This page covers playing a video straight from an address. It is a media cue in every respect — timeline, scrubbing, in and out points — except that the file sits on a server instead of on your disk.
Adding one
The arrow beside Media in the toolbar → Video from a link…, then paste the address.
You can also drag a link onto the list: an address that plays directly becomes this kind of cue by itself.
It has to be a direct link
Use the address of the video file itself — something ending in .mp4, .mov or .m3u8 — not the page it sits on.
A link to a video file is a media cue: timeline, scrubbing, in and out points, a countdown, a follow action that fires when it runs out. A link to a page is a website, which is a web page cue and behaves nothing like a clip.
If you paste something that is not a link at all, the program says so.
When to use it
| Situation | Why a link fits |
|---|---|
| The clip lives on your own server or NAS over http | No copy to keep in step |
| A stream URL that is always the same | The list does not need updating each week |
| A file too large to copy to every machine | One source of truth |
What to watch out for
Your connection is now part of the show. A file on disk plays at disk speed; a file over a link plays at whatever the network gives you at that moment. For anything that must not stutter, copy it to the machine and use an ordinary media cue.
Warming up matters more here. An armed cue is prepared in advance, which for a link means the connection is already open when you press GO. Arm it early — which the list does for you if the cue before it is running.
A link that stops working leaves you with black. Unlike a missing file, a dead address cannot be detected when you open the list. If a show depends on one, play it once during your check-through.