Shows

A show is one complete setup of the Studio, kept in one file with the extension .vsshow. You make one show per kind of event and switch between them. Live Producer Studio has one show open at a time, and every show is made, opened and closed in the Show Manager.

What a show keeps

• The sources, as references: file paths, device IDs and addresses, with each source’s delay, gain and mute.
• The layers with their names and colours, and every shot with its elements.
• The transition: what Take does, how it looks and its duration.
• The audio: the buses, what is sent to them and the output devices they play to.
• The output settings: recording, streaming, captions and the multiview, the panes under This Show in Settings.
• The windows that were open when you saved, and where: the switcher, Audio Routing, the Preview window and the Program window, a full-screen Program window with its display. Opening the show puts them back.

Inside, a show file is JSON, so it compares and versions well.

What a show never keeps

• What is live. Opening a show always starts with a clear program, so nothing goes on air by surprise. Before you close, replace or quit a show that is live, the Studio asks first; see Closing a live show.
• Fade to Black. A show opens with the program up.
• This Mac’s preferences: the appearance, the layer heights, the transition presets and the other panes under This Mac in Settings.

Saving and autosave

The window’s title is the show’s name, with Edited beside it while the show differs from its file. File › Save (⌘S) writes it. Besides that, the Studio autosaves the working state all the time: quitting loses nothing, and the Studio reopens the same show as you left it. Moving a window does not make a show edited; window positions join the file when you save.

File › Revert to Saved goes back to the file, after asking.

Closing a show

File › Close Show (⇧⌘W), or closing the main window, closes the show: the Studio offers to save unsaved changes, the show’s other windows close, and the Show Manager comes back to open or make the next one. Opening or making another show closes the open one the same way.

Closing a live show

A show is live while something is on the program, the program recording or the cameras’ recordings run, or a stream is on air. Live Producer Camera does not count: it sends whenever it is on.

Before you close a live show, open or make another, or quit, the Studio asks first, with the show’s name: Close “Weekly Update” while it is live?, or Open, New Show or Quit in place of Close. It says what is live and what will stop. Cancel is the default button, so Return never closes a show on air; click Close (or Open, New Show, Quit) to go on. The question about unsaved changes follows, when there are any.

Once you go on, the streams stop and the recordings finish their files before the show closes, another replaces it, or the Studio quits. A recording never goes on into a closed show’s folder.

When the Studio starts

The Studio starts on the last show as you left it. If you would rather choose, set At Launch to Open the Show Manager in Settings › This Mac › Show Folders: the Studio then starts on the Show Manager, the list of every show on this Mac and of your web shows. In both cases, closing the main window closes the show and brings the Show Manager back instead of quitting. A show opens the same way with or without a network.

Files and missing things

A show stores files as references, not copies. A show made with File › New Show… lives in a show folder, and files inside that folder are stored relative to it. So you can move the whole folder, or copy it to another Mac, and the show still finds its files.

If a file moved or a device is missing, the show still opens. That source shows a slate and the Warnings key in the toolbar counts it, with a way to fix it. A camera, audio input or window that is not there links itself again when it comes back; see Stand-ins.

Read more

• Create a show
• Open a show
• Show Manager
• Undo and redo
• Show folders
• File formats