This page names every part of the window. The rest of the documentation uses these names, so when a later page mentions “the transport bar” or “the item pane”, this is the page that explains it. Read it once now, and return to it when you do not recognise a term. You do not need to change anything while you read, because the page only describes the window.
The three bands
The window has three horizontal bands. From top to bottom:
- The monitor panel. Each playout has one panel, with the preview, the meters and the transport controls.
- The work area. This contains the toolbar and the cue list, and the item pane appears beside the list when you open it.
- The status bar. It has buttons on the left, and figures about the computer and the outputs on the right.
You can drag the line between the monitor panel and the work area to give more room to the preview or to the list.
1. The monitor panel
Each playout has its own panel, and the panels are placed side by side. One playout uses the full width, and several playouts share it.
The panel has the following parts, from top to bottom.
The heading. The left side shows Playout or, with more than one playout, Playout 1, Playout 2 and so on. An ON AIR badge appears next to the name when something is playing. The badge does not replace the name, so you can always see which playout it is. The right side shows NEXT: and the cue that goes on air at the next GO.
The preview. The preview shows only what is on air, so arming a cue does not change it. When nothing is on air, the preview is black or shows the hold image. A VU column at the edge of the picture shows the left and right audio levels, and a red border appears around the preview when something is on air.
The next-cue picture. This picture is beside the preview, at half its size, and it shows the armed cue. The cue is loaded but not playing, so a clip shows its first frame. To hide the picture, right-click the panel and choose Show the next cue beside the picture. The same checkbox is under Settings → Outputs, on the playout’s tab.
The master fader. The master fader of the playout is beside the picture.
The transport bar. This is at the bottom of the panel:
From left to right, it contains these controls:
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Countdown | Under REMAINING. Shows the time remaining on the current cue, to a tenth of a second. It turns amber and then red towards the end, at times that you can set. |
| Play / pause | Pauses the picture and resumes it. |
| Restart | Starts the cue again from the beginning. |
| Stop media | Stops the media, so that the picture goes to black. |
| Timeline | Shows the position in the cue. Drag it to move to another position. The figures on the right show the elapsed and total time. |
| STREAM / REC | Start and stop streaming and recording. These buttons appear only when the output of the playout is a stream. |
| STOP | Stops the playout, so that the picture goes to black. |
| GO | Puts the armed cue of this playout on air. |
Click anywhere on a panel to make that playout active. The cue list below then shows the list of that playout. You can click any part of the panel, including the picture.
2. The toolbar
The toolbar is above the cue list and has two halves.
The buttons on the left add a line to the list. Several of them have a small arrow with more options:
| Button | Adds |
|---|---|
| Media | Video and audio files. |
| Still | Stills. |
| Web page | A page to display, for example a schedule, a counter or a dashboard. |
| Scene | A scene as a cue. |
| Group | A container for a block of cues. The arrow also contains Part and Load group. |
| Hold | A hold: a waiting point that stays until you continue. The arrow contains Archive and Go to. These two lines never play: the archive stores cues, and a go-to line refers to another cue. |
Buttons from modules appear in the same row. If your toolbar has buttons that are not in this table, you find them in the part of the manual for that module.
The buttons on the right apply to the whole list. They are Delete, New, Open and Save. The arrow beside Save exports the list as a bundle, which is the list and all its media in one file.
The gear at the far right opens the settings. All settings of the program are in that one window.
3. The cue list
The cue list is the main part of the window, with one line for each cue.
| Column | What it contains |
|---|---|
| # | The number. It follows the structure of the list and updates automatically. |
| (icon) | The type of cue. |
| Title | The name. Double-click it to rename the cue. |
| Overlay | Used by modules. Empty in a base installation. |
| Music | The music bed that plays under this part of the list. |
| In / Out | The start and end point, in mm:ss. |
| Vol | The volume of the cue. |
| Transition | How the cue comes in. A cross means a hard cut. Otherwise the column shows the length of the fade in seconds. |
| Follow | What happens when the cue ends. The icon shows pause, next, repeat or stop. |
| Link | A cue on another playout that starts together with this cue. |
A group is one line that shows the number of items after its name and has a chevron to open and close it. When you click a line, you arm that cue: it turns green and gets the NEXT badge, and the next GO starts it.
When you right-click a line, a menu opens with the available actions. You can duplicate or delete the line, set the follow action or transition for a whole selection, move the line to the archive, or export it. To rename a cue, double-click its title. A group header also has Rename… in the menu.
Part 2 — the cue list describes all of this in detail. For now, it is enough to know that the cue list contains the show, and that the columns contain the settings of each cue.
4. The item pane
The item pane opens beside the cue list and shows what is inside the selected line: the steps of a group, the items of a playlist, or the music bed under the line. While the item pane is open, the cue list shows only the number, the title and the status, so that both fit.
To open the item pane, click Item at the bottom left of the status bar. The program remembers the width of the pane for each playout.
5. The status bar
The status bar is at the bottom of the window.
The left side contains Item, which opens the item pane, and Operate. Operate appears only when a web page is live and accepts clicks, text or scrolling, and it opens that page in a window where you can work. The window never opens automatically, so it cannot take the focus just after you go live.
The right side contains the figures. It first shows the processor, the memory and the render lag for the whole program. After that, it shows one block for each playout, in the colour of that playout, with the output and the number of dropped frames.
These blocks are the quickest way to check that everything is working. A running output shows its name, a dash means that the playout has no output, and dropped frames appear here before you notice them anywhere else.
The keyboard
These keys work when the cue list has the focus:
| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
| ↑ / ↓ | Move the green marker up and down. Nothing goes on air. |
| Enter or Space | GO: puts the armed cue on air. |
| Esc | Stop: takes the playout to black. |
| P | Pauses and resumes the active playout. |
| Delete | Removes the selected cue or cues. |
The keys apply to the active playout, which is the playout whose panel you clicked last.
You can also assign your own hotkeys. These work anywhere in the program, and each playout has its own set. Part 10 describes them.