Then I hit “play” (via a StreamDeck button / AppleScript). The end result is that nobody sees me moving my mouse around to control QuickTime Player or Zoom and I can rapidly play a video.įor the show, I launched the video (via a StreamDeck button / AppleScript), immediately paused it (via a StreamDeck button / AppleScript), used the Stream Deck “Share” button for Zoom to open the screen sharing window, picked the QuickTime Player window, checked “Optimize for full-screen video clip” and “Share computer sound”, and then the “Share Screen” button. You can also open a document in Preview in fullscreen: set unixpath to '/Users/ssimon/Desktop/roman.jpg' I also wanted to close a video (QuickTime Player will open additional videos in tabs when in fullscreen): tell application 'QuickTime Player' I also wanted to be able to pause the video: tell application 'QuickTime Player'Īnd to play: tell application 'QuickTime Player' Here is a little AppleScript to open and play fullscreen a Quicktime video (based on ): set unixpath to '/Users/ssimon/Desktop/PA Night Long.mp4' Using AppleScript can really minimize this, especially when triggering it from the StreamDeck.

One of the challenges of using QuickTime to play videos in front of an audience (Zoom or in-person) is that they can see you futzing around opening the video and going full-screen. The bottom right is a clock that shows the time (including seconds).Īll of the other buttons are AppleScripts to control QuickTime Player and Preview. I added a shortcut to the “Share” button and “Record” (again, making use of Keyboard Maestro). The two columns of buttons on the right are mostly to control Zoom (except the bottom two).

The video quality seemed to be a bit better when sharing my screen rather than using a virtual webcam, and video quality was really important for this production. Here is another picture of the StreamDeck from another production:įor this production I didn’t use the virtual webcam and instead played videos in QuickTime. What is nice is that I can control Wirecast while it is in the background and I’m managing Zoom. The black buttons are for when we went live and I muted the virtual webcam so that the active speaker became the live speaker. They are based on the work of LostDomain and make use of Keyboard Maestro, and it’s plug-in for StreamDeck. On the bottom right are five buttons that control Zoom (focus/ turn on/off webcam, turn on/off mic, show participants window, show chat window). A green dot on another clip shows that it is “next.” I really like the Wirecast plugin for Stream Deck since it gives feedback on what is playing (the red/green dots).

The little red dot on the top left clip shows that it is live. Most of the blue buttons are clips in Wirecast and the bottom left button is the “play” button for Wirecast. Here is what it looks like from a recent production: There is a rich ecosystem of plugins for Strem Deck that make it work with other tools. Each button acts as a little screen that can be customized. It’s a USB hardware device with a bunch of buttons. Fortunately, I found the Elgato StreamDeck to help. Normally, I’d like to have someone helping me, but that’s much harder when everyone is remote. In a previous post, I mentioned that I used Wirecast to do live video production of events I broadcast using Zoom.

Keyboard maestro stream deck