AVID Media Composer Panel

Overview

Streamwell for AVID Media Composer is a panel plugin that runs inside of Media Composer and gives you a streamlined interface to broadcast to any available live channel. It leverages the built-in SRT streaming in Media Composer and makes it easier to manage connections / prevent overlap of sessions compared to manually entering the SRT details each time you want to stream.

Getting Started

Streamwell for AVID Media Composer works with MC Ultimate or Enterprise editions, version 2024.2 and later. If you are running a prior version (back to 2022.10) you can still use SRT streaming by following this guide.

The plugin can be installed by running the macOS/Windows installers below, or if you are on a system that can't run unsigned installers (they'll be signed soon!), you can manually install the .AVPI plugin by moving it to the appropriate directory on your system:

Windows - %ProgramData%\Avid\PanelSDKPlugins macOS - /Library/Application Support/Avid/PanelSDKPlugins

Download AVPI Plugin Download macOS Installer Download Windows Installer

Using the Panel

Once installed, launch Media Composer and Streamwell will appear in the 'Tools' menu. The first time you open the plugin, enter the address of the Streamwell server you want to connect to. Once logged in, you will see a list of the channels available to you:

Click to connect to the channel of your choosing, and make sure you enable SRT video output in Media Composer to start your stream.

And you're live! Viewers on your channel will see a near-realtime playout from whichever viewer is active in Media Composer.

Remote viewers can see a live readout of your current timecode - this gives them a reliable reference point they can use in their own notes or comments.

Logged in remote viewers can make comments using the chat panel, and they will automatically drop onto the current viewer or a track of your choosing!

The menu at the top of the Streamwell interface allows you to customize how your AVID panel functions:

• Show Timecode - toggles display of your current timecode to remote viewers

• Comment Markers - toggles whether or not chat messages are imported as markers

• Marker Track - specify any existing track (TC1, V2, A5, etc...) and incoming markers will go there

• Marker Color - express yourself! 🌈

• Show marker time of day - adds a datetime stamp to the marker comment (helpful if many people are commenting on the same point in the timeline)

• Stream Quality - by default, this should be set to Good to maximize compatibility with remote viewers. However you can raise it to Better for ultra-high quality remote sessions, or Best when streaming within your facility, for example to a playout device in a client suite.

• SRT Passphrase - If SRT Encryption is enabled on your server, enter the passphrase here. If you use a passphrase but SRT encryption is not enabled, the stream may fail to connect.

• Stream Buffer - how much of a delay do we introduce to account for the stream reaching the server? If you are on a locally hosted server, this value could be set as low as 10 or 20ms. If you are geographically far away from your server (e.g. coast to coast) you could increase it to 500 or 1000ms to ensure smooth streaming.

• Thumbnail Preview Only - On versions of Media Composer that support using the live player in the Streamwell Panel, use this option to force a thumbnail preview instead that uses less bandwidth and system resources.

• Reset Public Link on Disconnect - When disconnecting AVID Media Composer with this option enabled, the public web link will be automatically reset. This option can also be set at the administrator level (Preferences -> Reset Public Link on AVID Disconnect) to force this behaviour for all users.