Interactive video router control

In addition to defining routing presets (see Manage configurations for an external video router for more information) Livegrade has a dedicated view for directly controlling a video router and monitor routings visually.

The video router view displays all inputs and outputs of a connected video switcher, and lets you interactively change routings.

You can open the video router panel with a dedicated button in the toolbar, or via the application menu “Video Router…”.

Interactive video routing panel

Connecting to a video router#

Choose an auto-detected router in the “Router” popup button, or choose the router model family you have (AJA Kumo or Blackmagic Design Smart VideoHub), enter the IP address or hostname of your router and click the connection button besides the field for the IP address. You can disconnect the video router anytime by clicking the connection button again.

Managing connections#

The Video Router view displays all connections between input ports and output ports currently active in the connected video router.

Usually, an input port can be connected to multiple output ports, but an output port can only be connected to one input port. Connections between ports are displayed as colored lines.

Input ports are displayed on the top of the view (on the left in vertical layout), output ports are displayed on the bottom of the view (on the right in vertical layout). The ports display the port number in the router (the circled number) and one or two rows of the name of the port.

Port names can be configured in your video router’s administration interface. Please refer to your router manual to learn how to do that.

When connections change (either from within the application or from outside, e.g., by using a hardware control panel or the web UI), they flash in white to indicate the change.

Changing connections via selecting ports#

You can select a port by clicking on it. The port and it’s current connections get highlighted. You then can click on one of the ports of the other port type to change a connection:

For example, when an input port is selected first and an output port is selected second, the output port changes its connection to the selected input port. You can achieve the same effect by selecting an output port first and the input port second.

Changing video routing connections by clicking on ports

You can select ports also from the utility menu in the wedge button in the header bar of the Video Routing view, or from the main menu by choosing one of the entries in the “Interactive Video Routing” submenu of the “Video Routing” menu in the application menu.

You can also right-click on each port button to inspect and change the connected port(s).

Changing connections via drag-and-drop#

Each port has a small colored circle besides it. You can drag a line from this circle to the port that you want to make connection with.

Video routing configurations#

You can set up video routing configurations as shortcuts to change one or more connections. See Manage configurations for an external video router for more information.

Configured video routing configurations appear as menu items in the wedge button in the header bar of the Video Routing panel.

You can also use the current state of the video router with all its connections as a starting point for a new configuration. Choose “Save Current Connections…” in the menu of the wedge button in the header bar of the Video Routing view.

Configuring the video routing interaction#

You can view connections either in horizontal layout or vertical layout. Choose “View in Vertical Layout” or “View in Horizontal Layout” menu items in the wedge button in the header bar of the Video Routing view to change the layout.