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.

The Companion Module has been developed and is maintained by Nick Semonov. He is a Community Developer and also a great guy to work with.

In this article:
→ Installation
→ Button Page with Presets
→ Custom Commands instead of Actions
→ Custom Button Feedbacks

Installation

1. Start PLAYDECK, so Companion can find it

2. Download and install the latest stable Version of Companion

3. Start Companion and add the PLAYDECK Module

4. You are done, if Companion shows a GREEN Checkmark for this Connection. If you cant get a Connection, please disable your Firewall or allow TCP Port 11411.

Button Page with Presets

We will use Companion Presets to quickly create a fresh Page of Buttons for a casual Playout Situation.

1. Create a new Page, then go to PRESETS and select PLAYDECK

2. For our Sample we specifically want to target Channel 1. You could also use LISTS, which are dynamic and use the visible Channel in PLAYDECK (Left and Right). You could also control your ASSETS (Streams, Recordings). Select CHANNEL 1 to continue

3. With Drag & Drop we create a simple Playout Solution: Play Control with some Overlays. The Buttons are added with FEEDBACKS, meaning: You will get a RED Button according to the PLAY STATE (CUE, Playing, Paused, Stopped).

4. The PLAY Button also shows the remaining Clip Time during Playout:

5. Some Buttons need more Information for you, like the START OVERLAY Button. It needs to know, which Overlay(s) should be started:

Custom Commands instead of Actions

We will add any PLAYDECK Command to a Companion Button. This is useful, if you are more of a “code” type of person or if there a new Commands in PLAYDECK, which are (not yet) available in Companion. Its also possible to add multiple Commands at the same time.

1. We create a new Button and add a new Action. We now select CUSTOM COMMAND and click DONE

2. In PLAYDECK we open the COMMANDS LIST to review, which Command we want to use

3. We decide that we want to start multiple Overlays on several Channel and after that start 2 Streams:

<startoverlay|1|1+3>
<startoverlay|2|1+5>
<startstream|1>
<startstream|2>

4. We wrap up all Commands into one Line and copy it into the COMMANDS Field. If we then press our Button, we start our Overlays and our Streams, as all Commands are executed in the written order.

5. Another good example is starting 2 Channel synchronized:

<cue|1><cue|2><wait|1000><play|1><play|2>

This will CUE both Channel, then wait 1 Second for CUE being ready (Clip Caching), then PLAY both Channel.

Custom Button Feedbacks

Instead of using the pre-defined Feedbacks (e.g. PLAY STATE), you can use Companion VARIABLES to use many more Feedbacks. In this example we will start a specific Block and show its remaining Time on the Button.

1. We add a new Block to Channel #1 in PLAYDECK and rename it “MAIN PROGRAM”

2. Now we add a new Button to Companion and assign the CONTROL PLAY FLEX Action to the Button.

3. The PLAY FLEX Action allows us to play a Block by Name (instead of ID). We use the PATTERN “b:main c#1” to start our Block, as described in the COMMANDS LIST (PLAYDECK > Main Menu > Documentation):

4. We now have a Block Play Button, but we also want the remaining Block Time to display, once the Block is playing. For this we need to add a custom Feedback to the Button, which will check “some” variable and do “something”:

5. We check against the current playing Block by searching for “block name” in the VARIABLE field and add our Block “Main Program” as VALUE:

6. We then add TEXT as new STYLE PROPERTY, since our intention is to show the remaining Block Time:

7. Add “$(Playdeck:channel_1_block_remain)” as BUTTON TEXT STRING, and our Button is finished:

8. But how did we receive our BUTTON TEXT STRING? Companion will show you all available VARIABLES you can use in PLAYDECK. You can then click the small COPY ICON to transport the Variable to your Buttons:

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

1. 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 dependent on your Playlist Video Format and the Formats provided from YouTube.

Note: Avoid using long YouTube Links with Playlists like “…?v=0oIIRc0zc_U&list=RD0oIIRc0zc_U”, as they might not work or cause Lag/Stutter. We recommend using short links like “…?v=0oIIRc0zc_U”.

2. Update YouTube Driver

Should the added YouTube Clip be shown as UNPLAYABLE/RED in PLAYDECK, please update the integrated YouTube Driver. Chances are, YouTube made changes to its platform and you need a newer driver from us:

3. 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.

Please use this basic guidelines for your PLAYDECK System. While PLAYDECK can basically play any Codec on any Windows machine, we want you to have a good experience, which requires some rules of thumb.

In this article:
→ Installation and Hardware
→ Encoding and Decoding
→ Output Cards
→ CPU Codecs, Keying and Alpha Channel
→ Headless Playout NUC
→ Notebooks

Installation and Hardware

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 e.g. Streams, NDI, and all in a 24/7 manner?

One thing is certain: Without a powerful modern NVIDIA GPU you will likely be disappointed. Don’t 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.

This is a EXAMLPE Spec, we used for our own PLAYDECK Systems:

• 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

Encoding and Decoding

Please also plan your GPU upfront according to your encoding and decoding needs. Here is a page for NVidia NVenc and 422 Support and here for Intel Quick Sync and 422 Support. As a rule of thumb: Lower NVidia Cards can’t encode DVB 422 and can’t decode AV1. Almost any Intel Onboard GPU (UHD, Iris, ARC) can encode DVB 422, but only the ARC can also decode AV1. Here is a little Helper:

NVidia RTX 3080

• Decode HEVC — STRONG
• Decode H264/H265 — STRONG
• Decode AV1 — (No)
• Encode DVB 4:2:2 — (No)

Intel UHD

• Decode HEVC — MINIMAL
• Decode H264/H265 — MINIMAL
• Decode AV1 — (No)
• Encode DVB 4:2:2 — OK

Intel ARC

• Decode HEVC — GOOD
• Decode H264/H265 — GOOD
• Decode AV1 — GOOD
• Encode DVB 4:2:2 — GOOD

Output Cards

If you use a dedicated Output Card (e.g. BM Decklink), you will not only offload resources 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 Usage = Stronger CPU needed

If you fall under one of the following categories, please plan a stronger CPU for your System:

– You are mostly using CPU Codecs, that can’t be GPU-decoded with PLAYDECK: ProRes, HAP, DNxHD
– You use multiple NDI Outputs, as they are encoded on CPU only
– You are heavily using Overlays in PLAYDECK, as they are also CPU-only
– You are using multiple screen captures or web camera devices

Headless Playout NUC

If Form Factor is important or your Playout System should run unsupervised, we can recommend this NUC: ASUS NUC 14 Pro.

It has a very strong INTEL ARC GPU with 8 GB. I can decode anything like a NVidia (with QuickSnyc) plsu AV1. Very balanced CPU/GPU power. Can operate 2 channel playout including HDMI output and Streams.

Notebooks

If you are aiming for mobile productions, we go with the XMG ULTRA 17 or the Razor Blade Notebook and extend it with a Blackmagic Ultra Studio card via the thunderbolt interface. If in doubt, which manufacturer 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.

Introduction Videos

Get in touch with PLAYDECK with these short video clips. Despite these being recorded with Version 3, they still show a great deal of how PLAYDECK can improve your workflow!

1. Dual-Output Video Playback

• For playback, choose professional output cards from e.g. Blackmagic, or a local graphic card output for easy use cases
• Place a graphic or video file as a continuous background when no clip is playing from the playlist
• You want to fade in a clip from the background or fade it out into the background? Easily done with the fade function!

2. Advanced Playback Functions

• Use different fade effects for the transition between clips.
• Skip a clip from the playlist with a simple mouse click.
• You can play a single clip, multiple clips, or a whole block in the loop.
• You only want to show the beginning and the end of a clip during a rehearsal? Then use the Jump function with adjustable remaining play time.

3. Keep Control over your Show

• Use the Schedule Block feature within the playlist to get a countdown to the scheduled start time of each block
• When selected, receive visual and audible notifications shortly before or when the planned start time is reached
• The start of your show is delayed? A program point ran faster than expected? No worries, Playdeck automatically adjusts the planned start times of the following blocks, if desired.

4. Inform your Crew

• Keep your colleagues up-to-date via the Production Window
• Time, remaining time, preview window of the output channels, and upcoming clips can be taken in at a glance
• The output of the Production Window is easily done via the extended desktop

5. Recording with edit-while-ingest functionality

• Conveniently record an incoming camera mix.
• Cut your favorite scenes while still recording.
• Immediately send your clips to the playlist and make them available for playback, or use the upload and streaming features to put your clips online.

Thank you for choosing PLAYDECK! We are convinced that with PLAYDECK you will significantly increase your productivity, whether you produce live events, stadium TV, theatre performances, museums, TV broadcasts or virtual and hybrid streaming events. You can run PLAYDECK both on-site and cloud-based.

PLAYDECK provides you with 8 completely independent output channels in which you can organize your videos, graphics, audio files, live inputs, streams or YouTube clips simply by dragging and dropping.

PLAYDECK supports almost any codec and converts all content to the selected output format in real time. The output is completely flexible via dedicated output cards (e.g. from Blackmagic, AJA, Bluefish, …), via the extended desktop, via NDI or via Streams.

In the Studio Edition, your recording channel can be edited while the recording is still running (edit-while-ingest, e.g. highlight editing), played back with a time delay or streamed. For maximum flexibility you can choose from a wide range of different recording formats.

But PLAYDECK (depending on your license) is much, much more than a simple playout system:
You can trim and crop your content, you can automatically adjust the volume, you can schedule the start of your contributions, you can control the playlist externally, you can start playback via your video switcher, you can transfer closed captions, you can completely customize PLAYDECK with advanced scripting functions, you can…

You are welcome to inform yourself about the incredible functionality of PLAYDECK in the following chapters. We are sure you will love it!

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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.

In this article:
→ Simple Audio Delay
→ Copy Audio and Delay
→ More Audio Filter

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.

This article will show how to setup Video Engine Logging.

1. Setup Logging

We want to catch the Bug on the fly, meaning we start logging, reproduce the bug, then transport the log files to the video engine devs to fix that Bug.

Start PLAYDECK, open Settings and click the APPLICATION Tab and on the bottom you have this line:

The first thing to setup is your Output Folder for the Log Files. This can be a shared Folder on your Network. Logs can easily consume up to 1 GB per Minute (on Verbosity 0 and all Modules). Plan enough free disc space, depending on the estimated time until Bug occurrence.

The next setup is Verbosity: Please always start Logging with 0 – Tracing, so the Video Engine Devs have ALL information. Only use any other Verbosity to check for yourself.

With the Modules setting we pick what modules to log. Here are your options. You can combine them with comma. Only use all, if you don’t know what kind of Bug you are dealing with.

– playlist,file,codecs: Playout, File Decoding, Clip Loading/Playing Error
– writer: Streams, Recordings, Encoding
– network: Streaming Protocols
– renderer: Device Output, NDI
– live: Inputs
– device: Everything Device related
– blackmagic: Everything Blackmagic related
– all: Log everything

2. Execute Logging

Once you check “Enable Video Engine Logging”, PLAYDECK will restart. It will create a new Subfolder (e.g. “2026-02-25_16-39-52”) with your designated Logging Path. This is to identify your current session.

Now wait until the bug happens. Then close PLAYDECK. This is important to finish writing all Log Files. If PLAYDECK hangs/freeze, kill it with the task manager.

Now we need to ZIP the contents of the session folder. Identify your session folder by the time you started PLAYDECK. Then right-click your session folder, select Compress to and pick 7z File (if available) or ZIP File. If PLAYDECK would still be open, this would result in an Error (Files still being written). Now lean back, compression could take some time.

Now you need to upload the Log Files to us. Please use this Guide for Uploads:
https://playdeck.tv/howto/upload-files/

Important: Don’t forget to create the Download Link and send us the Link to [email protected].

3. Cleanup

Be sure to delete the Log Files after ZIPPING to free disc space. PLAYDECK will not clean up the logfiles automatically.

Also make sure to deactivate the Setting “Enable Video Engine Logging” in PLAYDECK, as it will slow down your PLAYDECK performance. This setting is not meant to be enabled all the time.