DistroAV: NDI input and output inside OBS Studio

What DistroAV adds to an OBS Studio install

OBS Studio records and streams what you point it at, but it has no native way to move a program feed across a network to another machine. DistroAV fills that gap by wrapping NDI, the network audio/video protocol, as three OBS features. NDI Source receives an NDI stream into OBS as a source. NDI Output transmits OBS video and audio out to the network. NDI Filter, also called NDI Dedicated Output, transmits a single OBS source or scene audio rather than the whole program.

The audience is specific: people running multi-machine productions where a second computer, a laptop, or a hardware NDI encoder is already part of the signal chain. If you only ever capture a local camera into a local recording, the plugin adds nothing you cannot get from OBS alone. The project was renamed from OBS-NDI around 2024/06 at the request of obsproject.com to drop OBS from the name, so older tutorials and forum posts still use the previous name for the same plugin.

How NDI Source, NDI Output and NDI Filter fit together

The plugin is a native OBS plugin written in C++, built with CMake and configured through CMakePresets.json, with the source under src/ and bundled third-party code under lib/. It is not a separate application: it registers new OBS source and output types, so once installed the three features appear wherever OBS lists sources and filters.

The data flow is straightforward. On the receiving side, an NDI Source in a scene subscribes to a named NDI stream on the local network and presents its video and audio as a normal OBS source, which means you can scene-switch, record and stream it like any capture device. On the sending side, NDI Output publishes the OBS program feed under an NDI name that other NDI receivers can discover. NDI Filter narrows that to one source or scene, which is the difference between sending your full program and sending just a camera or just a scene's audio to a second machine.

The practical consequence of that split is resource use. A dedicated output for one source avoids pushing the whole program across the network when only one element needs to leave the machine. The README does not document bandwidth figures or latency numbers for any of the three modes, so treat network sizing as something you measure on your own link rather than something the project quantifies.

Installing DistroAV with winget, Homebrew, Flatpak or apt

The README lists four package-manager paths. On Windows, winget installs the plugin by its exact package id:

winget install --exact --id DistroAV.DistroAV

On macOS, the project publishes a Homebrew cask through its own tap:

brew install --cask distroav/distroav/distroav

On Linux the maintained route is Flatpak, and the README pairs the plugin with the OBS Studio Flatpak and a permission override so the plugin can talk to Avahi for network discovery:

flatpak install com.obsproject.Studio com.obsproject.Studio.Plugin.DistroAV
sudo flatpak override com.obsproject.Studio --system-talk-name=org.freedesktop.Avahi

Ubuntu users have a distribution package instead:

sudo apt install distroav

Two requirements come before any of this. OBS must be v31.1.1 or higher, built against Qt6 and available as x64, ARM64 or Apple Silicon, and NDI Runtime v6.3 or higher must be installed separately. The README points at the installation wiki for the runtime and for anything the package managers do not cover.

A first real use is to receive: open OBS, add a source, choose NDI Source, and pick the stream name from the list. To send instead, add NDI Output through the OBS output or tools menu, give the stream a name, and start it; a second NDI receiver on the same network should then see that name. If the list stays empty or an output never appears, the README directs you to the error code list on the troubleshooting wiki, since the plugin writes codes into the OBS log.

The OBS-NDI conflict and the runtime dependency you cannot skip

The most common failure mode is not a bug in DistroAV. It is having the old OBS-NDI plugin installed at the same time. The README links a dedicated wiki page, OBS-NDI Is Now DistroAV, for that case, which tells you the two are treated as a conflict rather than as parallel installs. If you upgraded OBS and left the old plugin in place, the symptom is a plugin that loads but misbehaves, and the fix is removal of the old one, not a reinstall of the new one.

The second constraint is the NDI Runtime. DistroAV is an integration layer, not a codec implementation; it needs NDI Runtime v6.3 or higher present on the machine. That makes the plugin a poor fit for anyone who wants a self-contained binary with no external dependency, and it means an air-gapped machine needs the runtime staged separately. The README does not document an offline install path for the runtime, so plan on network access or a manual transfer for that step.

A third limit is scope. DistroAV moves NDI in and out of OBS. It does not transcode, does not manage NDI discovery servers, and does not replace dedicated NDI tooling for routing or monitoring. If your problem is routing many NDI streams between many endpoints, OBS is the wrong place to solve it.

DistroAV against OBS's built-in network options

The obvious alternative is not another NDI plugin but OBS's own network capabilities. OBS can receive a stream over RTMP or SRT and can send one the same way, and those paths need no plugin and no NDI Runtime. The difference in approach is discovery and latency behaviour. An RTMP or SRT connection is addressed: you type a URL and a stream key, and the sender and receiver agree on an endpoint in advance. NDI is announced: the sender publishes a name, and receivers on the same network find it, which is why the Flatpak instructions include an Avahi permission override. That discovery model is what makes NDI convenient in a studio where sources appear and disappear, and it is also what makes it dependent on the local network rather than on a routable URL.

A second alternative is a hardware capture path: an HDMI capture card between two machines. That avoids the network entirely and gives a fixed, predictable signal, at the cost of a cable run and a card per direction. DistroAV's advantage is that the transport is the existing LAN, so a laptop on the same switch can join without new hardware. Its disadvantage is that the LAN is now part of your production, and the README offers no guidance on network configuration beyond the Avahi override.

Licence, maintenance and what an upgrade costs

DistroAV is GPL-2.0. For most users that changes nothing: you install it and use it. It matters if you redistribute a build or link the plugin into a larger product, because GPL-2.0 carries obligations that permissive licences do not. This is a description of the licence identifier, not legal advice; read the LICENSE file in the repository if your situation involves redistribution.

Maintenance looks current. The repository is not archived, and the last push was on 2026-08-23. The most recent release is 6.2.1 from 2026-04-24, following 6.2.0 on 2026-04-20, with a 6.1.2-beta1 Linux Deb build from 2025-11-12 before that. The project is funded through Open Collective and lists a sponsor, EPEAK Studio, providing project management, code signing and release lab-testing.

Upgrade cost is mostly the two hard requirements. A new DistroAV release can raise the minimum OBS version or the minimum NDI Runtime version, and the README already pins OBS at v31.1.1 or higher and the runtime at v6.3 or higher. On Windows, macOS and Flatpak, upgrading is the same package-manager command you installed with. On Ubuntu the plugin arrives through the distribution, so its version tracks the distribution's packaging rather than the upstream release page, and the README's own note that 6.1.2-beta1 was a Linux Deb only build is a reminder that not every upstream release reaches every channel at once.

Editorial conclusion

Adopt DistroAV if your workflow already speaks NDI and you need OBS to send or receive it: the winget, Homebrew, Flatpak and apt packages make that a short job, and the NDI Filter covers the single-source case that the global output does not. Do not adopt it as a way to carry video between two OBS machines with no NDI Runtime installed, and do not expect it to replace a capture card for a camera that has no network output. Before rolling it into a production machine, confirm your OBS build is 31.1.1 or higher, confirm NDI Runtime 6.3 or higher is present, and check the OBS log for a DistroAV error code against the wiki list if the source or output never appears.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. DistroAV/DistroAV on GitHub
2. License: GPL-2.0
3. Project website
4. README
5. Releases