Clock Cameras are a simple, safe, and reliable way of adding a real-time clock to your scorebug and other graphics in MultiSport Scoreboard graphics packages. The following tutorial video explains how to configure and use this feature. Additional resources can be found below the video.

Using Newtek Connect

Newtek Connect is a program useful for converting camera sources to NDI via capture cards and dongles. The free version will convert two capture sources, and in some cases even USB webcams, in to NDI feeds. Newtek Connect Pro is a for-purchase product that allows the conversion of more sources to NDI, but more importantly allows for some processing of the signal such as brightness, contrast, color correction, and saturation.

Clock Latency

The amount of latency between the real-world, physical scoreboard clock and the clock seen in the scorebug will vary. At minimum, users should expect at least .2 seconds of latency from the NDI processing that occurs within SuiteCG. Latency may increase due to other factors such as the capture device being used, resolution conversion occurring within the camera itself, and any signal converters being used such as analog-to-SDI, HDMI-to-SDI, etc…

Network Bandwidth

All NDI clocks in the SuiteCG graphics packages are forced to a “low-bandwidth” NDI mode. This forces the NDI source to be transmitted at a lower resolution. This is done to greatly reduce network bandwidth as well as CPU and memory usage on the SuiteCG computer, especially since each instance of the clock inside a graphics package is unique and will establish it’s own connection to the NDI source. When you factor in the number of locations an individual clock may appear inside the graphics package (scorebug, halftime/final, lower third, etc…, as well as the configuration monitors in the user interface, this could rapidly consume system resources and hinder performance. In testing, given the small physical size of the clocks in the graphics, there was negligible difference in the visual quality of the clock when comparing normal bandwidth to low bandwidth, and the system resource usage fell drastically when using low bandwidth mode.