You can run two, three or four playouts from one window, each with its own list and its own output. This page explains what belongs to each playout and how the playouts share the screen. It also explains the one point that needs attention: which playout the keyboard controls.
Adding a playout
Go to Settings → Outputs → Number of playouts and choose a number from one to four. Each playout gets its own tab on that page.
A new playout is empty: it has no list and no output, and nothing is live. As soon as you give it an output and a name, it is ready to use.
What belongs to each playout
| Belongs to each playout | Shared with the others |
|---|---|
| Cue list | The canvas size and frame rate |
| Preview and VU meters | The settings of the program |
| Transport, STOP and GO | Your scenes |
| Master fader and audio track | The processor and graphics card of the computer |
| Output |
Because each playout has its own list and its own controls, two playouts run independently of each other. A GO on one playout does not affect the other, unless you link the cues.
The panels
The playouts are placed side by side above the work area, each with its own picture, next-cue picture, meters and transport bar. The headings are Playout 1, Playout 2 and so on. Below the panels is one cue list, which is the list of the active playout.
Click a panel to make that playout active. The list below then shows the list of that playout. You can click any part of the panel, including the picture.
Right-click a panel for these commands:
| Entry | What it does |
|---|---|
| Scene filters… | Sets filters for everything that this playout sends out. |
| Full screen on monitor | Shows the picture of this playout on a screen, at full size. |
| Show the next cue beside the picture | Switches the next-cue picture on or off for this playout. |
| Divide panels equally / Make this playout secondary (narrow) | Only with two or more playouts. Changes the size of the panels. Either all panels have the same size, or this panel is shown at half size, without its next-cue picture. |
The menu shows only one of the last two commands: the one that is not in use. The same option is a checkbox under Settings → Outputs, on the playout’s tab, under Options: Make this playout secondary (narrow). Use the narrow setting when one playout carries the show and the other only supplies a side screen, so that the picture you work with is the large one.
You can change the size of the small picture. The picture of a secondary playout and the picture of an overlay output have a grip in the bottom-right corner, which appears when you point at the picture. Drag the grip to set the size, from 30% up to the size of the main picture. The size applies to every small picture at the same time, and a double-click on the grip returns it to half the size.
Which playout does the keyboard control?
The keyboard controls the active playout, which is the playout whose panel you clicked last. The space bar, Esc, the arrow keys and P all apply to it.
Forgetting this is the most common mistake with two playouts, so check which panel is highlighted before you use the keyboard. If you are not sure, use the STOP and GO buttons on the panel, because they always belong to that playout.
You can also assign your own hotkeys, with a separate set for each playout. These work whichever playout is active, so one hand can always control playout 1 and the other hand playout 2. See part 10.
What it costs the computer
Each playout renders and encodes its own picture, so two playouts need about twice the processing of one. The status bar shows whether the computer can keep up, because it shows the dropped frames for each playout, in the colour of that playout.
If the computer cannot keep up, look first at what the playouts are showing, not at how many there are. A fade renders two cues at the same time, and a web page can need more processing than a clip.