4K HDMI Video Encoder/Decoder, ZowieBox, Native NDI HX3 (Certified) Converter/Player, UVC to HDMI, Pass-Through Video Capture, SRT/RTMP(S)/RTSP, Live Streaming to YouTube

This product was basically my first step into the complicated world of NDI, and I'm happy overall. This thing is a Swiss Army knife - it does just about everything, but not perfectly. BUT having a great quality 1080p real-time livestream of our camera feed, as long as you have a network connection to one of our campus network switches (which in turn powers the device with POE), is a game changer. Has no trouble displaying on 4K TVs and audio passthrough via HDMI works great. Makes for a super clean setup. Two gripes. This device has issues with frame rate conversions which might be solved in a future firmware update. For example, we run everything at 59.94 which the zowiebox detects as 60.00 (or at least that's the highest fps option in video settings, and no 59.94 option). Within a couple minutes there is a SEVERE delay to the audio channel. This effect appears to be caused by the Zowiebox "speeding up" the video channel to convert it from 59.94 to 60, but does not speed up the audio channel simultaneously, so for every second the audio gets behind the video channel by 0.06 seconds. So after 16.66 seconds the audio becomes 1 whole second behind the video, and after a minute it's approximately 3 seconds behind. The two options to solve this are to convert our video infrastructure to 60 (headache) instead of 59.94 which removes the conversion the Zowiebox is performing, or force the Zowiebox in video settings to 30fps. Somehow this fixed the audio issues and now everything is real-time. I've also had issues getting Multicast NDI to work properly which might be user error, but I've tinkered with this for many many hours. I have dreams of using our SDI-Zowiebox as our "transmitter" with a small army of HDMI-Zowieboxes as receivers for hallway TVs, classrooms and overflow rooms, and I'll need multicast with this. I'll have to tinker with this some more. Overall highly recommend. As I said, Swiss army pieces of hardware.

Encode and decode both work while powered by POE. Interface is fairly straightforward, and has a couple of features that were not on my “must haves” but are handy regardless (like disabling Tally lights, and the gui on the unit) I have only tested on a fast and simple network but everything worked well.

I'm using this item connected to a Sony ZV1 camera for the purpose of transmitting video over NDI wirelessly to OBS studio then to Twitch stream. The product works well and provides a lot of control over video and audio quality. It is a fairly economical way to do so, considering you typically have to pay $99 just for an NDI license for each product you use, and that fee is included in the $150 price. The quality is good, and I'm hoping in the future they will support even faster transmission rates at higher resolutions over wireless NDI. NDI requires a lot of bandwidth, so a strong wifi is required. I'm only taking one star off, because I feel like the transmitter could be stronger, especially considering the antenna is inside a metal box, which isn't a great location for an antenna. It makes the unit streamline, which is nice, but reduces effectiveness a bit. I think they should consider adding an external antenna port, which would help improve the distance covered. The only other negative was the unit seems to be a bit sensitive to swapping wifi network. I was on one wifi, then switched to another, and when I did this, the unit started acting very erratic. I was getting choppy video and couldn't figure out why. I had to do a factory reset to fix the issue. Also, I run a pretty mobile setup, and it didn't seem to like being handed off from one wifi access point to another. It would lock up during the handoff and I would have to restart the system. Pretty good technical support, other than having to wait a day since I think the support team, for me, is overseas and on a different time zone. Overall a good product, and I'd recommend, but I could see them making a few tweaks to improve even further.

Quite amazing how much this little guy can do at the price point it's at - can encode OR decode, stream, record, utilize NDI, PTZ and tally controls, there's so much flexibility it's a must have. The IP gui is fairly intuitive and there's even a live preview with controls. Even came with a shoe mount. I mainly wanted some hardware that could serve as backup records, and this does just that. Only thing I don't like is you must split your recording either by time (45min max) or file size (4GB max), and it may introduce some freeze frame in the last few seconds if you're trying to string them back together. Otherwise, perfect for a backup and a general webcast/video multi tool!

These ROCK. I have two. I would like eight more. I have successfully configured these in so many awesome ways. Each of mine are currently setup to broadcast their input as an NDI source over the network, regardless of what else the box is doing. Even when I set them up to receive a camera's NDI signal and output that signal over HDMI to a switcher, each Zowiebox itself is also available over the network as an NDI source ... which IS convenient, because I can then remotely confirm that the appropriate box is receiving the correct signal, before enabling the HDMI output which itself can also be independently disabled/enabled. I have tested an OBSBOT Tail Air w/ NDI license » both WiFi and Wired w/ official adapter » my network » Zowiebox connected via ethernet » NDI source as input » HDMI output to ATEM switcher. + a StreamDeck to control the cameras PTZ functions. Oh yeah and you can't use an ATEM switcher's 1st HDMI port, oddly enough. ALL the other HDMI ports are fine, but literally just the first HDMI port is limited to something like YUV color mode? If I recall correctly? Anyways. 1st input will be green and wonky, you can't park there. SRT Server is working great! I really didn't want to buy more $100 NDI licenses for my last 2 Tail Air cameras and THIS HAS DONE THE TRICK! H.265 encoding SRT mode on the OBSBOT Tail Air using Listener mode * make sure to add the Stream ID.* It is probably: pusher/live/av + add the IP address of the Tail Air in the Zowiebox SRT settings, setting it up in Caller mode. BOOM SRT server is now working with HDMI output to my ATEM switcher. Have also successfully configured RTSP/RTMP mode between these same devices. Since starting this testing, I've had these cameras and Zowieboxes running nonstop for several days inside my house. Not sure how they'll hold up elsewhere, but so far nothing has shutdown or frozen. Highly recommend. DARY

You are kidding me!!! What a magical box and it just keeps chugging along. True Plug-and-Play function. I got this based on a professional review in a group setting online. No, I saw them talk about it and before I even knew it, I had it purchased and on its way to me. I got it and was excited to try, so I plugged in equipment to it and got into the web client of the box, did a bit of playing around and it was working with little effort and was not only just working, but it was amazing how easy and how well this works. I wanted a device to allow me to mess around with NDI a bit and within 5 minutes of plugging it into a LAN where I had a camera and other equipment, HDMI from the camera, I was getting a beautiful feed. I slapped together an RS485 2-wire connection between it and the camera (using a USB-A to Serial converter) I was controlling the PTZ camera with beautiful success - from the interface of the Zowiebox. Wow! There are a bunch of things you can do with this, but also it allows you to create your own final resting place of this tool, it gives you a lot of ways to be creative. In my testing, I brought HDMI into the Zowiebox from a PTZ camera and audio and video came flawlessly into OBS on my Mac as a camera and it worked without any issue. I like equipment like this where I can have many uses, including pushing video directly to YouTube.

I purchased this unit with the hope it would solve one simple task - convert HDMI to NDI signal so I can use the source in my NDI production. To date I have been unable to get this unit to work for any of the described reasons. Not sure what it does or how it does it or if the unit I got was defective. Was unable to reach Customer Service - pretty hefty paper weight. Online literature and manual does'nt go into depth on troubleshooting and only explains very basic setup steps, which in my case was unable to get working. The unit itself is lightweight and has pretty lights and display screen. I have been able to plug in a camera a see a video signal, but there is no encoding on the NDI side and no manual to explain how to pull the NDI from it. Disappointing, wish it would work. My experience may be different from other buyers, I can only guess I got a defective unit and too much time has passed to initiate a return.

Nice web interface ease of use with the item knowing its IP address is poor, it gets confused.