Get a Video on Screen fast
The shortest path there is: a video file on your laptop, playing on a screen attached to a server, in about two minutes. No project to prepare, nothing measured, no scene built in advance.
It works because you never touch the server directly — the Hub connects you and streams Backstage's interface to your laptop, and dragging a file into that streamed window uploads it to the server for you.
Watch it happen.Video: Get a Video on Screen fast
Before you start
- A running video server on your network
- Credentials for it — the account your project's Brainsalt administrator gave you
- A video file on your local drive
- At least one screen connected to the server
1. Open the Hub and connect
Launch the Brainsalt Hub from your desktop and sign in with your server credentials.
Select your video server and connect.
What you are now looking at is Backstage, streamed. The window is the Hub; the interface inside it belongs to the server. Everything from here happens on the server even though you are working on your laptop — which is what makes the next step work.
2. Drag the video in
Open the folder holding your video and put it beside the Backstage window.
Drag the file out of the folder and drop it into empty space in the Scene View. Backstage uploads it to the server — the transfer runs to completion before anything else happens.
An Asset properties warning appears if the file is compressed, flagging it as suitable for testing rather than production playback. Click OK.
3. Create something to play it on
Choose Display, then Flat, and press Create.
You do not enter a size. In this workflow the display takes its shape from the aspect ratio of the video you just dropped — which is the whole reason it can be this quick. The numbers only matter when the screen is real and you are matching it; here you are matching the content.
A Create Sequencers? prompt follows. Confirm it — the sequencer is what actually drives playback.
4. Route it to an output
Open Video Routing. Displays run down one side, outputs along the other.
Tick the box where your display's row meets the GPU output you want. Hovering highlights the output, so you can confirm you have the right one before committing.
5. Play it
Press Play in the Sequencer.
Done when: the video is on the physical screen attached to the server.
6. A second video — drop it on the display
For the next video, drop it onto the existing display rather than into empty space.
Backstage skips the surface step entirely and goes straight to Create Sequencers?. Confirm it, and the second video is routed and playing without touching Video Routing again.
Where you drop decides what happens. This is the one thing to take away:
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Empty space → Backstage makes a new surface for the file. Right the first time, wrong every time after.
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Onto an existing display → the file joins that display, and you keep the routing you already did.
You route a display once. Everything you add to it afterwards follows the same path out.
Common Mistakes
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A pile of surfaces appears after adding a few videos — each was dropped into empty space, so each made its own. Drop onto the display you already have.
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Nothing reaches the screen — check Video Routing first. The scene can look completely correct while the matrix is empty; it is the single most common cause.
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The compressed-media warning worries you — it is telling you the file is fine for testing but not what you would ship a show on. For production, convert it first.
Where to go from here
This is the fast path, and it takes shortcuts a real installation would not. When the screen is a physical thing you have to match, or there is more than one, the build starts properly:
Create a Display — sizing a display to a real screen, and what the aspect ratio decides
Create a Sequence and Add Content — channels, events and mappings, rather than one prompt
Content — importing media properly, and converting it for production playback
Your First Project — the same journey worked through at the server rather than over the Hub