Author: WebAdmin

This article will show how to move your License from one System to another System.

Shop License

You can move your License via a simple Check-In/Out System. On the System with the active License, go into your License Manager:

First, we want to free the active License, so we can move it. Select the TRIAL Edition and click ACTIVATE, then confirm the restart query:

After restarting PLAYDECK, we can now move the free’d License back to your Online License Pool. Re-open the License Manager. Now login to your PLAYDECK ACCOUNT. Use the email adress and password, which you used during CHECKOUT in the SHOP. Use the FORGOT PASSWORD button, if you need to reset your password:

We can now move the License from you LEFT Side to the RIGHT Side with a Button Click (CHECK LICENSE BACK INTO THE POOL). This means, that the License becomes UNAVAILABLE on the current System and becomes AVAILABLE on ANY other System:

The next Screen shows the OTHER PC after logging into the License Manager. You simply reverse the Process now: Select the License on the RIGHT Side and move it with the Button to the Left Side (CHECK LICENSE FROM POOL TO LOCAL PC). PLAYDECK will now offer to activate the License and restart:

Dongle License

Simply detach the USB Dongle and attach it to another PC, then start PLAYDECK on that PC. Please note, that if you detach the Dongle while PLAYDECK is still running, PLAYDECK will close immediatly and without prior notice. It is recommended to close PLAYDECK regulary to ensure, that all Data is saved properly.

Offline License

The Offline License is bound to the PLAYDECK System ID and can NOT be moved to another System by the Customer. Please write us at [email protected] to receive a new Offline License.

Backup License

We have a separate article on how to use the Backup License.

This article will show how to use the Free Backup License, which comes with every PLAYDECK License. The Backup License functions as follows:

• Can be used with ANY PLAYDECK License (Dongle, Shop, Offline)
• Can be used on ANY PLAYDECK-PC in the same network
• Multiple Clients are supported
• 24/7 operation is NOT supported (max 24h per session)

Setup

On your MAIN System (the one WITH the License), you dont have to do anything: The BACKUP LICENSE SYSTEM is enabled by default. It will use the WebSocket Port 11411, so make sure this Port is not blocked:

On the CLIENT System (the one WITHOUT the License), you perform a regular PLAYDECK installation, nothing special here: PLAYDECK will not start in TRIAL MODE with the watermark:

Now we need to tell CLIENT PLAYDECK, where to find the MAIN PLAYDECK, by providing the IP adress of MAIN. To receive the IP adress of your MAIN, you can simply open the ABOUT BOX in PLAYDECK (Main Menu > License > About):

On your CLIENT, go to Application Settings, enter the IP adress of MAIN PLAYDECK and click TEST IP NOW. The CLIENT now tests the Network connection and searches for a valid License on MAIN. If you dont see the following INFO POPUP, please check your MAIN License and your Network connection between MAIN and CLIENT:

You can now enable the feature by clicking BACKUP-SYSTEM. PLAYDECK will restart now with the exact same License of MAIN. You can verify, the CLIENT is using the Backup License correctly in several Displays:

Note: If the CLIENT has a valid License itself, the License of MAIN will NOT be used.

Rules of Backup-License

The Backup-License is not meant for 24/7 operation, but to provide a fail-safe for immediate operation, e.g. in a live production, and without the need to buy a secondary license, just to have a backup system for some use cases.

For unattended 24/7 operation, you would need to purchase a secondary license. Please contact use at [email protected], if your next License is for Backup only, and we will provide you with a appropriate discount.

The MAXIMUM RUNTIME of your BACKUP LICENSE will be:
– 2 hours, if the MAIN gets disconnected or closed
– 24 hours, if then MAIN stays online

PALYDECK will terminate the CLIENT without prior warning. So please make sure, to bring the MAIN back online within the 2 hour window, or to restart both MAIN and CLIENT within the 24 hour window.

You can control the remaining RUNTIME in the Settings of the CLIENT:

This article will show how to create a Diashow with Transitions and output on the same Monitor.

Creating the Show

Open the integrated File Explorer by clicking the right-arror between the Playlists. The search for your images folder, select all images and add the to the Playlist by Drag Drop:

Select any Clip in the Playlist and press CTRL+A to select all Clips, then select the Icon for DURATION and enter a suitable duration for each image, e.g. 15 seconds:

While al Clips are still selected, click the Icon TRANSITION next and add any transition. In this case we use a smooth long Fade Transition:

At the bottom of the Playlist you can see the total duration of your Diashow:

Playing the Diashow

You simply double-click the first Clip (or use Buttons CUE+PLAY), then double-click the Preview Area (or right-click and select FULLSCREEN). Your Playout will now be maximized to your Monitor Size, at maximum Quality. And the Mouse Cursor will be hidden. Use ESC to exit Fullscreen.

You can also output the video signal on a second monitor, or send it to your TV. You could also send it via NDI to another PC and open the signal with PLAYDECK (use the free Backup License), or VCL Mediaplayer or any other 3rd party app:

This article will show how to use Commands to control your Playout.

Example: CUE+PLAY multiple Channel

We want to create an Action Button, which will CUE several Output Channel and PLAY them simultaneously (almost synced).

Create a new Action Button by clicking on it and select COMMANDS, then EDIT COMMANDS:

Add this Line for the first Click (ACTION START).
<cue|1|1><cue|2|1><cue|3|1><cue|4|1>

This will cue the first Clip if Channel 1-4:

Add this Line for the second Click (ACTION END).
<pause|1><pause|2><pause|3><pause|4>

This will un-pause Channel 1-4 and send the CUE into PLAY:

Lets test our new Button: Add a Clip to Channel 1-4 then press the Action Button. Not wait, until all Channel turn GREEN, indicating the Clip has been CUE’d:

Then press the Action Button again to start playback of all channel.

List of all Commands and where to add them

The List of all Commands can be quickly opened over PLAYDECK’s Main Menu:

Commands can be added to:

• Action Buttons (Start, End)
• Overlay Button (Start, End)
• Clips (Any Time)
• Blocks (Start, End)

Mostly via this Icon:

Send Commands from other Apps

We have a sparate article on how to control PLAYDECK with Companion.

But what, if it is not Companion, but a different 3rd party App? First, you would need to enable TCP Commands. This will open PLAYDECK up to receive and execute Commands from external sources:

In your 3rd party app, connect to PLAYDECK via TCP and send one or multiple Commands. In this Sample we use Hercules to send a Command, which will start Streams 1 and 2:

This article will show how to use bitfocus Companion together with PLAYDECK. Companion has a ready-to-use module for PLAYDECK. This is the most comfortable way to connect PLAYDECK to your ATEM Mixer or STREAMDECK.

Installation

Enable TCP Commands in PLAYDECK to allow 3rd party apps to control PLAYDECK externally:

Download and install the latest Version of Companion. The PLAYDECK module is included in the installation:

https://bitfocus.io/companion

Note: The PLAYDECK Companion Module was developed by Semenov Nick. Visit his GitHub for the latest Module updates.

Start Companion, add a new connection and search for PLAYDECK to add the module:

Once connected, you can select typical PLAYDECK Actions to assign to Buttons, like CUE, PLAY, Start Overlay, and many more.

This article will show how to load and edit YouTube Videos.

Load YouTube into PLAYDECK

You can directly Drag Drop any YouTube URL from your Browser to PLAYDECK:

Or you can use the Stream Drag Drop Icon to paste/edit the URL:

Your YouTube Videos is ready to play out-of-the-box. The quality will be pre-selected dependend on your Playlist Vidoo Format and the Formats provided from YouTube.

Update YouTube Driver

Should the added YouTube Clip be shown as playable in PLAYDECK, please update the integrated YouTube Driver. If YouTube makes changes to its platform, we will provide a new driver within a few days:

Change Quality, Video and Audio

YouTube Videos are always available in different qualities. You can switch Video Tracks by right-clicking the YouTube Video:

Note: YouTube provides combined Video+Audio Tracks, which are much faster. If you switch to non-combined Video Track, caching can take much longer and seeking can desync video/audio.

PLAYDECK can be installed on any Windows 64-bit machine. This includes Windows Server Versions or Custom Cloud Builds.

PLAYDECK needs fast modern Hardware, if pushed to the Limit. It has to transcode any given Video Format and Framerate in Real-time into your selected Output Format. Ideally without any Frame Drops.

As with all Tasks, it all depends on your use case: Are you using the LITE Edition to operate one Full HD Channel in a Live Event for some Hours? Or are you using STUDIO to broadcast multiple UHD Channel to several receiver eg Streams, NDI, and all in a 24/7 manner?

One thing is certain: Without a powerful modern NVIDIA GPU you will likely be disappointed. Dont try to run PLAYDECK over a Intel Onboard GPU, it is not designed for that. Your NVIDIA GPU should have ideally at least a Score of 8000 on the Passmark Scale.

All other PC components should not be much older than 2 years, just to meet modern driver standards, as we update PLAYDECK at least 4 times a year with the latest driver. You will want to utilize and profit from that, as all PLAYDECK updates are free of charge, as long as you have a valid license.

Here a the Specs we use for our own PLAYDECK production builds:

• BeQuiet Straight Power 11 750W
• Gigabyte Z790 AORUS Elite AX So.1700 Dual Channel DDR5 ATX Retail
• Intel Core i7 13700F 16 (8+8) 2.10GHz So.1700 TRAY
• Noctua NH-U9S Tower Cooler
• 32GB Corsair Vengeance black DDR5-5200
• 500GB Samsung 970 EVO Plus M.2
• 1TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus M.2
• 12GB Gigabyte Geforce RTX 4070 Windforce OC Active PCIe 4.0 x16 (Retail)
• Blackmagic Design DeckLink SDI 4K

Some additional informations about Hardware in relation to PLAYDECK:

Output Card

IF you use a dedicated Output Card (eg BM Decklink), you will not only offload ressources to the Card and reduce overall System GPU/CPU load, but you will also benefit from:

• More “true” Colors
• Nearly Zero Frame Drops due to Frame Rate Control
• Overall higher Picture Quality
• Much more stable than HDMI over Desktop (no Windows-interference)

We support Output Cards from these Manufacturers (see complete List):

• Blackmagic Design
• AJA
• Deltacast
• Bluefish444
• DekTect
• Magewell
• Osprey
• Stream Labs
• Yuan
• ASIO Devices (eg DANTE)

CPU Codecs, Keying and Alpha Channel

Please note, that these Video Codecs can not be decoded via GPU currently. PLAYDECK will fall back to CPU for these Codecs, so plan a strong CPU, if you use these Codecs regulary:

• ProRes
• HAP
• DNxHD

If you are using Keying or Alpha Channel in genereal, and you do not need the extreme high quality of ProRes, try to use the HAP-A Codec instead. It will still be decodec on the CPU, but use alot less CPU power.

Notebooks

If you are aiming for mobile productions, we go with the Razor Blade Notebook and extend it with a Blackmagic Ultra Studio card via the thunderbolt interface. If in doubt, which manufactorer to go for, decide for a Gamer Notebook. Those are designed to run at maximum performance. Avoid buying Office-type Notebooks like Dell, which are designed for power saving and can seriously limit your playout performance.

Sometimes, in Live Productions, you have to send the Audio delayed compared to the Video, to compensate for the processing Lag of huge LCD Screens (Lipsync). Or add a Limiter/Gate to the Microphone Input Audio.

Simple Audio Delay

This is actually pretty fast to implement in PLAYDECK. You add the ADELAY Audio Filter to the Channel like this. In this example we set 600ms Delay for Audio Channel 1 and 2:

This can also be set to INPUTS to compensate for any incoming Lipsync Issue.

Copy Audio and Delay

You can also COPY the Audio Channel 1 and 2 to Audio Channel 3 and 4 and delay those. The use case here is, that the Audio Mixer Person has Live Preview Audio.

This needs to be done on the Playlist Level, so clear any Audio Filter in the Settings.

First, make sure to increase the Audio Channel for your Output Channel, otherwise all Audio Channel above 2 will not be processed:

The Right-Click any Playlist Item and select AUDIO CHANNEL MAPPING:

This will copy Audio Channel 1 and 2 to Audio Channel 3 and 4:

Now right-click the Playlist Item again, select AUDIO FILTER and add the ADELAY Filter, but only for Audio Channel 3 and 4:

More Audio Filter

For a complete List of all Audio Filter, click SHOW SAMPLES. This will open a TEXT FILE with Examples.

This article will show how to create a snapshot of the Video Engine for us to analyze.

1. Download and Install

Please download this Tool called “Snapshot.exe”:
https://download.joy-event-media.de/d/AKLN8KTV

Please start the executable once to make sure, it starts without issues, before we continue to step 2.

If during startup the Tool asks for a NET installation, please install NET manually from this link. On the webpage, please select “Windows > Installers > x64”.
https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/download/dotnet/5.0

2. Reproduction

Not please start PLAYDECK and reproduce the issue. DO NOT CLOSE PLAYDECK.

Now start the Tool “Snapshot.exe”. On the left side, right-click the first item you see, which IS NOT “MFFactory” and select “Save Snaphot”. As file format please use the pre-selected JSON format.

Now repeat this for every Item that is following. You will now have created a Snapshot of every Item, that is not MFFactory. So in the above Sample, we have 10 files in total.

3. ZIP’ing and Sending the Snapshots

Create a new ZIP File and add all Snapshots (*.json).

Upload the ZIP to our Download Server:
https://download.joy-event-media.de/

After uploading click the COPY Button and send the Download Link to [email protected].

4. Clean Up

You can now safely delete the Snapshots.