#Video Channels

One source for many screens — switch the channel and every screen on it changes at once.

A show rarely has one screen. The centre wall, the two side screens and the confidence monitors often carry the same thing, and they change together: walk-in loop, then the opening film, then IMAG for the keynote. A Video Channel is how you do that in EVT3D. Put the screens on a channel, and from then on you change the channel, not each screen.

#What it does

#A channel carries the whole Screen Source

A channel is a named source that screens share. It holds everything the Screen Source picker does: Standby, IMAG, Material Slot, Video or Off — and, with it, which video on Video and which picture on Material Slot. Switch the channel from a video to a graphic, to IMAG, to standby or to off, and every screen on it changes at once. One switch is one undo step, however many screens it reaches.

Screens and LED walls can share a channel. Some things stay each screen's own even on a channel: its fit, its Image Adjustments, its standby look, and its Rotate / Flip. A wide wall and a 16:9 side screen can show the same video and each frame it its own way.

#Put screens on a channel

Select a screen or an LED wall. The Channel row leads the Screen Source card, above the source picker. Its list holds:

• No channel — this screen only. The screen has its own source. This is how every screen starts.
• Your channels. Each one by name, with the number of screens on it. Pick one and the screen joins it and shows what the channel shows.
• + New channel. Makes a channel out of what the screen is showing now and puts the screen on it. New channels are named Channel 1, Channel 2 and so on.

Select several screens together and the same row puts all of them on a channel in one go. With + New channel, the channel takes what the first selected screen is showing. If the selected screens are on different channels, the row reads Different channels.

Once a screen is on a channel, a box under the row shows the channel's name, how many screens are on it, and Delete. Click the name to rename the channel. To take a screen off its channel, pick No channel — this screen only: the screen keeps what it was showing, as its own.

#Change what a channel plays

There are two places to do it.

From any screen on the channel. While a screen is on a channel, the source picker and the video controls under it belong to the channel. Pick another source, upload or pick another video, paste a live stream link, choose a Loop: every screen on the channel follows. The same holds for the other ways of changing a screen. Drag a video from the library's Videos tab onto one screen of the channel, or right-click it and use Change Screen Image…, and the whole channel changes.

From the channel switcher. With nothing selected, the properties panel shows a Video Channels section under the Look Manager, so you can run the channels without selecting a screen first. Each channel has a card:

• Its name and screen count. Type in the name to rename it.
• Its source. A list with Standby, IMAG, Material Slot, Video and Off. The change applies as soon as you pick.
• Its video. On Video, a second list picks which one: Your videos, the Loops saved to the Project Palette, the Loop presets, and the test feeds. It reads Pick a video… until the channel has one. To use a live stream link of your own, paste it from a screen on the channel.
• Its picture. On Material Slot, the card shows the picture. To change it, right-click any screen on the channel and choose Change Screen Image….
• Its sound. A speaker button and a Volume slider for the channel's video. Every video starts silent. A Loop has no sound, so it has no volume row.
• Its play controls. A row with restart, play or pause, a bar to move through the video, and a clock. A live stream has Go live in place of the bar. These drive every screen on the channel together and are not saved: the project always opens with the video playing from its start point.
• Its Loop settings. When the channel is playing a Loop, the card carries the whole Loops tab — Project Palette, Presets and Make it yours — so you can swap the Loop or change its colors and speed right there. Every screen on the channel follows as you drag.

The arrow beside a channel's name folds its card down to one line showing its name, what it is showing and its screen count. Each card remembers whether it is folded on this computer.

+ New channel at the bottom of the section makes an empty channel on Standby, to fill and add screens to later. A channel with no screens on it has no play controls, because nothing is playing it.

#Videos not on a channel

Under the channels, the same section lists Videos not on a channel: every video playing on a screen of its own. Each has the same speaker button, Volume slider and play controls, so every video in the scene can be played, paused and heard without selecting its screen.

#Play and pause a channel from the 3D view

Right-click any screen on a channel that is showing a video and choose Pause Video or Play Video. The screens of a channel share one player, so this pauses or plays all of them. Mute Video and Unmute Video in the same menu set the channel's sound.

#Delete a channel

Click the trash button beside the channel's name in the Video Channels section (its tooltip reads Delete channel), or click Delete under the Channel row of a screen that is on it. EVT3D asks first and tells you how many screens are on the channel. No screen goes blank: each one keeps what it was showing, as its own. A channel with no screens is deleted from the section without a question. Deleting a channel is one undo step.

#Channels and Looks

A Look saves what each channel was showing, so applying it puts those channels back: the same source, video or picture, on every screen of the channel — including screens that joined after the Look was captured. A channel deleted since then is not brought back; the screens the Look saved on it show the saved source as their own. Channels the Look's screens were not on are left as they are. An older Look, captured before Looks saved channels, puts back a channel's source and picture but not which video it played: apply it, pick the video, then update the Look to save it.

#Which plan you need

Changing the video a channel plays is a Pro feature, like every other way of adding a video. Playing is never locked: channels that already hold a video keep playing for share-link viewers and on lower plans. See Video on screens.

#How you use it

1. Select the screens that belong together. For example the centre LED wall and both side screens.
2. Make a channel. In Screen Source, open the Channel list and pick + New channel.
3. Name it. Click the name in the box under the row and type one, such as Main or Side Screens.
4. Add more screens later. Select a screen, open the Channel list and pick the channel.
5. Set what the channel shows. With a screen on the channel selected, pick the source and, on Video, the video.
6. Switch it during a review. With nothing selected, open Video Channels in the properties panel and change the channel's source or video. Every screen on it follows.
7. Set its sound. Use the Volume slider on the channel's card.
8. Take a screen off. Select it and pick No channel — this screen only.
9. Delete a channel you no longer need. Use the trash button on its card. Its screens keep what they were showing.

#Why it matters

Screens in a real show are fed in groups. A video switcher sends one output to several displays, and the people running the show think in those outputs, not in single screens. Setting each screen by hand in a design tool means doing the same job five times and getting one of them wrong.

A channel matches how the show runs. You say once which screens belong together, and after that a change is one pick: the walk-in Loop, the opening film, IMAG for the keynote. In a client review that makes it quick to answer "what does the room look like when the film is playing?" — and the answer shows on every screen in the room at the same moment.