Network stream inputs

Add one

Press Add Input…, choose Network Stream, and pick a Protocol:

RTMP: a sender pushes to this Mac. Most phone apps, streaming software and hardware encoders can send it.
SRT, either way round: a sender pushes to this Mac, or InterDirector connects to an SRT sender that waits for a caller. Better than RTMP over a network that loses packets, such as the internet.
RTSP: InterDirector connects to a camera. Most IP and PTZ cameras serve it.

A network stream input is a source like any other: it sits on a card, goes to Preview, takes a transition, has a strip in the mixer, and can be framed, colour-corrected and recorded on its own.

Listen for a sender

For RTMP, and SRT with Direction set to Listen for a sender, InterDirector waits on a Port for a sender to connect. The settings list the address to give the sender, one for each network this Mac is on, with Copy beside each.

Until a sender connects, the card says Waiting for a sender. When the sender stops, the input goes back to waiting and takes the next one that connects. Only one sender at a time.

The first time an input listens, macOS may ask whether InterDirector may accept incoming connections: allow it, or nothing can reach the input. Nothing listens while the input is stopped.

The RTMP stream key

Every RTMP input has a Stream key of its own, made when you add it. Only a sender using that key is taken; a push with any other key is refused, and the card goes on waiting. Press New Key to make a new one: a sender still using the old key is no longer accepted.

The address shown ends in /live/ and the key. Many senders ask for the server and the key separately: give the server as the address up to and including /live, and the key on its own.

Connect to a URL

For RTSP, and SRT with Direction set to Connect to a URL, enter the stream’s URL, such as rtsp://camera.local:554/stream1 or srt://encoder.local:9000. InterDirector connects when the input starts, and reconnects on its own if the stream goes away.

A camera that asks for a user name and password takes them in the URL, as rtsp://user:password@camera/…. RTSP is received over TCP, so a busy network cannot silently break up the picture.

SRT stream ID and passphrase

An SRT sender may present a Stream ID, and a Passphrase encrypts the stream. Both must be the same at both ends; a passphrase is 10 to 79 characters.

The stream key, the passphrase and any password in a URL are saved with your Show. Anyone with the Show file can read them, and push to its RTMP inputs.

Network timing

Latency is how far behind its arrival the stream is played, to ride out the network’s hiccups. 500 ms is safe; lower it where the network is reliable and you need the picture sooner, raise it if the picture or sound stutters.

Timing, as for NDI inputs, chooses whether the stream follows the sender’s clock or is placed by its arrival. Automatic follows the sender’s clock for a stream with a picture.

Input delay, under the input’s Timing, is separate, and is still what lines the stream up with your other sources.

Its sound, or another input’s

A phone or an encoder’s own microphone is often not the sound you want. On the input’s Audio tab, Audio source chooses what it is heard as: This Input’s Own Audio (the default), another input’s sound (a microphone on an Audio input, say), or None, which gives it no mixer strip at all. As for any input, a pairing replaces the stream’s own sound and never mixes with it. See Pairing an input’s sound.

What a stream can carry

H.264 or HEVC pictures, decoded by your Mac’s hardware, and AAC sound. Mono sound is heard on both sides; a stream with more than two channels gives its first two.

Recording inputs, to keep each armed source in a file of its own.
A source that keeps reconnecting.