What is Backstage?
Backstage is a professional real-time media server by Brainsalt, built for permanent installations — multi-projector AV, dome theatres, LED walls, visitor attractions and experience venues, where a show runs day after day and is expected to come back up on its own. It runs on Brainsalt B-Series hardware and handles uncompressed video playback, projection mapping, show control, and external device integration — all from a single application.
Backstage is the second half of the job. The server it runs on is set up first from the Use the Brainsalt Hub Desktop App — network, users, displays and health.
How it is put together
Backstage separates where content appears from what the content is and what decides when it plays. Those three layers are the whole model, and understanding them explains most of the product's behaviour — How Backstage Thinks sets them out.
What Backstage is Not
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It is not a video editor. Use your NLE to prepare content before importing.
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It is not a DMX, light, or motion controller. That is what Conductor is for — Brainsalt's dedicated DMX, light, and motion control software. Backstage and Conductor are designed to work together and synchronise bidirectionally.
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It is not how you configure the server. Networking, users, GPU and display setup, power and hardware health belong to Brainsalt Hub - Set Up and Manage the Server.
Next Step
Your First Project — put these concepts into practice with a step-by-step walkthrough