Creating a flow that uses an NDI® source - AWS Elemental MediaConnect
PrerequisitesProcedureNext stepsAdditional resources

Creating a flow that uses an NDI® source

You can use MediaConnect to create flows that ingest content from NDI® senders within your VPC. This guide explains how to create and configure a flow with an NDI source in MediaConnect.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure you've completed the following steps:

  • Documentation review

    Review the NDI sources documentation to understand the capabilities of this feature.

  • Infrastructure setup

    Set up your VPC infrastructure with at least one NDI discovery server running, and with NDI senders actively broadcasting content within the VPC.

    • For VPC setup: You can use the AWS CloudFormation VPC template to automatically create a VPC with public and private subnets. For more information about VPCs, see the Amazon VPC User Guide.

    • For NDI discovery server deployment: AWS provides guidance on automated setup across multiple Availability Zones using AWS CloudFormation, including best practices for installation and configuration. For instructions, see Setting Up NDI Discovery Servers for Broadcast Workflows.

    • For security group configuration: We recommend that you configure your security groups with a self-referencing ingress rule and egress rule. You can then attach this security group to the EC2 instances where your NDI servers are running within the VPC. This approach automatically allows all necessary NDI communication between components in your VPC, and all required network traffic is permitted. For guidance, see Security Group Referencing in the Amazon VPC User Guide.

Procedure

  1. Open the MediaConnect console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/mediaconnect/.

  2. On the Flows page, choose Create flow.

  3. Configure the basic flow details:

    • For Name, enter a name for your flow.

      • You can create multiple flows with the same name. However, we encourage you to use unique flow names within an AWS Region to help with organization.

      • Keep in mind that you can’t change this name after you create the flow.

    • For Availability Zone, choose an Availability Zone for your flow.

      • If you leave this as Any, MediaConnect will assign one based on your VPC subnet.

    • For Flow size, select Large.

  4. Configure your flow source:

    • For Source type, select NDI Source.

    • For Flow source name, enter a unique name for the NDI flow source.

      • Keep in mind that you can't change this name after you create the flow.

    • For Flow source description, enter a description to help you identify this source and its purpose.

    • (Optional) For NDI source name, specify the name of the upstream NDI sender that will send to your flow.

      You can either:

      • Leave this field empty for now, and select from a list of discovered sources after starting the flow.

      • Enter the exact name of an existing NDI sender that's registered with your discovery server (for example, MACHINE (program)).

  5. Configure the VPC interfaces for your flow:

    • In the VPC interface section, choose Add VPC interface.

    • For Name, enter a unique name for your VPC interface.

    • For Role ARN, specify the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of the role that you created when you set up MediaConnect as a trusted service.

    • For VPC, choose the ID of the VPC that you want to use.

      • If your VPC isn't listed, verify that it's set up in Amazon Virtual Private Cloud and that you have IAM permissions to view it.

    • For Subnet, choose the VPC subnet that you want MediaConnect to use to set up your VPC configuration. You must choose at least one and can choose as many as you want.

    • For Security groups, specify the VPC security groups that you want MediaConnect to use to set up your VPC configuration. You must choose at least one security group.

  6. Configure the NDI settings:

    • Set Flow NDI support to Enabled if it's not already.

    • Enter an optional NDI machine name.

      • This name is used as a prefix to help you identify this flow source as an NDI receiver in your network. For example, if you enter MACHINENAME, your flow source will appear to your NDI senders as MACHINENAME (ProgramName).

      • If you don’t enter a name, MediaConnect generates a unique 12-character ID from the flow's ARN.

    • Add up to three NDI discovery servers. For each discovery server, provide the following information:

      • Enter the discovery server IP address (IPv4 format).

      • Specify a port number if you’re not using the default (5959).

      • Select the appropriate VPC interface adapter.

  7. Configure the encoder settings:

    • For Encoder profile name, choose the encoder profile that you want to apply to your flow outputs.

    • (Optional) For Maximum bitrate, specify the maximum expected bitrate in bits per second (bps).

      • This setting lets you override the default video bitrate within the profile's supported range (10-50 Mbps).

      • If left blank, MediaConnect uses the default value of 20,000,000 bps.

  8. Configure the monitoring options that you want to enable:

    1. Turn on Thumbnails state to generate source thumbnails that you can preview in the console.

    2. Turn on Content quality analysis state to monitor for the following audio and video quality issues.

      1. (Optional) Turn on Black frames to detect periods of black video frames in the stream.

      2. (Optional) Turn on Frozen frames to detect periods of unchanging video frames in the stream.

      3. (Optional) Turn on Silent audio to detect periods of audio silence in the stream.

      4. (Optional) Set a duration threshold between 10 and 60 seconds for each metric that you enable. The default is 30 seconds.

  9. At the bottom of the page, choose Create flow.

Next steps

Now that you've created a flow, complete these steps to start delivering your content:

Selecting NDI senders after you start your flow

When configuring your flow source, you can specify which upstream NDI sender (like a camera or encoder) will provide content to your MediaConnect flow. If you didn't specify this sender during flow creation or want to change it, you can select one after starting your flow.

You must start your flow before you can perform this procedure. MediaConnect can only discover and list available NDI senders when the flow is active.

To select or update upstream NDI sources

  1. Open the MediaConnect console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/mediaconnect/.

  2. On the Flows page, choose the name of the flow that you want to update.

  3. Start the flow if it’s not already active.

  4. Choose the Source tab.

  5. Choose the source that you want to update.

  6. Choose Update.

  7. Under NDI source name, specify the upstream source that the NDI sender will send to your flow.

    • Start typing a name in the field. As you type, matching NDI sources from your network will appear in a dropdown list.

    • Select the NDI source that you want to use from the list.

    • Choose the refresh button (⟳) to update the list of available NDI sources as needed.

  8. Choose Update to save your changes.

Additional resources

For more information about source monitoring options for your flow, see the following pages in this guide: