Screens and Mix

A Screen is a second (third, fourth...) switcher of its own. It has its own Preview, its own Program, and its own Cut and Take. The main Preview and Program you already know stay as they are. Screens sit beside them.

Use a screen for a picture that has to change on its own schedule: a confidence monitor, a timer for the stage, a side screen, one quarter of a 4K wall. Then use Mix to put a whole screen back into the show as an input.

What a screen is

• It is a bus: a Preview and a Program that work like the main ones. Pick an input to put it on the screen's Preview, then Take to send it to the screen's Program. See Transitions.
• It has a size. A new screen is 1920 x 1080. A size has even sides from 16 to 16384 pixels, and at most 7680 x 4320 pixels (8K UHD) in all: a long strip such as 16384 x 1080 fits, a 16384 square does not. Studio refuses a size outside that. On Windows you pick the size from a list, see Windows and macOS.
• It has a name. A screen you have not named reads Screen 1, Screen 2 and so on.
• It carries picture only. A screen has no audio of its own. An output that carries a screen keeps its own audio setting.
• It has a link, which says whose Take it follows. See Link a screen's Take.
• It can instead follow a source and have no bus of its own. See Follow a source.

You can have up to 2 screens on Pro, 4 on Ultra, and 16 on Studio and Enterprise. See Plan.

Add, name and remove a screen

Studio refuses to remove a screen in two cases:

• An output still carries the screen. Studio names the output. Route it somewhere else first.
• A Mix shows the screen. Studio shows the notice Screen In Use: "A Mix input shows this screen. Remove the Mix input first, then delete the screen." Remove the Mix input, then the screen.

A screen is saved with the show. A show that holds screens opens only in a version of Cliqer that knows about them.

The Screens strip

The strip is a panel like any other. By default it is the full-width row at the bottom of the Studio window, and it has one card per screen. You can dock it in any slot, float it and bring it back (Layouts). Its cards follow the space it has: in a space wider than tall they are a row that scrolls sideways, in a taller space they stack and scroll up and down. A saved layout from an earlier version opens with the strip as the full-width bottom row.

Preview then Take on a screen

A screen follows Preview then Take like the main bus.

1. Click a card to arm it. Its border lights.
2. Click an input. The input goes to the Preview of the armed screen. Nothing reaches that screen's Program yet.
3. Press Cut on the card to send Preview to Program at once, or Take to send it with the screen's transition.

Click the armed card again to disarm it, and clicks on inputs go to the main Preview again (macOS).

Take on a card uses the first transition slot. On the Mac, the small menu on Take picks any other slot. On Windows, use the chevron next to Take. The slots are the same numbered transitions as the main switcher.

A Morph slot morphs on a screen like it does on the main Program: the layers that the screen's Preview and Program scenes share move from where they are to where they will be. It does not fall back to a fade.

A scene, title or timeline on a screen's Program obeys Edit Live like one on the main Program. With Edit Live off, your edits wait in Preview. A Take on any bus that shows the input airs the waiting edit, and every other bus that shows the same input airs it again in the same step with the transition it came in with.

Link a screen's Take

The link on each card (and in the screen's settings) says which Takes go together.

Overlays stay on the main bus only.

Follow a source

A screen can show a source and nothing else, with no Preview, no Program and no Take. In the screen's settings pick Shows > Follows and choose what it mirrors: Program, Clean Program, Preview, Multiview, or any input. Pick Its own bus to give it a bus again.

On the strip a follower card shows one picture, labelled Follows and the source's name, and has no Cut or Take. Studio refuses Preview on a follower.

A screen cannot follow another screen, an output canvas or a Mix.

Comfort screens

A comfort screen is a one-click screen for a monitor that backstage people look at. Each makes one Alone screen that follows or shows a ready-made source.

Send a screen to an output

A screen is a source like Program or an input. In the Outputs window, choose it as the source of an output:

• macOS: when you add an output, and in an output's Source list, the screens and canvases come after the inputs, below a divider. The Router matrix has a column for each screen and each canvas.
• Windows: the Router matrix has a column for each screen and each canvas, after the inputs.

A screen has no audio, so the output uses its own Audio setting.

Output canvases

An output canvas is one big fixed-size picture that holds several screens side by side. One output (an SDI or HDMI port, or an NDI sender) carries the whole canvas. A hardware splitter can then cut it up for several monitors. A new canvas is 3840 x 2160, which holds four 1920 x 1080 screens. A canvas has the same size limits as a screen: even sides from 16 to 16384 pixels, at most 7680 x 4320 pixels in all.

Add a canvas from the add menu: New Canvas... (macOS) or New canvas... (Windows), the last item, under a divider. You can also use Add Canvas... in the Layer menu. The ellipsis is there because a canvas lives only in the Outputs window, not in the Studio strip: the item adds the canvas and opens the Outputs window on it, with the new canvas selected (on macOS in its Screens view). The add menu has no Canvas item, only New Canvas.... Select a canvas in the list to edit it:

• Preset lays out a grid of screens, reusing the screens you have and adding any it needs. The list reads 1x2, 1x3, 1x4, 2x1, 2x2, 3x1 and 4x1 (columns by rows). Every cell is 1920 x 1080, so 4x1 makes a canvas of 7680 x 1080.
• Add Screen (macOS) or Add screen to canvas (Windows) puts one more screen on the canvas.
• Drag a screen to move it. Use the buttons to bring it to the front, duplicate it or take it off the canvas.
• Select a screen on the canvas to type its place. Position has the boxes X and Y (in px), Size has W and H (in px). W and H set the size of the region's screen, so its raster changes with them; a region stays inside the canvas and keeps a minimum side. Press Return or leave the box to apply. On macOS the lock button next to Size (help text Lock aspect ratio) keeps the shape while you change W or H; on Windows the lock sits on the Size row too.
• A screen on the canvas has Luma Matte: its brightness cuts out the screens under it. Select one screen on the canvas to see its Luma Matte and its picture trim.
• Auto Blend (a switch under the editor on macOS, in the Canvas section on Windows) fades the overlap between screens: where regions overlap, the upper one fades in over the one below. It is kept per region (each region's own Blend flag, the switch sets it on every region of the canvas, and a screen added to a canvas that has the switch on blends too). A region with it on ramps only its own overlap edges, and a region with it off is drawn whole. The switch reads on only when the canvas has regions and every one blends.

To delete a canvas, select it and use the minus at the foot of the list. A canvas that is in use is not deleted at once. Studio asks first with the alert Canvas In Use, which says what uses it, for example "“Canvas 1” is on air and feeds 2 outputs. Deleting it takes it off air with its transition first. Its outputs are deleted with it." A canvas counts as in use when its Canvas input is on air, held or leaving, when it is on a Preview or in a multiview, or when an output carries it. Press Delete Anyway to go on. The canvas then leaves like any on-air input: it fades out with the transition it came in with, and its outputs are deleted with it. With Edit Live off and the canvas on air, the alert says it stays on air until the next take, then goes. One undo brings it back. A canvas that nothing uses is deleted at once.

A canvas region edit, Auto Blend included, follows Preview then Take: when the canvas is on air as an input (Add Input > Canvas lists the canvases that have no input yet) and Edit Live is off, the edit shows on Preview and goes to air at the next Take. With Edit Live on it airs at once. See Edit Live.

For blend, corner trims and warp on an output, see Projection.

Mix

A Mix is a screen shown as an input. It draws the screen's Program, and you use it like any other input: on Preview, on Program, as a layer in a scene, on another screen's bus or in a timeline clip.

That makes a screen a small switcher inside your show. Build a picture on a screen with its own Take, then drop the whole thing into a scene as one layer.

Add a Mix

1. Add a screen first. See Add, name and remove a screen.
2. Open Add Input and choose Mix. A list shows every screen that does not have a Mix yet, by its name.
3. Click a screen. A Mix input appears in the Inputs panel, named after the screen.

When there is no screen to offer, the list reads "No screens to mix".

A screen has one Mix at most. A screen that follows a source has no bus, so it is not listed. On a plan without screens, the Mix entry shows the standard plan message.

Rules

• A Mix carries no audio. It has no strip in the Audio mixer, and putting it on Program does not bring its inner inputs onto Program audio. Use the inputs' own audio settings.
• A Mix cannot show itself. Studio refuses any edit that would put a screen inside its own Mix, directly or through a scene, another Mix or a timeline clip. It shows the notice Cannot Show Itself: "A scene or Mix cannot be placed inside itself." A Mix can show another Mix as long as nothing loops back.
• A screen stays while a Mix names it. Remove on the screen is refused with Screen In Use. Remove the Mix input first.
• A screen cannot Follow a Mix.
• Remove a Mix as you remove any input. Removing a Mix does not remove its screen.
• Delete a Mix that is on air and it leaves like any on-air input. With Edit Live off, Preview loses it at once and Program keeps it until the next Program change, which takes it off with its own transition. With Edit Live on, it leaves at once with the transition it came in with. See Edit Live.

External Control

Five actions in the group Screens give a screen its Preview, Program, Cut and Take from a key, MIDI, OSC or Stream Deck. Each takes the screen number, 1 to 16 (the number in the screen's name, bus:<n>).

A Cut or Take on a linked screen takes the whole link. A Preview or Program action on a screen that follows a source is refused. Adding, naming and removing screens, and adding a Mix, are done in the app, not from External Control. See External Control.

Plan

Screens and Mix are on the Pro, Ultra, Studio and Enterprise plans. The Free plan and the free trial cannot add a screen, a canvas or a Mix.

A screen taller than your plan's output height is refused with the same plan message as an output. Removing a screen needs no plan, so you can always clean up after a plan lapses. See Plans and limits.

Windows and macOS

Not built

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