Zowietek 4K Video Encoder/Decoder, ZowieBox, SRT/RTMP(S)/RTSP, Live Streaming, Pass-Through Video Capture, HDMI Extender, UVC Converter, HDMI only

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.

This vendor is finally filling a space in the current market that has been empty for too long. The ZowieBox does what the Magewell's have been doing with respect to converting HDMI to NDI (and vice versa AMAZINGLY) but they don't support all formats of NDI. This is a brilliant one-trick-pony. It supports HX1, HX2 and HX3 but not the uncompressed SHQ. This is a huge problem when using the Zowiebox in a Tricaster environment (native NDI anyone???) as the multiviews are sent out uncompressed. It's like releasing a guitar that only has 3 strings and expecting folks to be happy with the luthier. Now, I've purchased and deployed about a dozen of these since they came out using a few hacks, but have been forced to *upgrade* to Magewells due to this major shortfall. I have reached out to support to 2 months with no response. Excited if they can Fix this beautiful product.

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.

Das Kästchen ist sein Geld wert. Ich habe schon eineige VIdeoserver/Converter in den FIngern gehabt aber keiner hat für sowenig Geld soviel solides geboten. 4k HDMI => NDI + RTSP H.264/H.265 +SRT Codierung UVC => HDMI / RTSP / NDI Codierung Die NDI Streams (HX3,2,1) haben bei HD Auflösung eine kaum noch wahrnehmbare Latenz die auch bei 4k nur unwesentlich schlechter wird (alles über LAN/Kabel getestet, WiFi nutze ich nicht). Arebitet einwandfrei mit den offizielen NDI Tools zusammen oder mit beliebigen Tools die entweder NDI oder RTSP Streams unterstützen (H.264, H.265 und MJPEG), ich habe es mit NDI Tools, VLC und Tinycam Pro sowie am ATEM Mini (via HDMI, als NDI to HDMI Decoder) im Einsatz. Auch der Test mit einer OBSBot Tiny SE als UVC Cam funktionierte perfekt inkl. PTZ Steuerung über die WebOberfläche der Zowiebox. Damit wird die TinySE Netzwerktauglich und kann nach wie vor mit Gesten oder Ferngesteuert werden (über die Wegbui nicht über die OBSBot Remote). Das WEB GUI ist top, übersichtlich, und angenehm flott. Es erlaubt einiges an Konfiguration, das ich so nicht erwartet hatte (z.B. Canvas, also statische Inhalte wie Text oder Bilder die dann im Viedeo eingeblendet werden, Ausspielen an verschiedene Plattformen als Live Stream , etc... ). Für das Geld ist die gebotene Leistung beeindruckend. Display und Tally Licht sind ebenso praktisch (IP Adresse wird angezeigt ..) . Das mitgelieferte Netzteil ist relativ stark aber ich habe es trotzdem durch ein stärkeres ersetzt um sicherzustellen, dass auch die UVC CAMs mit PTZ (Tiny 2 und TinySE) ausreichend Strom bekommen. Auf dem Screenshot ist links der NDI Output, oben der RTSP Stream (Main, Full HD) und rechts unten das LIVE Bild in der Zowiebox Web GUI zu sehen. Von der Webgui aus können dann auch die konfigurierbaren Streams oder Blenden (Canvas) aktiviert werden. NDI Apps gibts auch für Android und iOS/IPADOS. Erstaunlich fand ich dass der Stream auch über WIFI immer noch sehr wenig Latenz aufwies (getestet habe ich das aber mit dem IPAD bisher nur in FUll HD) . Insgesamt bin ich mit dem Teil hoch zufrieden und werde mir sicher noch ein weiteres zulegen (eines als Encoder, eines als Decoder). Last but not least: Auf der Zowitek Website ist eine Fülle von FAQs und Erklärungen wie man bestimmte Dinge aktiviert (z.B. UVC zu NDI) , fand ich gerade am Anfang sehr hilfreich bei der Vielfalt an Möglichkeiten die die Box bietet.

Very satisfied with the purchase. It takes over the streaming from the computer/laptop, which becomes free to be used during streaming. Connected to a live on Youtube, controled via mobile phone, no issues.

I've been using this device to stream RTSP feeds 24/7 from Blue Iris to my HDMI extenders, which display my surveillance video on various HDMI monitors around the house. So far, it's been working "OK", with Blue Iris, there seems to be a RTSP incompatibility where the stream will get corrupted from time to time, also, the stream may stop and needs to be restarted. There is no watchdog capability with the unit. It works like 95% of the time then will randomly distort the image and require a restart. Setup was simple: I enabled decoder mode, entered the RTSP URL, set the RTSP feed as the primary stream, and connected the HDMI output to my extender. Within minutes, I had live video showing on my TVs. Performance has been stable so far, but I’ll update this review if I encounter any issues over time—especially regarding recovery from stream hiccups, which remains to be seen. Build quality is impressive. The unit feels solid and well-designed. You can tell some care went into the hardware. The Web UI is surprisingly polished—much better than I expected at this price point. It's clean, responsive, and easy to navigate. A few cons: It only supports a limited number of protocols (mostly RTSP). That’s fine for my needs, but something to be aware of. After a reboot, the stream takes about 30 seconds to buffer and appear. Not a dealbreaker, but worth mentioning. Overall, this device is doing exactly what I need it to do. If you're looking for a dedicated RTSP-to-HDMI solution, this one seems to fit the bill.

Le manuel explique les bases. Une fois sur l'interface web, il faut aller dans decodeur > uvc et activer la webcam. La page sera en erreur si la combinaison de paramètres est incorrect. Il faut donc savoir quelle combinaison la webcam autorise. Pour savoir ça, on branche la webcam au PC et on regarde les choix qui fonctionnent dans ses paramètres. Le boitier met du temps a démarrer, environ 20 à 30 secondes. Ça fait long quand on attend pour voir si ça fonctionne mais ce n'est pas dérangeant vu qu'on ne passe pas som temps à alumer et éteindre. Toutes les infos de base sont claires si on sait avec quoi on est en train de travailler. 5 étoiles car c'est intuitif.

Il prodotto fa veramente tante e cose e ancora non ho esplorato tutte le funzioni, per adesso l'ho usato come decodificatore sia srtp sia ndi, nel primo caso tramite un dji pocket 2 e ha funzionato bene nel secondo tramite iphone e app ndi per avere una camera senza fili aggiuntiva, ovviamente il secondo molto più fluido... l'ho testato sia tramite wifi interno sia tramite lan in entrambi i casi non ha dato problemi e ha offerto una buona copertura; per il prezzo che ha senza dubbio consigliato penso il più abbordabile e completo della sua categoria, non supporta flusso NDI non compresso ma per me non è fondamentale