Run Airlive Bridge from a Stream Deck.

What the plugin is

The Airlive plugin turns a Stream Deck into the front panel of the switcher. It is a client of Airlive Bridge on the same Mac: it talks to Bridge over a local connection and never to the phones, so nothing about your cameras changes and nothing new goes on the network.

That means the keys show you what Bridge knows. A camera key is red while that camera is on air and green while it is staged, which is the same tally the phone's own screen is showing its operator.

Before the first key press

1. Install the Airlive plugin from the Stream Deck app.
2. Open Bridge. In Settings → Shortcuts, check that Allow Stream Deck control is on — it is on by default.
3. Drag the actions you want onto keys. They connect on their own; a key that cannot reach Bridge simply stays dark until it can.

The five actions

Each one does a single job, and each one shows its state on the key, so the deck is also a readout of the show.

1. Camera — a camera's position in the multiview, its name, and its tally: red on air, green in preview, grey connected, dark when there is no signal. A press stages it in Preview, or cuts it straight to Program — you choose which when you set up the key.
2. Cut — Preview to Program. The same thing Space does in Bridge.
3. Auto — turns Auto Cut on and off, and counts down to the next cut while it runs. It says NEEDS 2 CAMS when there are not enough cameras with a picture for a rotation.
4. Lens — switches the camera in Preview to the lens at that position, 1 being the widest. The key shows that camera's own lens label, so a phone with three lenses and a phone with four each read correctly.
5. Camera Setting — a dial on Stream Deck +. ISO, shutter, exposure compensation, white balance, tint, focus or digital zoom, on the camera in Preview.

What the dials do

The dials drive the camera in Preview — the one you are about to take, which is the only one worth changing mid-show. The touch strip above each dial shows the setting, the camera it belongs to, the value, and a bar for where that value sits in the camera's range. It goes amber while the setting is still on automatic.

1. Turn — one stop per click, on the same ladder the camera panel in Bridge uses.
2. Turn while pressed — ten stops at a time, for crossing a range quickly.
3. Push — hands the setting back to automatic. On zoom that means 1×, on exposure compensation it means 0.

Photo · 16:9 · 2560×1440

A Stream Deck + XL running the Airlive layout: camera keys with tally, CUT, AUTO mid-countdown, dials on ISO and white balance.

A layout that works

Put the cameras on the top row, in the order they sit in the multiview, so the deck mirrors the screen. CUT goes under them, where your thumb lands. Auto goes next to CUT — the two belong together, because pressing CUT is also how you take the show back from Auto.

Lens keys are worth having only if your operators hand you framing: three keys, widest to longest, acting on whatever is staged. If you have a Stream Deck +, the dials earn their place on ISO and white balance, which are the two things that actually drift during a service.

What it does not do

1. No live video on the keys. They carry name, number, tally and value — not a picture.
2. No phone battery. The phones do not report it, so nothing can show it.
3. Mac only, because Bridge is a Mac application.

If a key does nothing

1. Keys are dark. Bridge is not running, or Allow Stream Deck control is off in Settings → Shortcuts. The plugin keeps trying, so starting Bridge is enough — there is nothing to reconnect by hand.
2. A press shows the Stream Deck's alert. Bridge refused it: Auto with fewer than two cameras sending a picture, or a camera key pointing at an empty tile.
3. A camera key says NO VIDEO. That phone is connected for control only — it is there, it just is not sending a picture yet.