Bitfocus Companion

Bitfocus Companion drives Stream Decks, X-keys, MIDI controllers and many other control surfaces. With the InterDirector module, its buttons can switch, put overlays on air, mute, start and stop outputs, run replay and press your hotkeys, and they light up with what is on Program and in Preview.

It needs InterDirector 1.21 or later, and Companion 4.3 or later.

Install the module

1. Download the InterDirector module (version 0.1.8), or in InterDirector choose Help ▸ Get the Bitfocus Companion Module, which puts the module that came with your InterDirector in your Downloads folder and shows it.
2. In Companion, open Modules, choose Import module package, and pick the file.
3. Under Connections, add InterDirector.

The module is not yet in Companion’s own list of modules, so it is installed from this file. A newer version replaces it the same way.

Connect it

On the same Mac as InterDirector: choose To InterDirector on this Mac, and leave the host and port as they are. It connects whenever a Show is open, and needs no password.

From another machine (a Raspberry Pi, a PC, another Mac):

1. In InterDirector, switch on the web remote in the Show’s Remote settings, with a password.
2. In Companion, choose To InterDirector on another Mac, through its web remote, and enter the Mac’s address, port 49722 (or the one the Remote settings show), and that password.

The password never travels over the network. Companion appears in InterDirector’s list of connected remotes, where you can disconnect it. Its connection turns green once it is connected; if InterDirector is too old for the module, the connection says so.

What the buttons can do

• Switching: put an input in Preview, take one straight to Program with a cut or a fade, or take Preview to Program with Cut, Fade 1, Fade 2 or Dip, at the lengths set beside those buttons or a Fade 1 of its own length; switch the Auto Director on or off.
• Overlays on, off, or either, and the Overlay button’s own: whatever is in Preview, up or down.
• Sound: mute, unmute, or either; Follow Program on or off; solo a source, or clear every solo; set a source’s level, or Master’s, Bus A’s or Bus B’s.
• Media and images: play, pause, restart, next, previous or a chosen item, and reshuffle. Reload a web page, an overlay or a folder. The zoom/position animation on or off, for one source or every one.
• Outputs: start or stop streaming, Program recording, input recording, NDI and the external output; turn one stream destination on or off; mark a cut in the recording.
• Replay: capture a clip, play the selected clip, stop, select the next or previous, delete one; play the selected bucket, every bucket (as Play All), or one by name; select a bucket, the next or the previous, or clear one.
• Data sources: next, previous or a chosen row, the row with a key, or read it now.
• Fade to Black, and any of your hotkeys, for anything else your Show’s hotkeys do.

Each list offers only the inputs the action means something for, by name. A button keeps working when an input is renamed.

Stopping an output, turning a stream destination off while streaming, deleting a replay clip or clearing a bucket with clips asks first on the Mac, as it does from a Stream Deck. Tick Without asking on a button when nobody will be at the Mac to answer.

Tally and names

Buttons can light when an input is on Program (red) or in Preview (green), when an overlay is on air, an input is muted or follows Program, an output or a stream destination is on, the Auto Director is running, a replay is playing or a bucket is selected, Program is faded to black, or a hotkey is on. A button can also take its hotkey’s own colour from InterDirector, bright while it is on and dimmed while it is off, as a Stream Deck key shows it.

$(interdirector:program) and $(interdirector:preview) show the names of the inputs on Program and in Preview, and $(interdirector:show) the Show’s.

A button’s text from InterDirector. Every input and every hotkey has a variable holding its name: in a button’s text field, type $(interdirector: and pick Input name: … or Hotkey name: … from the list. The button then shows the name as InterDirector has it, and follows a rename. The ready-made input and hotkey buttons already do this.

Presets

Companion’s Presets tab offers ready-made buttons. Drag them onto a page.

• Inputs to Preview: one per input, putting it in Preview, lit with its tally.
• Inputs to Program: one per input, cutting it straight to Program, lit red while it is there. To fade instead, change the button’s action to Fade once it is on a page.
• Switching: CUT, FADE 1, FADE 2, DIP, OVERLAY, AUTO and FTB.
• Overlays and Sound: one per overlay, lit while on air, and a mute and a solo per source with sound, lit while muted or soloed, with CLEAR SOLO.
• Outputs: STREAM, REC, IN REC, NDI and EXT, lit while running, and MARK.
• Replay, when the Show has a replay input: CAPTURE, PLAY CLIP, PREV CLIP, NEXT CLIP, DELETE LAST, PREV BUCKET, NEXT BUCKET, PLAY BUCKET, PLAY ALL, STOP REPLAY, and one per bucket, lit while it is selected.
• Hotkeys: one per hotkey, lit while it is on, and in its own colour, including a colour you give it later.

A button keeps what it was dragged with, so after updating the module, drag a hotkey’s button again to get these.

In the journal

Each press is a line in the journal: “Companion: Cut to Program · Cam 1” from this Mac, or “Web remote (Bitfocus Companion): …” from another machine.