Create a Sequence and Add Content

Last updated 6 August 2026

A sequence is a timeline. It holds channels, each channel holds media placed along that timeline, and a video channel renders to a screen you built in the scene. This is the step where a project stops being a model of a room and starts being a show.

The quickest route: drag an asset from the Assets window straight onto a surface or display in the Scene View. A Create Sequencers? dialog appears, and confirming it builds the sequence, the channel and the first event in one action. Use the steps below when you want to build it deliberately, or add more channels.

Before you start

  • A display or surface exists in the scene for the content to land on
  • At least one asset is imported into the project

Steps

1. Create the sequence

Open the Sequencer window. Sequences are created and selected in the list on the left; selecting one shows its properties on the right.

Name it for what it plays. The name is how everything else refers to it — the Stepper, the Broadcast Scheduler, show logic, and every remote-control route.

2. Add a video channel

Click the + icon in the centre area on the left to add a channel. Right-click a channel to delete it; click its name or header to select it and show its properties on the right.

Channel order is layer order. A new channel is appended at the bottom of the list, and channels render in list order — so the one at the bottom is the topmost layer.

3. Point the channel at a screen

With the channel selected, find Surface Assignments in its properties. Tick the surface or display you want it to render to, and select which of that surface's mappings to render through.

This is the join between the scene and the show: the scene decides what shape the screen is and how content lands on it, and the channel decides which of those mappings to use. A surface with only its default mapping needs no thought here — pick it and move on.

4. Place content on the timeline

Two ways to put an asset in a channel:

  • Drag it from the Assets window into the channel.

  • Double-click in the channel where you want it, and pick from the asset selection dialog.

A placed asset is an event. Select it to edit its Start, End and Loop on the right, or right-click it to remove it or set it looping. A looping event runs until another event on the same channel interrupts it.

5. Play it

Press Space. The transport follows the JKL shuttle convention — J back, L forward, tapping again to ramp through 1×, 2×, 4×, 8×, and K to pause and return to normal speed.

Done when: the locator runs and the content appears on its surface in the Scene View — and on the physical screen, if the display or projector is routed to an output.

What a sequence is for

One sequence is one sync group. Every channel inside it plays in perfect sync, which is exactly what you want for a video and its audio, or for several screens showing one composed image.

It is also the limit. Sources that cannot stay in sync — free-running capture inputs, live streams arriving on their own clock — must go in separate sequences, or the whole group is held back trying to align things that never will.

Audio works the same way: an audio channel is added to the same sequence and assigned to an audio output or a matrix mixer instead of a surface.

Assets with no natural length

A video knows how long it is. A still image, a test image or a live stream does not — so Backstage gives those a default duration when you place them, and you set the real length by dragging the event's edge, editing End, or setting it to loop.

Common Mistakes

  • The content does not appear anywhere — the channel has no Surface Assignment ticked. A channel with content but no destination plays silently into nothing.

  • Sources drift apart — they are in one sequence, which holds everything in sync. Put free-running capture inputs in their own sequence.

  • Stopping loses the position — Stop returns the locator to 0 by design. Use pause, or K, to hold it where it is.

  • A speed change disappears after reload — Tempo* is marked temporary and deliberately not saved. Set the speed on the channel or the event to make it permanent.

  • The wrong sequence renders on top — when two share a Layer, the order comes from which started most recently, not from the list. Give them distinct layers when it matters.

  • A still image vanishes immediately — it was placed with its default duration. Extend the event or set it to loop.

Next

A sequence plays one running order. To chain several — in order, with transitions, advanced by cue or automatically — build a stepper:

Orchestrate Multiple Sequences with Stepper

Sequencer — the Sequencer window in full: layers, blend modes, keying, autostart, the transport keys

Video Channel — video channels, surface assignments and frame blending

Audio Channel — audio channels and their mixers

Remote Control: Sequencers — driving a sequence from outside Backstage