[Ernest Petersen]

Our church has purchased Propresenter 7 which allows us to potentially send video and audio to a number of displays in the building.
one for audience, one for announcements, one for the stage crew to see from their vantage point.
I have no idea how to get to external monitors from a mac pro without equipment and no idea what equipment we need.

Our current setup is very simple but we need help
we see the program on the computer
we project slides, videos, music to the audience via the hdmi connection at this time and this creates a limit of what we can display to even though the software is capable of sending multiple things to many displays.

I hear NDI, SDI, VMWARE, etc… and I have no idea what this requires.
Is there help for me.

The videos I have watched lose me quickly because everyone is talking as if I have a Masters degree in video production.

My simple understanding at this time is NDI allows for multiple inputs and it allows for multiple outputs.
Please help me.

[TeamKomando:John]

Hello Ernest,

Great question, first off we need to understand the difference between NDI and SDI.

SDI – The SDI Output option converts the output of ProPresenter to a native SDI stream when used with a compatible Blackmagic Decklink Card or UltraStudio 4K product. Meaning you will need and SDI output card such as this. along with one of these at each destination display unless you already have the ability to connect SDI cables to your displays. These devices will convert SDI to HDMI for the display to interpret.

NDI – The NDI output encodes the output of ProPresenter and sends that video stream over Ethernet. Any device that supports NDI input (i.e. PVP, Tricaster, etc.) is then capable of receiving and decoding that video image as in input source. Using a device such as this will decode the output from the Mac Pro to your HDMI displays

If you are able to provide a bit more information regarding how many different displays you would like to drive, we might be able to tailor a better solution. Tell us more about your existing setup, how are the displays currently configured, does each have and HDMI cable running back to a server room, do they currently have cable TV tuners connected to them?

[Ernest Petersen]

our current setup and desired setup.
Currently we have the following…. macbook pro computer. it has an HDMI outlet we connect to our projector.
What we need to do is connect the computer to the projector, stage monitor, announcements monitor and possibly two more monitors for other uses.

I see two extra outlets on the computer that look like small usb but I am guessing they are something I have heard is a thunderbolt connection.

Since we are soo very simple in our setup there is no way to see how to connect the extra monitors.

Is this enough information for you to figure out how we are to do what we want vs what we currently have setup?

[TeamKomando:John]

Ernest,

Which model of the mac pro do you have, you can use this to determine your exact model.

If it is a 2013 Mac pro, you should have a total of 6 thunderbolt ports where you can use adapters such as this to connect up to 5 more displays.

[TeamKomando:John]

If you are unable to free up thunderbolt ports for the additional displays then you could get a PCIE to Thunderbolt Chassis enclosure to house an additional graphics card that can support 4 additional displays. You would need to get 4 of the display port to HDMI adapters

Once we know which Mac Pro you have we can determine if this solution fits best for you.

[Ernest Petersen]

I drove to the church and this is what I found about the computer
Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro11,3
1 processor, 4 cores,
L3 Cache 6 MB
L2 Cache (per core) 256kb
Memore 16 GB

it has 2 thunderbolt connectors, 1 hdmi connector, 2 usb connectors, a card reader port and an audio jack port
MAC OS Catalina version 10.15.6

is this enough information for you to determine what I need?

[TeamKomando:John]

Hello Ernest,

As you are using a Macbook pro and not a Mac pro you are limited to 2 extra displays that the Macbook pro can drive 3 displays including the built in screen. Two more on Thunderbolt or one on thunderbolt and one HDMI.

You can expand up to 4 additional displays if you were to pickup the PCI-E expansion enclosure and a graphics card such as the Quadro P4000

You can still use the recommended NDI decoders at each display or if you have any older PC’s / Mac’s with HDMI capability you can use the NDI Toolkit (Free Software) specifically (NDI Studio Monitor) to configure those older computers to capture the NDI feed from the Macbook and output on each of your displays.

If you do go with the NDI solution you will want to make sure you are connecting the Macbook and your decoders (hardware or Studio monitor software running on a pc) to your network over Ethernet and not over Wi-Fi.

Alternatively, to keep it simple you could Pickup a few more Macbook’s and licenses for Pro Presenter 7 to run your other displays.

Out of curiosity, where did you see information about VMware?

[Author]

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