Zoe Live with OMT and NDI

Since I released Zoe to the masses (well, a few people who downloaded it) I've had a lot of positive feedback and feature requests. As this was a tool I mainly wrote for a specific group, it was always fairly limited in capabilities – and this was mostly by design.

However, I'm always open to improvements as long as they don't compromise the 'simple media server' design principles – Zoe should allow anyone to use a series of slides or videos as a digital backdrop, controlled from a lighting console, with absolutely minimal technical knowledge or configuration.  

I've also recently been working with NDI and OMT as part of the future of CueCam so used the opportunity to add these new live sources to Zoe.

The next version of Zoe (1.6) will include the ability to add live NDI and OMT sources to the library tiles alongside other media.

What is OMT (Open Media Transport)

OMT is essentially an open-source alternative to NDI®. Unfortunately, Vizrt made a number of changes to how NDI is licensed recently which (amongst others) meant support for it in ETC Eos disappeared and cameras increasingly require additional license payments to unlock NDI functionality.

OMT aims to be different; It is completely free, open source, and royalty free under the permissive MIT license and yet still offers an ultra-fast codec with sub-frame latency.

OMT is definitely the newcomer, whereas NDI is established in broadcast-level flows around the world today, but I've been a huge proponent of open source for years and, indeed, for OMT as I hope it will continue to evolve and gain market share so, optimistic of that future, I want to make sure OMT exists side by side NDI in my own applications.

For more information see https://www.openmediatransport.org