Sending from the phone

InterDirector Cam sends one stream at a time, over SRT or RTMP, to the address in Settings › Connection. The phone always connects to the receiver; the receiver listens. Set it up from InterDirector’s QR code (Getting started) or type the address in.

SRT or RTMP

SRT is the better choice wherever packets get lost, such as Wi-Fi in a busy room or the internet: it resends what the network lost, within its Latency, and can be encrypted with a Passphrase. InterDirector’s QR code sets the phone up for SRT unless the input is RTMP.
RTMP is for receivers that only take RTMP. It is not encrypted.

The connection fields, and Send over, wait while the phone sends: stop first to change them.

On your network

The phone and the Mac need to be on the same network, and the InterDirector input listening (its card says Waiting for a sender). See Listen for a sender for the Mac’s side.

Over the internet

A phone on mobile data, or on another network, sends through InterDirector’s relay. Neither the phone nor the Mac needs an open port or a public address.

In InterDirector, add a Network Stream input with Comes in set to Over the Internet, get its address, and scan its InterDirector Cam QR Code… with the phone. The phone then sends to the relay over SRT, and the relay passes the stream to InterDirector. Nothing reaches InterDirector until the input is started there. The scan’s question says over the internet where the setup goes through the relay.

The relay adds the network’s delay twice, phone to server and server to Mac: over mobile data, expect the picture about two seconds behind the camera. See Over the internet for the addresses, the regions and how long a session lasts.

The picture’s format

In Settings › Video:

Resolution: 720p, 1080p or 4K. 4K is for a 4K Show: it needs a strong network, runs the phone warmer and drains it faster, and a digital zoom softens sooner.
Frame rate: 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 50, 59.94 or 60 fps. The camera captures at exactly this rate, so match it to your Show. A scan does.
Codec: HEVC or H.264. HEVC gives the same picture for about three quarters of the bitrate; H.264 is for a receiver that does not take HEVC.
Quality: Low, Medium or High, or Custom for a bitrate of your own, from 2 to 40 Mbit/s. The page shows about how much the picture takes: at High, 1080p at 50 fps in HEVC is about 9 Mbit/s.
Keyframe every: 1 to 4 seconds. Keyframes closer together let a receiver that joins, or loses packets, show a picture sooner, at some cost in quality.

Quality and the custom bitrate change at once, while sending too. The resolution, frame rate, codec, keyframes and Adaptive bitrate wait until the phone stops; the page says so while it sends.

The camera now, at the bottom of the page, shows what the camera really delivers: its size and frame rate, the pictures dropped, how far the zoom stays sharp (Sharp zoom to) and how many times iOS has interrupted the camera.

Adaptive bitrate

With Adaptive bitrate on (as it is to begin with), the phone lowers the picture’s bitrate when the network cannot keep up, rather than falling behind, down to 300 kbit/s at the lowest, and raises it again, a step at a time, once the network has kept up for a few seconds. It never lowers the sound’s bitrate.

It does not only watch the phone’s own upload. The phone’s upload can be fine while the picture still falls short on its way to InterDirector: a Mac on a weak link, or the leg from the relay to the Mac. InterDirector, and the relay server, tell the phone when fewer pictures arrive than the stream’s frame rate, or packets are lost, with the bitrate that actually got there. The phone then lowers its bitrate to fit, and climbs back only once ten seconds have passed with no such warning from either.

When that happens, the phone says Bitrate lowered for InterDirector for a moment, and the status pill reads, for instance, Sending · 2.3 Mbit/s ↓ for InterDirector for as long as it holds. InterDirector’s Show journal says when a phone was asked to lower its bitrate, and when it is back to its own.

The warnings travel over the same connection as tally, so they need a setup scanned from InterDirector’s code.

The status pill

Right of Start, the status pill says how sending is going, with the format after it, such as Sending · 5.3 Mbit/s · 1080p50 · HEVC:

Ready: not sending.
Connecting…: Start was pressed and the phone is reaching the receiver.
Sending · 5.3 Mbit/s: going out, at the bitrate the phone is sending now.
Reconnecting: the connection failed or dropped. The reason is shown above the picture, and the phone tries again on its own, a second later and then every few seconds, until you press Stop.

Left of Start is where the phone sends: the protocol, and the input’s name from a scan, or the server’s address. Its dot is coloured as the status: the app’s coral while sending, orange while connecting or in trouble.

With the controls hidden

The eye at the top of the rail hides the controls, for a clean view. While they are hidden, a small light at the bottom of the screen says the phone is still sending: a dot that pulses with each report of pictures going out, and the status in words. It turns orange for Connecting…, Reconnecting, or No pictures going out (connected, but no pictures for three seconds), and shows a grey ring and Not sending when stopped. The eye brings the controls back.

The camera’s controls.
Troubleshooting InterDirector Cam, for a picture that does not arrive or stutters.