Video Calls

Bring people from your room onto camera in Studio, stage them like any other input, choose what they see and hear, and send each person out on their own NDI source.

A video call input puts a person on camera in your Studio. They join from a browser or from Cliqer Remote, their camera and microphone become an input on your rack, and you switch them to Program like a camera or a display. Each person hears and sees a return feed you choose, without an echo of themselves.

Studio words these as Video Call in the Add Input menu on both platforms, and shows the number of people on a call as Callers followed by the count: in the toolbar on macOS (it opens the chat window) and in the top bar on Windows (it opens the Callers flyout). Both mean the same thing: guests on camera.

What you need

You are signed in and Studio is open.
Your plan includes video calls (the Pro plan and up) and has a free place on the Studio rack. See Plans and limits.
The guest has a phone, tablet or computer with a camera and a microphone. They agree to the call themselves, so nothing turns on without their say. See Calling in for what the guest sees.

How a call starts

The lower part of the Studio window on macOS, whose bottom status bar shows Ana Silva asks to join the call, with Decline and Accept — A presenter asks to join, on macOS.

In Studio click Add Input (the plus key in the bottom bar) and open Video Call.
Under Invite a Presenter, pick a person who is already in your room. Presenters without a name appear as Presenter. If nobody is there the menu says "No presenters in the room".
To bring in someone who is not in the room yet, choose Copy Room Link and send them the link. The note "Room link copied: callers join from it" confirms the copy. The item is off until you have a room link.
The guest sees the invitation and taps Join. A new input with a person icon appears in your Inputs panel.

Inviting is also possible from External Control with the action Caller invite, which takes the guest's internal id as text, so it is not practical to bind by hand.

If the call cannot be set up on macOS you get an alert titled Caller Not Connected with the reason, or "The call could not be set up."

When a presenter asks to join

The Classic layout on Windows with a presenter name highlighted, asking to join — The presenter's name is highlighted in the Classic layout on Windows.

A presenter in your room can ask to join the call. The Callers button then reads, for example, "Callers 1, 1 asking", the presenter's row shows a bell (tooltip "Asks to join the call. Open Callers to answer.") and the Studio status bar, along the bottom of the window, shows one line: " asks to join the call" with Decline and Accept. The window never shifts to make room for it. If several presenters ask, the line shows the newest and a count such as "+2"; answer it and the next one shows. On macOS in Basic mode, where the status bar is hidden, the same line floats at the bottom of the window. On Windows the same prompt is in the Callers flyout too.

The ask in the status bar on macOS.

Accept lets them in, as if you had invited them from Add Input, and is refused like an invite when a plan limit is reached. Decline turns the request down and the guest is told.

The Studio status bar on Windows with a presenter asking to join the call, and Decline and Accept buttons — The ask in the status bar on Windows.

The request also raises a notice titled "Asks to Join the Call" with Accept and Decline buttons. On Windows it does not appear while Cliqer is in front, because the status bar already shows the request. On macOS the banner shows unless the Studio window is the key window. The banner is a system notification, the Dock icon shows a badge with the number of presenters asking, and the notice goes away once the request is answered. On Windows it is a toast that stays until you answer it, the taskbar icon shows a badge with that number, and the toast appears only when Notifications in Settings is on; with it off, the bell, the badge and the status bar still show the request. A request that is answered, or whose presenter leaves, is withdrawn from the notification list.

What the guest sees

The guest gets an invitation, joins with one tap and sees a small On call card with camera, microphone and Leave buttons. The return feed you choose fills their screen. Everything the guest does is described in Calling in.

Connection states

The link between the guest and Studio has six states. Each is shown by a word and a dot beside the input's name, never by colour alone.

State	Dot	Meaning
`new`	Amber	The call is created, nothing has connected yet.
`connecting`	Amber	Setting up the connection.
`connected`	Green	Media is flowing.
`disconnected`	Red	The connection dropped.
`failed`	Red	It could not connect or recover.
`closed`	Red	The call ended.

On macOS the tooltip of the dot reads "Caller: connected" and the like, and the input inspector shows the same word beside Link. On Windows the dot reads "Caller connecting", "Caller connected" or "Caller disconnected", and the flyout of the Callers button lists each person with the state, followed by ", video" when their camera is sending.

Stage and take

A video call input behaves like any other input: put it on Preview, add it to a scene, take it to Program with a transition or put it on an overlay. Its tile has a person icon and the connection dot, and the tally ring is red on Program and green on Preview.

A person who joins starts in the green room: Program does not draw them and their voice goes to no bus except the green room's. Taking them to Program brings them on. Taking a scene that holds a person in the green room brings them on too: the take is the bring-on. With Edit Live on, putting a person into the scene that is on air brings them to air with it (Scenes).

Per person, On Stage (macOS) or On stage (Windows) moves them between the show (on) and the green room (off), and Talkback sends your microphone to that person only, never to Program. On macOS both are in the tile menu and in the Caller section of the inspector. On Windows both are in the tile menu and are switches beside each person in the Callers flyout. Talkback All (the macOS toolbar) or Talkback all (the top of the Windows flyout) turns talkback on for everyone; it reads as on only while at least one person is connected and every one has talkback. On Windows, hover a switch in the Callers flyout for its tooltip: NDI reads "NDI output", On stage reads "On stage the caller is in the show; off, in the green room", Talkback reads "Your microphone to this caller only, never to Program" and Talkback all reads "Your microphone to every caller, never to Program".

When a caller leaves

A caller who hangs up or drops does not take their input with them. The Video Call input keeps its tile, its mixer strip, its NDI route and its automation, and waits for the next caller. Wherever the input is drawn (Program, Preview, Multiview, the tile) it shows a slate: the name of the last caller and the line "Waiting for caller". A slate for a waiting input is not a title, so it does not appear in the title lists.

A caller who comes back fills their old input. A caller who joins takes the waiting input that last held the same name. Anyone else gets a new input.
Change Source moves a caller between inputs. On a Video Call input, Change Source (the tile menu on both systems; on macOS also the Source section of the inspector) lists every caller in the room, with a check on the one feeding this input. Picking another caller moves them here and swaps the two, so nobody is dropped and the call stays up. The submenu is hidden while the room has no callers. It is a live action, never an undo step.
Close on a caller's tile hangs up the call. The X on the tile, Close (macOS) and Remove input (Windows) end the call the same way Hang Up does, the guest is disconnected, and the input is removed.

Return feed and mix-minus audio

On macOS, select the person's tile and open its inspector (Input settings) to find the Caller section. Changes apply at once. On Windows, open the person's tile menu: Hang up, On stage, Talkback, and the submenu Caller return with Return video, Return quality, Return audio and Return limiter...; the same menu has the NDI switch (NDI output), which is also in the Callers flyout.

Setting	Choices	What it does
Link	Shows the connection state.	Read only.
Return video	None, Program, Preview, or any other input by name	What the guest sees.
Quality	Low, Medium, High, Full	A ceiling on the return video bitrate: 500 kbit/s, 1.2 Mbit/s, 2.5 Mbit/s and 4 Mbit/s. Medium is the default. Quality changes bandwidth only: the return picture is the same size at every level, capped at 540p, on both macOS and Windows.
Return audio	Master, Bus A, Bus B, Headphones	The audio bus the guest hears. Master is the default.
Return limiter	Button, On or Off with the bus name	Opens the limiter of the bus the return carries (Headphones uses Master's).
Own NDI output	On or off	Sends this person on their own NDI source. Dimmed when NDI is not available.
On Stage	On or off	Off keeps the person in the green room.
Talkback	On or off	Your microphone to this person only, never to Program.
Message...	Button	Opens the Callers and chat window at this person.
Hang Up	Button	Ends the call.

Return audio is always mix-minus. Whatever bus you choose, the guest hears it without their own microphone, so they hear you and everyone else but never an echo of themselves. This is computed per person, so any number of guests can be on at once.

Choosing Bus A or Bus B for Return audio needs the Studio audio buses feature on your plan. Headphones returns the whole monitor mix, not a solo.

Per-person NDI output

Each person can have an NDI source of their own, so vMix, OBS or a hardware switcher can take them alone, with their own audio.

Turn on Own NDI output in the inspector (macOS), or the NDI switch beside the person in the Callers flyout (Windows).
The source is named Cliqer Caller - <name> <last 4 characters of their id>. Parentheses in the name are dropped.
It needs NDI output, which every Studio plan includes. See Outputs.
Without the NDI runtime (not installed, or Windows on Arm) the switch is dimmed. On Windows a dimmed NDI switch in the Callers flyout shows no tooltip.

Limits

Video calls count against three limits, all set by your plan:

The Studio rack: every input counts, and a person on a call is an input.
The number of people on a video call at once.
Your room's people place: a guest still joins the room first, so they use one of your room's presenter places as well.

When a limit is reached the invite is refused with Plan Limit Reached, and the guest sees the reason. Numbers are in Plans and limits.

If you quit Cliqer while a guest is connected, macOS asks first: "Quitting ends your share and disconnects every caller." with Quit and Cancel.

Calling in

What the guest does and sees on their phone.

Audio mixer

Buses, solo and the strip for each person.

vMix: guests as NDI sources

Taking each person into vMix.

Multiview and Layouts

Watch every input at once in Multiview, show Program, Preview or Multiview on a display, and arrange, save and lock the Studio window.

Plans and Limits

What you need to open Studio, which plan includes which Studio feature, how many inputs each plan allows and what you see when a plan does not cover an action.