Siemens Leverages NDI Technology to Innovate and Streamline Corporate Broadcasts

Global technology brand Siemens believes that success begins with meaningful customer conversations. To connect with their worldwide audience, Siemens built a state-of-the-art studio for corporate broadcasts, live events, and more. The company recently transitioned from SDI to NDI technology for greater flexibility, faster setups, and cost savings.

Challenge

Siemens built an impressive, state-of-the-art communication center in Casa Siemens, the company’s office in Milan, Italy. The center includes a physical forum, numerous meeting rooms, and a massive studio theater where the marketing team can record and edit interviews, broadcast live events of professional quality, and more.

Initially, Multimedia Production Engineer Dario Collini and his team used an all-SDI baseband architecture for the studio theater, using Vmix as their switching system, HDMI/SDI video switchers, and dozens of HDMI splits to send their video signal to different monitors. However, after reading about the flexibility and quick setup available with NDI-enabled devices, they decided to dig deeper.

The team began working with Stefano Sarzi from ADCOM — an NDI reseller and installer — to gradually transition to an NDI-based architecture over the course of 18 months.

While the SDI setup was functional, it came with several drawbacks, including:

• Slow installation: A given event might require more than 2-3 days of setup using SDI equipment.

• Limited flexibility: SDI setups, with their excessive cabling and limited remote accessibility, were far less flexible (and less safe) than NDI setups.

• Costly investment: The SDI solution produced excessive costs that Siemens could reduce with NDI-enabled tech.

After exploring alternatives, Dario, together with colleague Giuseppe Giaquinta, realized that NDI offered the only solution that solved all their challenges by accessing a complete technology ecosystem that was immediately available. 

Solution

Over the 18-month transition, the IT team worked with ADCOM to gradually transform the studio theater, using NDI equipment exclusively for their video needs. Throughout the transition period, Siemens worked with a hybrid system that used both technologies. 

The team started by adding NDI-enabled PTZ cameras to the SDI setup. Next, they moved into NDI-based network switches and eventually moved to a fully NDI-native video matrix. This process allowed them to test the NDI equipment and verify its efficacy and performance compared to the traditional baseband infrastructure.

“Siemens was a perfect situation to transition to NDI because they already used software as the core of their project, with vMix,” explains Stefano Sarzi from ADCOM.

It also proved far more flexible, enabling them to install systems within one day that included multi-camera, multi-recording, streaming video, and other requirements. In the end, NDI offered the only complete ecosystem that served all their needs.

The fully transitioned NDI-based studio delivered:

• Flexibility: Siemens employees could handle products remotely, which was helpful during the pandemic and beyond.
• Rapid installation: Single-day setup for multi-camera, multi-recording, steaming, and more.
• Cost savings: NDI setup costs tend to run much lower than similar SDI setups.
• Safety and efficiency: A single cable is much safer and more efficient than a multi-cable SDI setup stretching across a room.

Once we were operating with NDI technology, we installed the required equipment for an interview with our CIO in just one day, rather than the 2-3 days we once needed.

Dario Collini, Multimedia Production Engineer

Outcome: Generating New Business

Siemens’ NDI-based studio has become the flexible space for video production that the team in Milan was hoping to create. The technology proved so successful that it has enabled the Siemens’ team to expand their video-based services to their clients. 

NDI allows us to control everything remotely, from the cameras to the production. If there’s is ever a problem in the studio, we can address it remotely, from anywhere in the world.

Dario Collini, Multimedia Production Engineer

Already a leader in workplace building automation (from fire alarms to climate control), Siemens has been looking for viable solutions to add state-of-the-art AV services to their already comprehensive integrated services package. The success of their in-house NDI implementation was all the proof they needed. 

Today, Siemens is extending the flexibility, rapid installation, safety, performance, and cost-saving benefits of NDI to its commercial clients, with some exciting large-scale implementations already in the works.

Both internally and externally, Siemens is using NDI to create powerful and flexible setups and experiences to increase the quality of corporate communications and content production, generating new business opportunities in the conferencing segment.