What it does
A BirdDog PLAY is a small, cheap, fanless ARM box with HDMI out, USB, gigabit ethernet and 2 GB of memory. That is also a fair description of what you want a Bitfocus Companion server to run on. companion-play replaces the decoder's operating system with one that boots straight into Companion: the server, its admin interface on the unit's own HDMI output with a keyboard and mouse, and Stream Deck-class surfaces on the USB port.
This is a replacement, not a patch. The unit stops being an NDI decoder while it is running this, and comes back when it is flashed to stock. What it does not do is put the way back at risk: only the boot and root partitions are written, so the vendor's recovery partition and the chip's own recovery mode both survive untouched.
The whole module library is in the image — 808 of them — so a unit works offline from first boot rather than needing to reach the internet before it can do anything. Companion's own configuration lives on the partition that is not overwritten, which makes a reflash an upgrade that keeps the operator's setup rather than a reset.
- Boots into a Companion server with the admin UI on HDMI
- USB surfaces — keyboard, mouse, touchscreen and Stream Deck-class panels, all through one USB-A port, so a self-powered hub is required
- 808 modules in the image, so it works with no network on first boot
- Configuration on a separate partition, so reflashing upgrades without losing the setup
- Boot and root partitions only — both recovery paths survive
- Every bundled module's licence checked at build time; the build fails on one that does not declare a licence
Where it stands
Tagged v0.1.0 and marked an early beta, and the image is there to download — but nothing has run on PLAY hardware. What has been proven is the software: Companion starts on the same processor architecture in a virtual machine, enumerates the whole bundle — 811 in the run that proved it, 808 after the licence filter that decides what ships, serves its interface and starts its USB surface handlers. How many simultaneous connections 2 GB of memory holds is not yet measured, and that is the number that decides what the box is good for. Published images carry a documented default password.