This page covers the one setting that applies to all playouts at once. The canvas is the size everything is built in; each playout scales from there to its own output.
Where it is
Settings → Outputs → Canvas: a size and a frame rate.
Standard sizes are in the list. Not there? Type it yourself, as 1920 x 1080.
What it decides
Everything is composed at the canvas size. A still is fitted to it, a scene is laid out in it, a clip is scaled into it. What leaves through an output is then scaled again from the canvas to whatever that output runs at.
So the canvas is the resolution your graphics should be made for. On the usual canvas of 1920×1080, a full-screen slide is a 1920×1080 png and nothing is resampled at all.
It is shared
One canvas for every playout. There is no per-playout size, and that is deliberate: two playouts composing at different sizes would mean every template, every still and every scene existing twice.
The frame rate and your outputs
A DeckLink output only starts when its mode runs at the same frame rate as the canvas.
When you change the frame rate, the program warns you and names the outputs whose mode you should now check. Ignore that and those outputs quietly stay down.
For a house that feeds SDI, the order is: decide the frame rate the building runs at, set the canvas to it, then set each card’s mode to match.
Changing it
The change takes effect immediately — no restart.
Except while something is being sent out: stop the stream and the recording first. The canvas cannot be rebuilt underneath a running encoder, and the program says so rather than doing something half-finished.
If the change fails for another reason, you get the reason rather than a silent revert.
Choosing one
| Situation | Canvas |
|---|---|
| Streaming, hall screen, ordinary SDI | 1920 × 1080 |
| Everything downstream is 720p | 1280 × 720 — composing bigger than you need costs work for nothing |
| A screen with an unusual shape (a strip, a portrait display) | Its own size, typed in |
For the frame rate, follow the building: 50 in a 50 Hz country, 59.94 where the chain is 59.94. A canvas at a frame rate nothing else uses gives you conversions at every step and judder somewhere in the chain.