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.
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:
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
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
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!
Plans & Pricing
Particularly cost-effective or especially flexible? Choose your optimal licensing model
Our support is provided by professionals who know all the ins and outs of live video events
Communication preferences
[automatewoo_communication_preferences]
Audio Delay / Filter
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.
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.
Create Video Engine Snapshot
This article will show how to create a snapshot of the Video Engine for us to analyze.
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).
After uploading click the COPY Button and send the Download Link to [email protected].
4. Clean Up
You can now safely delete the Snapshots.
Video Engine Logging
This article will show how to enable detailed Video Engine Logs for us to analyze.
1. Enable Logging
In PLAYDECK go to Application Settings and activate “Enable Video Engine Logging”. PLAYDECK will now ask you to restart.
2. Reproduction
After restarting now please reproduce the Issue/Problem at hand. Please make a note of the current Date/Time (and let us know). After the Issue/Problem has occurred, close PLAYDECK (or use Task Manager to terminate). Do NOT OPEN PLAYDECK again, otherwise the Logs will be lost, as they are being cleaned on every Start to reduce Upload Size.
Note: The shorter the Logs the better, as it is more easy to isolate the issue. Make sure to start PLAYDECK only to reproduce the issue and don’t let PLAYDECK run for a long time.
3. ZIP’ing and sending the Logs
Create a new ZIP File and add the following Folders:
After uploading click the COPY Button and send the Link to [email protected]. Please donÄt forget to send the Date/Time of the Issue/Problem occurrance, so we can easily find it in the Logs.
4. Clean Up
You can now safely delete your ZIP File.
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.
Sending SCTE-35 to Stream Server
SCTE Marker are mainly used to insert Ads into the Video Output by signaling the Receiver (e.g. Streaming Server) at what time to insert Ads and with what Duration. This allows 3rd Party Systems to dynamically pick Ads from a Database. You can read more about SCTE-35 in general on this website.
You can attach SCTE Marker to 4 different Objects in PLAYDECK: – Clips (any Position) – Blocks (Start and End) – Overlays (Show and Hide) – Actions Buttons
Instead of providing your with predefined SCTE Marker, we picked a different approach: You have to write your own SCTE Marker. This could mean a bit of a learning curve, but in the end, it is much more flexible. The advantage is, that you will always be compatible to all receiver. For gathering Clip duration and other “variables” we provide certain “placeholder”.
Please note, that SCTE has to be enabled in your Stream options:
SCTE-35 Marker Examples
Let’s look at some SCTE-35 Sample. It represents the most used form of SCTE-35 called “Splicing”.
Note: The SCTE-35 Format presented here works best with Nimble Streamer (see below). Depending on your Stream Server, the Format might be different. Ask your Provider.
This will insert an Ad and return to your Program automatically after the given duration. The duration will be set automatically by PLAYDECK for your current running Clip. This can be exchanged with {blockduration} or a manual value. If you pick a manual value for duration, the formula is: CLIP DURATION multiplied by 90000 and rounded. The reason behind this is, that 90000 is default Timescale most SCTE Systems use. Example: The Clip is 12.4 seconds, so the SCTE duration would be 1116000.
Instead of sending a duration, you could also send 2 separate SCTE Marker to Start/End the Ad. Those are called CUE-OUT (leaving your Program for Ad) and CUE-IN (return to your Program).
As you most likely have observed already, the only difference is “outOfNetworkIndicator” being 1 (CUE-OUT) and 0 (CUE-IN). The SCTE System itself will pair both Marker based on the “spliceEventId”.
Open PLAYDECK. You don’t need to load any Clips yet. Right-Click on any ACTION Button, create a new Action and select COMMANDS/SCTE:
Insert the SCTE-35 Sample Tag by clicking SCTE-35. Close the Popups with OK (twice):
We are now able to send a SCTE-35 Tag to any compatible Stream (UDP, DVB, SRT). If you click the Action now, nothing will happen, as we don’t have a Stream yet.
Let’s create a Test UDP Stream, where we simply send the Output to a File, so we don’t have to hassle with Server Stuff (yet). Copy the Settings as follows and start the Stream with START NOW.
We want to send our Sample SCTE-35 Tag to the Stream now. So close Settings and click your Action Button several Times, then go back to Settings and stop your Stream with STOP NOW.
Your SCTE-35 Tags have been logged by PLAYDECK. You can check the Logs, if you go back to your SCTE-35 Code on the Action Button and click OPEN EVENT LOGS:
You can also make the SCTE-35 Tags visible, which are in your recorded Stream. For this, we need a separate Tool called “DVBInspector”. This Tool also needs JAVA Runtime, so download both:
Now unzip your “DVBinspector-1.18.0-dist.zip” (or similar) and start “DVBinspector-1.18.0.jar”. Then Drag+Drop your TS File onto the Application. Open the Tree as follows to view your SCTE Marker.
Test SCTE-35 Marker in Nimble Streamer
Nimble Streamer is our Streaming Service of choice. It is cost-efficient, easy to setup and maintain, but still has the depth of complexity for advanced use cases:
Install the 14-day Trial Version of Nimble to the same machine that PLAYDECK is running. This is not a necessity, but makes things simpler, as you don’t have to put up with a network setup. You will also be asked by Nimble to create an account with WMSPanel, which is a web based setup tool for Nimble, as the Nimble Streamer itself installs without User Interface.
INFO: For this SCTE-35 Sample to work, you DONT need to have “Nimble Live Transcoder” or “Nimble Advertizer” PlugIns, if you test this on a Live Installation. They are disabled in the Trial Installation by Default.
Once you got Nimble running, there is one more configuration you need to do manually. Open the Nimble Server Configuration file here: c:\Program Files\Nimble Streamer\conf\nimble.conf
At the bottom of this file, add the following Lines and save the file.
Important: You need to restart Nimble now by either restarting your PC or restarting the Windows Service “Nimble Streamer” manually.
Here are the lines again, but with comments for you (dont use these):
scte35_processing_enabled = true // Enabled the SCTE module in general. Needed for all other Options
scte35_forwarding_enabled = true // Allows passing through the SCTE-35 markers via Live Transcoder
hls_ad_scte35_forwarding_enabled = true // Enables forwarding of SCTE-35 markers into HLS streams
hls_ad_marker_format = cue // Sets Nimble to use CUE-OUT and CUE-IN markers
hls_ad_splice_out_cont_marker_enabled = true // Enables automatic insertion of EXT-X-CUE-OUT-CONT
Now let’s set up your Streams in WMSPanel: First we are going to define our incoming Stream. Go to “Nimble Streamer” in the Menu and select “MPEGTS In” and click the “Add UDP stream” Button, then add the incoming stream like this. You can use any other Port, should 5001 be in use already.
Next we are going to setup the outgoing stream format. We want to use HLS here to demonstrate the conversion of SCTE Marker from UDP to HLS. On the same page, go to “MPEGTS Out” and click the “Add outgoing stream” Button, then add like this. Make sure you select you input stream as video and audio source.
Next we continue our setup in PLAYDECK. Got to the Stream Output Settings and change the Stream URL to “udp://127.0.0.1:5001”.
INFO: You can pick any preferred Video Codec. SCTE-35 will always be send. In this case I picked H.264 to let my NVIDIA GPU do the encoding, which will lower my CPU usage.
INFO: Please note, that PLAYDECK is not capable to directly stream HLS. If you select “Apple HTTP Live Streaming” as Streaming Format, the output will be written to a file. You therefore need to specify a file target as “Stream URL” e.g. “c:\Users\Public\Documents\stream.m3u8”. Then use that File to stream using any Streaming Server. PLAYDECK is not able to write HLS SCTE Tags into the HLS Manifest file (the *.3u8 file).
Next we want PLAYDECK to automatically send SCTE, not just via a Button, but Clip related. So we insert any Clip and click the COMMANDS Icon in the Toolbar, then add a new Command, select PLAY TIME 0, then insert the SCTE-35 Sample:
INFO: You can also add SCTE Marker to Blocks, Overlays and Action Buttons.
Now let’s get things rolling: CUE and PLAY the Clip and start the Stream in the PLAYDECK Settings. Hop over to the WMSPanel and open from the Menu “Nimble Streamer” the option “Live Streams”. You will now see 1 running Live stream. Click on it and pick the question mark on the far right like this.
Once you posted that URL into CHROME, you will see your PLAYDECK stream playing immediately. Now let me show you how to monitor your SCTE Marker. In Chrome press F12 to open the Developer Tools. On top click the “Network” Tab. You will now see several “chunks.m3u8”, which are part of you stream. Click on one of the Chunk files (also called HLS Manifest) and select “Preview” next to it. You will now see the HLS SCTE Tag. If it isn’t there, click on another chunk, as we send the SCTE only on Clip Start.
That’s it! We reached our Test Goals. Upcoming are more information which might be relevant to dig into.
Additional Information
Logging in PLAYDECK
We log Incoming and Outgoing SCTE Tags separately. This gives you also the opportunity to test your outgoing SCTE by simply Looping your Output to an Input (SDI as well as Streams), and let PLAYDECK detect your SCTE. You can open the Log Files via the Main Menu:
Logging in Nimble Streamer
If anything goes wrong or doesn’t happen as expected, a good start is to review the Nimble Log Files. The Log can be found here on Windows: c:\Program Files\Nimble Streamer\log
Logging is enabled by default in the Nimble Trial addition, but in case you need to activate it, here are the flags for the “nimble.conf”.
log_access = file
logging = debug
Now open the log file and scan for “SCTE”. You might see something like this, which indicates you have a typo in your SCTE Marker in PLAYDECK:
[SCTE35] unsupported splice command type=6 for [mynewapp/mynewstream]
If your SCTE Marker parsed successful in Nimble, it will look like this:
This is a collection of tools and plugins with a large library to manipulate MPEG transport streams. With this you would be able to insert SCTE Marker outside of PLAYDECK based on an algorithm or other complex logic.
This tool can also convert SCTE-35 Marker in UDP Streams or MPEG-TS Files into HLS SCTE Tags. This allows you to install a streaming server, which does not have automatic SCTE-35 to HLS conversion.
We are sorry to hear that you have problems with PLAYDECK. Let us try our best to help you out with that. Pick an area, where you have problems.
Unable to start PLAYDECK
Example:
Cause:
Some 3rd party application is preventing PLAYDECK to start. PLAYDECK uses an advanced protection system for it’s licenses, which “may” be detected by Anti-Malware or Anit-Virus applications. This is of course a “false positive” and we assure you that PLAYDECK does not contain any unwanted access to your system.
Solution 1 (Anti-Malware):
Disable your Anti-Malware/Virus applications, including Windows Defender/Firewall and test PLAYDECK. Once you found the responsible application, you need to whitelist PLAYDECK and it’s video engine: c:\Program Files (x86)\JoyEventMedia\Playdeck\Playdeck.exe c:\Program Files (x86)\JoyEventMedia\Playdeck\engine\PlaydeckEngine.exe
Solution 2 (Windows Error Event Log):
Check, if you Windows logged any application error while starting PLAYDECK and forward the message to [email protected] :
Also please check, if PLAYDECK itself write a Crash Dump and upload the file to us. Check in this location: c:\ProgramData\JoyEventMedia\Playdeck\crashs\dumps
For uploading you can use our Download Portal. Just make sure to send the Download Link to us after uploading (COPY Button): https://download.joy-event-media.de/
Solution 3 (Admin):
While PLAYDECK is fully capable to run with user priviliges, your System Configuration might require PLAYDECK to run under administrator priviliges. The cause for this can be 3rd party Security Software whitelisting all Apps, that run as administrator.
Right-Click PLAYDECK (eg. Desktop Icon), select Properties, then switch to the “Compability” Tab and activate “Run this program as an administrator”. If you start PLAYDECK from the Startmenu, right-click and select “Run as administrator”.
Example:
Cause:
PLADECK itself stopped during startup with the given Message. In the example PLAYDECK needs Windows in a 64-bit version.
Solution:
Please send us a screenshot of the error message to [email protected], so we can assist you further.
Example:
Cause:
PLAYDECK found a problem while starting up. In the example some files from the installation were missing.
Solution:
Install PLAYDECK again (no need to deinstall the current version) and during installation activate “Reset all Settings”:
This will delete all cache files or conflicting settings. If this does not lead to success, please create the ZIP file from this folder and forward it to us at [email protected] : c:\ProgramData\JoyEventMedia\Playdeck\logs\
Example:
Cause:
PLAYDECK has no priviliges to communicate with it’s video engine application. This is mostly the result of a Firewall blocking the access.
Solution:
Go into your Windows Settings, to Network, then to Advanced Network Settings, then to Windows Firewall and click on “Allow an app through firewall”.
Make sure that “Playdeck” as well as “PlaydeckEngine” is listed and has a checkbox under “Private”. If either one Application is not listed click on “Allow another app” and add both Apps with these paths: c:\Program Files (x86)\JoyEventMedia\Playdeck\Playdeck.exe c:\Program Files (x86)\JoyEventMedia\Playdeck\engine\PlaydeckEngine.exe
Clip Playout Problems
Cause:
Most likely PLAYDECK is not able to communicate with your GPU Driver.
Solution 1 (Use CPU):
First, please test without any GPU involved to check if this is the cause of the problem. Set the CPU of the Channel to CPU in PLAYDECK.
If it now turns out, the playout runs fine in CPU mode, you need to further check, what causes the GPU to fail. A driver update may be needed.
Solution 2 (Check other GPUs):
Play around with the above GPU Settings. Maybe PLAYDECK did not pre-select the correct GPU. Maybe you NEED to select your INTEL Onboard Card (Notebooks).
Solution 3 (Install GPU Drivers):
Make sure you installed the latest driver updates for GPU. If you use a NVIDIA, you can let PLAYDECK search for a newer Driver automatically.
Solution 4 (Bios):
If you have two GPUs installed, one internal and one dedicated, it might be nessecary to DISABLE your internal GPU or set your dedicated GPU as PRIMARY. This can be done in the BIOS. Restart your PC and hit DEL Key several times to open your BIOS.
Solution 5 (Notebooks):
Notebooks are a bit special in regards to GPUs. Alot of Notebooks feature 2 GPUs, one Intel and one NVIDIA, but they don’t function as 2 different GPUs. The NVIDIA cant be used as exclusive GPU and is only used by the Notebook to OFFLOAD decoding jobs. If you would now pick the NVIDIA as GPU in PLAYDECK, it would not work. In this case, you need to select the PRIMARY GPU (the one, which is listed first), which will most likely be the INTEL.
Example:
Cause:
Your GPU is not detected by PLAYDECK and therefore not shown in PLAYDECK. This is mostly likely because PLAYDECK has no access to your GPU Device List. PLAYDECK uses OLE to access the WMI cimv2 namespace to read the current GPU List of the System.
Solution 1 (Device Manager):
Check that your current User has Access to the Device List by opening the Device Manager. Right-Click on the Windows START Button and select “Device Manager”. Then try to unfold the “Display adaptors” topic. Check that your GPU is listed there correctly. If not, you need to install a valid driver and make sure, that your GPU is listed here, otherwise PLAYDECK can’t find it. Also, you will reveal any security layer, that might still be in effect.
Solution 2 (Admin):
While PLAYDECK is fully capable to run with user priviliges, your System Configuration might require PLAYDECK to run under administrator priviliges. The cause for this can be 3rd party Security Software whitelisting all Apps, that run as administrator.
Right-Click PLAYDECK (eg. Desktop Icon), select Properties, then switch to the “Compability” Tab and activate “Run this program as an administrator”. If you start PLAYDECK from the Startmenu, right-click and select “Run as administrator”.
Solution 3 (Security Layer):
At this point it might be necessary to contact your IT Admin person and figure out, why you cant access the GPU Device List. To check, if your current Windows User supports listing the GPU Devices, open the Windows Powershell by right-clicking the Windows START Button and selecting “Windows PowerShell”. Copy, paste and execute the following Code Snippet: Get-CimInstance -ClassName win32_VideoController | Format-List Name
If successful, it will list all installed virtual and physical GPUs. Example:
If you cant list the GPU Devices with this command, you might need to add extra security permissions. To directly edit the permisssion, run “wmimgmt.msc” by Right-Clicking the Windows START Button and selecting “Run”. Now Right-Click “WMI Control” and click “Properties”, select the “Security Tab”. In the Tree, select “Root > CIMV2 > Security” and click the “Security” Button. From there you either edit existing rights or add a new user/group:
Cause:
Audio stuttering (in Preview) is the first sign of System overload. Even if the Hardware is ok, it might not be utilized to the max.
Solution 1 (GPU):
Make sure you installed the latest driver updates for GPU. If you use a NVIDIA, you can let PLAYDECK search for a newer Driver automatically.
Altho you can run PLAYDECK without dedicated GPU (eg Onboard Intel HD 630), it is strongly recommended to install a NVIDIA GPU with a Score of minimum 8000 (as orientation), e.g. RTX 3080: https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/directCompute.html
Solution 2 (CPU):
The CPU is not taxed alot by PLAYDECK, if a dedicated GPU is used. There are some exceptions tho. Some Clip Codecs can’t be decoded via the GPU on Windows Systems: ProRes, DNxHD, HAP, MXF. In this case, you need to invest in a stronger CPU to get the same results.
Watch your CPU cores carefully in the task manager, while playing the stuttering clip. Maybe one CPU core is clipped at 100%, while other cores are barely being used. This phenomenon is called “CPU parking”. Check, if the CPU usage goes UP, if you DONT play any clips. This indicates, that the CPU cores are been parked, because there is less activity. Here is some information on how to proceed: https://superuser.com/questions/1879051/how-to-disable-cpu-parking-in-windows-11
Watch out for specific processes in the task manager, which have sudden CPU spikes and disable those processes. One known process is “Antimalware Service Executable”, which is the Windows Defender: https://blog.emsisoft.com/en/28620/antimalware-service-executable/
Solution 3 (Notebook or HP Office PCs):
In case you a running a Notebook (or HP Office PCs) you have to consider that they are pre-designed for power saving. Look for any and all options to maximize performance. Some Notebooks provide their own software to adjust performance settings. Here is an example of ASUS Notebook and their software “Armoury Crate”, where you need to set the GPU to “Ultimate” for it to work 100%:
Should you not have decided on a Notebook yet, we recommend grabbing a Gamer Notebook with NVIDIA Card and extend with Blackmagic Ultra Studio card via the thunderbolt interface. These Notebooks are pre-designed for maximum performance. Avoid buying Office-type Notebooks like Dell or HP, which are pre-designed for power saving and can seriously limit your playout performance.
Solution 4 (Output Card):
Altho you might use Desktop Output for HDMI Output, there is also the Option to invest into a dedicated Output Card, which outputs to HDMI or SDI (with SDI-to-HDMI Converter). This will offload alot CPU/GPU ressources to that Card and results in better output quality, stable frame rate, lower CPU/GPU usage, better video/audio SYNC, more “true” colors and less overall delay. This might be the tipping point, if you go from HD to 4K productions or from single channel playout to multi channel playout. It also allows you to keep otherwise outdated hardware in terms of CPU/GPU.
There also have been reports, where moving the Output Card to another PCIe Slot helped.
Solution 5 (Monitor):
Connect your Monitor to the same GPU that is set as GPU in PLAYDECK. Because if you connect your Monitor to a different GPU, an additional framerate conversion is introduced (for the channel preview), which can lead to stuttering.
Solution 6 (Harddisk / Network):
Please make sure, that the data rate of your clips can be transferred flawlessly through your system. If your clips run over the network, test them on your local harddisk. Edit your Windows Power Options and disable any HDD sleep mechanics. Place all used media on the same storage source, ideally a local SSD.
Solution 7 (PSU Power Unit / Other):
Sometimes you might not even realize, that even the power unit of a system can bottleneck the playout. This is especially true, if you use a powerfull graphics card and another playout card (e.g. Decklink), but only provide, lets say 600W power, which most certainly isnt enough and would cause the graphics card to cause stuttering (especially on the start of the clip, when power is drawn).
If using several video cards, a good airflow is also very important to prevent overheating of components, which most likely result in stuttering later on.
Cause:
If you have a Output Card activated as Output Device in PLAYDECK, chances are, that the Card itself causes the lag. These lags may appear instantly or after some time.
Solution 1 (Test without Device Output):
Test without activated Device Output to check, if the above Cause is the case.
If the audio stutter happens only after some hours of continuous device output, it might be Windows putting your Device in a Power Safe State. Disable Power Management for your Device:
Open Windows Start Menu and search for “edit power plan” and open it:
Then select “Change advanced power settings” and set “Link State Power Management” to OFF in “PCI Express”:
Solution 4 (Check PCIe Slot Bandwidth):
A more rare but possible scenario is using a PCIe Slot, which has been set to SHARED in the Bios. This will lead to a reduced maxium Bandwidth.
Solution 5 (Vendor Recommendations):
Here are 2 recommendations from Blackmagic (Vendor of the Decklink Cards):
1. Swap the Card to another PCIe slot 2. In BIOS, for that PCIe Slot, select “Gen.2” as PCIe mode (It normally defaults to either AUTO or Gen.3/4)
Cause:
Some Clips, especially their Codec, can take a huge toll on your System. Altho PLAYDECK is known for being able to play any Clip format and codec, it may be nessecary or advisable to transcode Clips. It is important to know, that not all Codecs can be decoded via the GPU on Windows Systems: ProRes, DNxHD, HAP, MXF need to be decoded via the CPU. Also you might not have a NVIDIA Card installed to decode certain Codecs (NVENC).
Solution 1 (Use PLAYDECK Transcoder):
PLAYDECK has a build-in transcoder, which will transcode one or more Clips into a MPEG-4 or AV1 Video Codec, which can be decoded via the GPU. Right-click the Clip(s) and select “Transcode Clip”. The Clip will be automatically swapped in the Playlist.
Solution 2 (Alpha Channel Clips):
You might be tempted to use Apple ProRes for Alpha Channel Support. But please keep in mind, that the ProRes Codec is not fully supported on Windows Systems by Apple, thus being decoded via CPU, and can easily lead to stuttering, especially in the HQ variant.
A good Windows alternative for Alpha Channel Support is the HAP Codec. This still needs to be decoded on the CPU, but performs alot better than ProRes.
Solution 3 (Apple Quicktime / Final Cut Pro):
Avoid Clips, that have been encoding with “Apple Quicktime” or “Final Cut Pro” (MAC). Those tend to cause problems in PLAYDECK.
Solution 4 (Same Resolution / FPS):
If you are on a very tight leash in regards to your performance, because your system is older or you running Multi Channel 4K HDR plus Streams plus Recording, there is one more thing you can do to reduce overall system load: You pre-render (or transcode) all your Clips to the same Resolution and FPS as you set your PLAYDECK Playlist (and Device Output) to. This will avoid another transcoding process on the GPU and will be a noticable improvement. You can enable “Clip Format Mismatch” in PLAYDECK, which will mark all Clips with a Warning Symbol that indicates, that either Frame Rate or Resolution does not match the Channel Settings.
Cause:
Windows Setting can be responsible for alot of problems. This is especially true for “Office PCs or Notebooks” from DELL, HP and Lenovo, as they are pre-configured for maximum power saving instead of maximum performance.
Solution 1 (PLAYDECK):
Chances are, you might not have heard of it, but there is a Window Setting to grant any App high priority performance over other Apps. Open Windows Settings, goto System, then Display. Scroll down and click on “Display”. Search for PLAYDECK. If it is not there, add it via “Add an app” ontop. Then click on “Playdeck”, then Options and select “High performance”. Do the same for “PlaydeckEngine”. Both locations are: c:\Program Files (x86)\JoyEventMedia\Playdeck\Playdeck.exe c:\Program Files (x86)\JoyEventMedia\Playdeck\engine\PlaydeckEngine.exe
Solution 2 (Power Plan):
Change your Power Plan in Windows to “High performance”. Go to Windows Settings, and type in “plan” in the Search Box, click “Chose a power plan”, then click “High performance”.
Solution 3 (Monitor Refresh Rate):
If you use HDMI Output via the Extended Desktop, please set the Refresh Rate of that Monitor to 59,99 Hz, or any other lower value close to your Playlist Video Format Refresh Rate. If your Monitor is running at 144 Hz, a transcoding process will try to reach the 144 FPS, which can lead to stuttering. Go to Windows Settings, then System, then Display, pick the Display in question, then select “Advanced display”.
Solution 4 (NVIDIA Performance):
If you run a NVIDIA GPU, open the NVidia Settings by right-clicking on the Desktop and selecting “NVIDIA Control Panel”. In the “Manage 3D settings” under the “Global Settings” Tab, scroll down to “Power management mode” and set it to “Prefer maximum performance”.
Solution 5 (Chrome and other Apps):
Some Apps have the “Power” to soak up so much ressources, that even PLAYDECK starts to stutter or produces audio hicks. One of those Apps is Chrome Browser, especially if you have video running in the browser. It’s best to keep other Apps closed while using PLAYDECK. If you urgently need the Browser to check your Streams, please deactivate GPU support in the Browser on your PLAYDECK System. Here is an example for Chrome: Go to Menu, click “Settings” and select “System”. There you can disable “Use graphics acceleration when available”.
Other known Apps to cause PLAYDECK problems (while open) are: Any Video Software, Discord, NDI Access Manager, Blackmagic Desktop Video, ATEM Control Software.
Solution 6 (Windows Services):
Apps, that can interfere with PLAYECK, can also run in the Background as Services. Open your Task Manager, go to the Processes Tab, and check for any Background Processes with noticable CPU usage. Switch to the Services Tab and find the Service responsible and deactivate it. For this click on “Open Service” in the upper right corner, double-click the service in question and select “disabled” as startup type. Once you are done, restart your PC.
Solution 7 (Windows Startup):
Similar to Services, there are Apps started in the Background during Windows Startup. You can find those in your Task Manager under the Tab “Startup apps”. To deactivate a startup app, right-click it and select “Disable”. Once you are done, restart your PC.
Known Startup Apps, that cause Problems with PLAYDECK: NVIDIA FrameView SDK
Example:
Cause:
The GPU, that you have selected as Decoder GPU in PLAYDECK, has problems decoding the current Clip Codec. This is mostly true for Intel GPUs.
Solution:
Set the GPU to CPU. This will shift some GPU usage to the CPU, but should work nontheless and circumvent the problem. We recommend installing a dedicated NVIDIA GPU.
Example:
Cause:
The Project has been loaded in OFFLINE Mode. Therefore Clip Scanning has been disabled. Clip Scanning is enabled by Default.
Solution:
Reload the Project and do NOT select OFFLINE, but just click OK.
Cause:
Some older SD Clips are decoded wrong on modern GPUs, resulting in a wrong aspect ratio.
Solution:
Switch your GPU to CPU to force decoding via CPU, which will result in correct display of older SD Clips. Since those Clips most likely wouldn’t benefit from GPU Decoding anyway, this will not result in bad performance.
Cause:
The official YouTube platform made changes to its system, which reflect on PLAYDECK being unable to correctly access the YouTube videos.
Some GPU, eg older Intel Onboard GPU, are unable to render HTML Overlays. In this case, please switch to CPU for either Director View or your Channel (for HTML Overlays).
Solution:
Set the GPU to CPU. This will shift some GPU usage to the CPU, but should work nontheless and circumvent the problem. Director View is using the GPU for Video Assets.
If your card is not listed and you are looking to purchase a new card for PLAYDECK, we recommend going with Blackmagic Decklink Products. The most used Cards are “Decklink Duo 2” and alternatively the “Decklink 8K Pro”, which is a bit more future-proof.
Cause:
Most likely cause is network routing. The NDI protocol will connect per default to the target machine name and the NDI name. Once activated, NDI will continue to search for a signal and will also (re-)connect at a later time. Certain router configurations and/or port forwarding rules can mess with the native functionality of the NDI protocol.
Solution:
We recommend installing the NDI access manager on the PLAYDECK machine. This also allows you to define a discovery server on another IP address in the network. https://ndi.video/tools/access-manager/
If your monitor is not listed within PLAYDECK as Desktop Output, it is not setup as Extended Desktop and has not connected an active monitor.
Solution:
Connect a monitor via HDMI to the port of the GPU. PLAYDECK needs this monitor to be active, otherwise it will cancel the Desktop Output. In your Windows Display Settings, setup the secondary monitor as “Extended Desktop”.
Example:
Solution 1 (Software):
Install or update the latest ATEM Control Software from the vendor website. It is called “ATEM Switchers 9.x Update”. You need at least version 9.x. It only has to be installed – you don’t need to start it every time you use PLAYDECK. You also don’t need to update the ATEM switcher firmware. https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/support/family/atem-live-production-switchers
Solution 2 (Network):
Make sure PLAYDECK and the ATEM are in the same subnet network, meaning they share the same 3 parts of the IP adress like this: 192.168.1.X. Try to ping your ATEM via the Console with “ping ipadress”. Disable any Firewalls, that might prevent PLAYDECK to build a connection. It is advised to use a router in the network.
Solution 3 (Direct USB):
Connect your ATEM via USB to the PC that runs PLAYDECK. If the ATEM Control Software can find the ATEM Switcher, so can PLAYDECK.
After disconnecting the Remote Connection to the PLAYDECK System, PLAYDECK stopps Playout, or NDI, or Streams. Upon Re-Connection, PLAYDECK seems to hang or doesnt respond.
Cause:
You are using a Remote Connection Tool, that installs its own virtual Display Driver. Such a Tool is “Windows Remote Desktop”, which installs the “Windows Remote Display Driver”. Upon disconnection, PLAYDECK crashes, because it doesnt know where to send its Preview Output to. Please also note, that Microsoft ended support for “Remote Desktop” in 5/2025.
Solution 1 (Better Remote Connection Tool):
We only use RustDesk to connect to our PLAYDECK Systems. It might not have the perfect image quality, but it has a much better response time (mouse/keyboard) and most important: It DOES NOT install any Virtual Display Driver, therefore not interrupting PLAYDECK upon disconnect.
Solution 2 (Install your own Virtual Display Driver):
If you install your own Virtual Display Driver, PLAYDECK has a Monitor to “fall back” to, once you disconnect your Remote Connection Tool. We tested this Virtual Display Driver with success. Install the Driver while connected with the same Remote Connection Tool and Windows Account, that you use for PLAYDECK.
Solution 3 (Connect Monitor):
If possible, you could also connect a physical Monitor to the PLAYDECK System, before connecting with your Remote Connection Tool. But this works less successful than Solution 2, because you would need to be logged into the PLAYDECK Windows Account and in some cases the Monitor needs to be active and/or mouse/keyboard needs to be connected. Solution 1 is therefore by far the safest way.
Cause:
Since MIRACAST is based solely on Wifi, it is very unreliably, as it will interrupt the connection, if the Wifi Signal is weak for just a moment. MIRACAST is unable to reconnect itself properly.
Solution 1 (Strong Wifi):
Please make sure that both your PC and your Receiver have a strong and steady Wifi Signal. Use your external Wifi Antenna. Many Motherboards will have an antenna in the package. Else use another USB Wifi product. If possible, upgrade your Wifi Standard to 6e or even 7.
Solution 2 (HDMI Transmission):
Please consider a HDMI Wireless Transmission System. It will use closed frequencies, thus making it much more reliable than open Wifi frequencies. Furthermore the quality will be much higher. It is also much easier to set up the Receiver as Extended Desktop Display in Windows.
