The Broadcast Console
Cameras, scenes, transitions and audio mixing — RheoCast's live production console, free on every plan.
The Broadcast tab is a live production console built for a church service: cameras, scenes, overlays, audio, recording and streaming in one place.
It is free on every plan, including Free. Nothing in this page requires a subscription.
The layout
| Area | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Left | Sources (everything available to put on screen) and Overlays (layers that sit above the scene) |
| Centre | Preview and Program monitors, with the Scene switcher underneath |
| Right | Controls — go live, record, audio mixer, and live statistics |
Preview is what you are lining up. Program is what your congregation and your stream are seeing. Nothing reaches Program until you press Take.
Sources
A source is anything you can put on screen. Add one with + Add Source.
| Source | Use it for |
|---|---|
| Camera | A webcam or USB camera |
| Screen / Window | A connected display, or a single application window |
| NDI Input | A camera or feed arriving over your network |
| Phone Camera | An extra angle from a phone running the RheoCast Camera app |
| Image / Media | A photo, graphic, or video file |
| Text / Label | On-screen text with size and colour |
| Colour Fill | A solid background |
| Audio Input | A microphone or line input — becomes a channel in the mixer |
| Countdown | A timer to the start of service |
| Image Slideshow | Photos from a folder |
| PDF Deck | Pages from a PDF |
| PowerPoint | Slides from a .pptx file |
| Scripture (Live) | A verse panel that mirrors what Present is displaying |
| Scripture Lower Third | The current verse as a band across the bottom of frame |
| Lyrics (Live) | Song lyrics projected from Present › Songs |
| Live Note | A sentence sent across from Present › Notes |
Right-click a source for show/hide, lock, duplicate, remove, and — for video — play, pause and restart.
Source properties
Open Properties on any source for per-type controls. Cameras get resolution, rotation and exposure compensation. Phone cameras get pairing and address.
Camera and video sources also support chroma key (green screen): pick the key colour — there are Green and Blue presets — then adjust similarity, smoothness and spill suppression. This runs on the GPU, so it costs very little.
Tip: Lock a source once you have it framed. A locked source cannot be dragged out of position by accident mid-service.
Scenes
A scene is an arrangement of sources — "Worship", "Preaching", "Announcements".
Create one with + Scene, then double-click it to open the scene editor. Drag layers around the stage and resize them with the handles. You can:
- Reorder layers (bring forward / send backward)
- Set per-layer opacity and fit mode (cover, contain or stretch)
- Use Fit content to frame to snap a layer to fill the canvas
- Show or hide individual layers
- Set a background colour
Each scene can be bound to a number key, 1 through 9. Pressing the number puts that scene in Preview.
In the scene switcher, a red border means that scene is on Program; blue means Preview. Click to preview, double-click to take it straight to air.
Transitions
Choose how Preview replaces Program:
| Transition | Behaviour |
|---|---|
| Cut | Instant |
| Fade | Cross-dissolve |
| Slide | New scene pushes the old one out |
| Zoom | Scales between the two |
| Stinger | Plays a video over the change — a branded wipe |
The duration slider covers 100–2000 ms with presets. Cut ignores it, and a stinger runs for the length of its video.
A stinger needs a video file with a transparent background — HEVC with alpha, in a .mov or .mp4. Set it under stinger settings.
Audio
The mixer sits in the Controls column with meters for Master, Mic, and one channel per audio source. Each channel has a mute button, and per-source gain lives in that source's properties.
Auto-ducking is the setting most churches want on. With it enabled, the moment someone speaks into the mic the music or video bed drops automatically, and comes back up when they stop.
Preview tools
- Safe area guides on the Preview monitor show the action-safe and title-safe regions, so lower thirds do not get cropped on a TV.
- Slide and deck sources get transport controls under the monitor: previous/next, auto-advance, zoom, and panning around a zoomed page.
- Video sources get play, pause, restart and a scrub bar.
- Countdowns get start, pause and reset.
Output to a second screen
Output opens a fullscreen window showing Program. Drag it to a projector or TV and it becomes your house feed — the same picture your stream is getting.
The web remote
Turn on the web remote in Controls and RheoCast shows a URL. Open it on a phone on the same Wi-Fi and you can switch scenes, take, and start or stop recording from anywhere in the building.
Note: the remote is on your local network only. It is not reachable from the internet.
Present and Broadcast together
Two switches connect the tabs:
- Transcript Overlay puts live captions from Present onto Program.
- Live Feed lists the verses recently shown in Present — click one to put it back on any Scripture source.
Add a Scripture (Live) or Scripture Lower Third source to a scene and whatever Present displays appears there automatically. You do not need to do anything in Broadcast during the sermon.
Next
- Streaming & Recording — going live and capturing the service
- Overlays — lower thirds, countdowns, announcements