily contactable. We’d love to hear from you.
Dan Miall
Co-Founder and CEO
[e-mail]
Eamon Drew
Co-Founder and CMO
[e-mail]

3
Welcome to the Future
What is NDI®?
NDI® (Network Device Interface) is a high-quality, low-latency, frame-accurate standard that enables compatible
devices to communicate, deliver, and receive high denition video over your existing Gigabit Ethernet network.
Operating bi-directionally, NDI® devices can be auto-detected, powered and controlled over the same Ethernet
cable used to send the video and audio. If you have a Gigabit network, you have the potential for a streamlined,
interconnected, video production environment.
With the introduction of NDI® 5, you can now securely share network sources between remote sites anywhere in
the world - on a single network port. Even a smartphone can be a NDI®source.
Transitioning to NDI® can also occur gradually. Existing SDI or HDMI signals can easily be converted to an NDI®
stream and piped where required on your network and then converted back only at the necessary endpoints.
BirdDog has been on the NDI® journey since the very beginning, and VideoWall is just one of our products designed
to take advantage of the features and potential of NDI®.
For more information on NDI®, please refer to this page on our website.

4
Overview
VideoWall is a simple, yet powerful way to display an NDI® stream across multiple display panels to create a video
wall. Operation is simple. Choose either a 2×2 or 3×3 panel layout, assign your PLAY or SDM to each panel, and
choose the NDI® stream you wish to display.
Features
Choose your receiver
VideoWall supports both BirdDog PLAY
and BirdDog M1 SDM to create fully
networked and cost eective video wall
displays.
4K 60fps
VideoWall supports input resolutions
of 2160p and 1080p and frame rates
up to 60fps. VideoWall does not
support interlaced sources. Please
refer to https://birddog.tv/videowall-
overview/ for complete specications.
Windows 11 System Tray app
VideoWall lives in your Windows 10 or
11 System Tray for easy access anytime.
You can pin it to your desktop or close
it without aecting the NDI® stream.
Generate playlists with the free Central 2.0.
Use Central 2.0 to create playlists from your own media les. For a single VideoWall, the free Central 2.0 Lite edition
is all you need or use the Pro edition to push content to multiple VideoWall setups simultaneously.
Easy power
PLAY can be powered from the USB connection of the display, and since the SDM lives inside the NEC Message
Series display, it requires no external power input.
Easy connection
For each panel, connect PLAY (or the installed SDM) to a 1GbE network switch. Connect the switch to the Windows
PC running VideoWall and you are set.
System Requirements
Installation machine
•CPU: Intel i7 10th Gen
•RAM: 16GB
•OS: Windows 10 or 11
Network
•1GbE network switch.
•PLAY or installed M1 SDM receiver
devices for each video wall display panel.
•SDM devices must be on rmware v1.65.1
or later.

5
Installation
1. Download VideoWall from here.
2. Double-click the executable, and follow the prompts to perform a standard Windows install.
3. When VideoWall is rst launched, you'll be prompted to enter your License Key. Enter the Key and click the
Activate button. The Activate License window will display "Activated". Click the "x" symbol to close the window
and the VideoWall application will display.
4. The application is accessible from the System Tray. Left click on the icon to to maximise the app window when
it is minimised and right click to choose to quit the app. The output of VideoWall is not aected when the
application is closed.
Connections
Each display panel of your video wall requires a PLAY or
an installed M1 SDM.
For example, a 2x2 video wall installation (four display
panels) requires four PLAY, or four installed SDM devices.
1. For each panel of the video wall:
a. If using PLAY devices, connect PLAY to the
display panel using an HDMI cable. Provide
power to the PLAY.
b. Connect PLAY, or the panel-installed SDM, to
the 1GbE network switch using an Ethernet
cable.
2. Connect the switch to the Windows PC running
VideoWall using an Ethernet cable.
Panel

6
Compatible display devices
Conguration
a. Select the input NDI® stream that will be split by the VideoWall application. This input will then be split into
four, or nine, NDI® streams depending on the VideoWall Format setting. These streams are then assigned
to the receiving devices (PLAY or SDM) associated with the physical video wall.
b. Click the VideoWall logo to open the following Settings window.
Settings window
a. Select the VideoWall layout. You can choose from 2x2 or 3x3 congurations.
BirdDog PLAY is an NDI® player that allows you to
view NDI® sources on your TV via HDMI.
PLAY
The BirdDog SDM module installs inside an SDM
compatible at panel for easy display of NDI® sources.
SDM

7
b. Assign a name to the VideoWall output. Use only upper case A-Z or underscore "_" with a maximum
of 50 characters for the name. This is the multistream output that is sent to the PLAY or SDM decoders
associated with the physical video wall. For example, shown below is the 2x2 layout stream BD_VWALL as
displayed in NDI Studio Monitor.
c. Choose between the default light coloured interface or Dark mode.
d. Choose Pin to Desktop to keep VideoWall in front of other open windows on the Desktop.
e. The version of your VideoWall application is displayed. Click the question mark icon to open the BirdDog
Support page.
f. Your License Key is displayed here. To remove your License Key, click the cross icon and follow the prompts.
Assigning a panel to a device
1. Right-click on each panel to assign a device to that panel. In this example, a 3x3 layout has been selected and
the nine receiver devices are displayed. Choose the desired device to assign it to the panel. Logical naming of
the PLAY or SDM devices is recommended to simplify this process
2. VideoWall is now congured and ready to use.

8
Glossary
Domain
A domain contains a group of computers that can be accessed and administered with a common set of rules.
Domain can also refer to the IP address of a website on the Internet.
DNS
DNS (Domain Name System) is a system used by the Internet and private networks to translate domain names into
IP addresses.
mDNS
mDNS (Multicast DNS) refers to the use of IP multicast with DNS to translate domain names into IP addresses and
provide service discovery in a network that does not have access to a DNS server.
Ethernet
Ethernet, standardized as IEEE 802.3, refers to a series of technologies used to connect computers and other
devices to a LAN (Local Area Network) or wide area network (WAN).
Firmware
Firmware is a class of software held in non-volatile memory that provides the low-level control for a device’s
hardware.
Gigabit Ethernet (GigE)
An Ethernet capable of transmitting frames at a rate of a gigabit per second. A Gigabit capable Ethernet network
is recommended for NDI® production workows.
IP
IP (Internet Protocol) is the communications protocol for the Internet, many wide area networks (WANs), and
most local area networks (LANs) that denes the rules, formats, and address scheme for exchanging datagrams or
packets between a source computer or device and a destination computer or device.
LAN
LAN (Local Area Network) is a network that connects computers and devices in a room, building, or group of
buildings. A system of LANs can also be connected to form a WAN (Wide Area Network).
Mbps
Mbps (Megabits per second) is a unit of measurement for data transfer speed, with one megabit equal to one
million bits. Network transmissions are commonly measured in Mbps.
NDI®
NDI® (Network Device Interface) is a standard allowing for transmission of video using standard LAN networking.
NDI® comes in two avours, NDI® and NDI®|HX. NDI® is a variable bit rate, I-Frame codec that reaches rates
of around 140Mbps at 1080p60 and is visually lossless. NDI®|HX is a compressed, long-GOP, H.264 variant that
achieves rates around 12Mbps at 1080p60.