NDI, Blackmagic and the external display
NDI
Press NDI to send Program out as its own NDI source, carrying the Master mix, so a receiver taking it hears your show. There is nothing to set up: its resolution, frame rate and name all come from your Show, so it is always correct. Master and each of your buses can also be sent as their own NDI source, carrying sound and no picture, useful for a monitor mix or a translator feed that needs the audio alone.
Tick Multiview in the NDI settings to send your multiview as a source of its own too, named after your Show like the others: the same layout a display set to Multiview shows, with names and tally borders, at your Show’s resolution and frame rate, and no sound. It is a way to put the whole show in front of someone in another room, or on a monitor fed by another machine, without a cable from this Mac.
What is sent is set when NDI starts: ticking or unticking a source while it runs takes effect the next time you start it, so nobody already taking a source loses it. Preview is not sent over NDI.
Blackmagic
If you have a Blackmagic device that can play video out, open its output settings to choose which connector carries Program, with Carry the Master mix to embed the sound. Blackmagic Desktop Video has to be installed for this to appear at all.
The device has to offer your Show’s resolution and frame rate, progressive. InterDirector never converts Program to fit a device: if the device does not offer the format, output does not start and says which format it could not send.
The external display
External Output sends a clean, full-screen copy of Program to other displays. In its setup, each connected display has its own line: Off, Program or Preview, and its scaling: Fit (the whole picture, letterboxed if it does not match), Fill (cropped to the display) or Pixel Accurate (centred, one screen pixel per canvas pixel). Program can go to as many displays as you have. Until you choose, Program goes to the first display InterDirector is not on.
A display set to Preview shows what your Preview monitor shows (the source you have lined up next, framed and colour-corrected as it will go out), full screen, with PREVIEW and the source’s name in a corner so nobody takes it for Program. It is handy on a big screen beside the desk. Preview displays start and stop with the External button, together with the Program ones. A hotkey or Stream Deck button can start and stop them too.
A display set to Multiview shows your Show’s multiview: Program, Preview and any of your sources at once, each in its own window with its name along the bottom and a red border while it is on Program, green while it is in Preview. Until you make a layout, it shows Preview and Program above your first eight sources. To make your own, choose Tools ▸ Multiview Layout… or Edit Multiview Layout… in the External setup:
- Add Window puts a new window in the first free space. Drag a window to move it and its corner to resize it; windows snap into line with each other and never overlap. The size buttons make the selected window 1/2 to 1/6 of the picture’s width.
- Choose what the selected window shows: Program, Preview, any source with a picture, or nothing.
- Layout presets keep a layout, without what its windows show, on this Mac for every Show. A few come built in. Loading one keeps what your windows showed, in reading order.
The layout is saved with the Show, and a multiview display changes as you edit it. Multiview displays start and stop with the External button, like the others, and cost nothing while none is showing.
The mouse pointer shows on a multiview display, and hides itself after a few seconds without moving. Clicking a source, at the top of the layout window, chooses what a click on a source’s window does there: Do nothing, Put in Preview, Cut to Program, Fade 1 or Fade 2 to Program, or Dip to Program. While a click does something, the window under the pointer is outlined, so you see which source you are about to take. Program and Preview windows, and the multiview over NDI, take no clicks. A new Show starts at Do nothing.
If a display disconnects, only that display stops; InterDirector never moves Program to another display in its place, so it cannot end up covering the screen you are working on. A display you chose that is plugged back in while the output is on shows what it showed again, even when it comes back by another port or after InterDirector started: each display is known by its own identity, not by where it is plugged in.
A display you chose stays in the setup while it is not connected, marked Not connected, so its choice is kept for the next time. Its trash button forgets it, so displays from past venues do not pile up there.
Back on after a restart
Whether NDI and External (the displays and Blackmagic output together) are on is saved with your Show. Open a Show that was saved with either on, and it starts again by itself, as if you had pressed it. That includes the Last Show after a crash or a restart, so a second Mac taking your Program gets it back without anyone pressing a button. Streaming and recording are never started by themselves: press them yourself.
In a video call
InterDirector has its own camera and microphone for Google Meet, Zoom and Teams: see In a video call.
Next
Recording Program and recording your inputs, if you have not already.