Image and media playlists | Docs

Image and Media inputs each play a list of files you add, in order or shuffled, and each file plays through your usual framing, colour and audio routing like any other input.

Adding one by dragging

Drag image, video or audio files from Finder onto your inputs, and InterDirector makes the input for you and opens its settings, as Add Input… does. Images make an Image input; video and audio make a Media input. The files you drop together make one input, and each folder you drop makes its own, which keeps the folder so that Refresh reads it again. A folder that holds both images and video or audio asks which input you want, and one that holds neither makes nothing. Folders inside a folder are not looked into.

Image carousels

An Image input with more than one file becomes a carousel. Set Each image’s duration and the Transition’s crossfade length, in seconds, and turn on Loop carousel to have it repeat, or Shuffle images to randomise the order.

Advance continuously decides whether it keeps playing on its own schedule, on or off Program. Turn it off and it holds its current image until the input reaches Program, then advances from there, with Restart on Program in and Pause on Program out to tie it to whether it is live. Turn Advance on Program in off as well and reaching Program starts nothing: the carousel stays on its image until you step it yourself, from the transport, the Media panel or a key. With Restart on Program in still on, it goes back to the first image and holds there.

Animated images

An animated GIF, PNG or WebP plays in an Image input at its own speed, with its transparency, on its own or as a slide in a carousel. It loops as the file says: most loop for ever. One made to play a set number of times holds its last frame, and starts again each time it goes to Program or on air as an overlay. In a carousel, an animated slide plays from its start each time it comes up, and lasts the slide’s set duration whatever the animation’s own length.

An edge that looks white or ragged around a transparent GIF is usually in the file: a GIF’s pixels are either fully transparent or fully solid, and many are made with a white edge for a white web page. An animated PNG or WebP keeps soft edges.

Media playlists

A Media input plays a list of media files. Always play ignores Program entirely and keeps the playlist running from the moment the source starts; with it off, Restart playlist on Program in and Pause on Program out tie playback to whether it is live. Turn Play on Program in off to take a clip to air on its first frame and roll it yourself with Play. With Restart playlist on Program in on too, reaching Program goes back to the first clip and waits there.

To jump within a clip, click or drag the thin bar along the bottom of its transport, under Preview or Program. While you drag, a time follows the pointer, and nothing jumps until you let go; with the clip paused, the picture follows the drag so you can find the place. Under Program the bar is red, because what it moves is on air: the clip jumps there the moment you let go. A clip found off air this way keeps its place when you take it to Program, unless Restart playlist on Program in is on. What the bar shows is where the file is playing; a source with an Input delay reaches Program that much later.

Auto next decides what happens when a clip ends. On, the playlist moves on to the next one. Off, the clip stops on its last frame and the playlist stays on it; Play then starts the next clip, or pick another in the Media panel. Together with Play on Program in, that is the whole of manual running: whatever you pick plays, and nothing follows it until you say so. Shuffle files and Auto loop playlist work as they do for images; turning shuffle on or off takes effect straight away, keeping the file that is playing. A hotkey or Stream Deck button can reshuffle either, or read a folder again for files added or removed.

Crossfade dissolves one clip into the next, picture and sound together, over the number of seconds you set; 0, the default, cuts. The next clip starts that long before the current one ends, so a playlist runs a little shorter for each crossfade, and a crossfade never takes more than half of a short clip. While the playlist plays, Next, Previous and picking a clip in the Media panel crossfade too, from wherever the clip on air has got to; held or paused, they cut. With Auto next off, a clip that ends still stops on its last frame. A file with no picture, such as a music track, fades through black, and files of different sample rates or channel counts crossfade cleanly.

Each file in the list can be reordered or removed, and one that has gone missing shows a warning and is skipped during playback rather than stopping the rest. The Media panel does the same from beside Preview and Program, with pictures of each file, and without restarting the input.

Loudness

Every file in a Media playlist is measured once, to the EBU R128 standard, and played back at a fixed gain from then on, so there is no more riding a fader by hand to keep media at the same level as everything else. Measurements are cached beside your Show; delete the cache folder to have everything measured again.

The Media panel, to pick and arrange items while you work, or Composite inputs, to combine an image or media source with something else.