V:I:I:Y

Lessons

Learn VIIY in the time it takes to make coffee

Every lesson is a real screen recording of the media server — no slides, no narration to sit through. Watch once, do it yourself once, and the step is yours.

The course · 60 places, simple first

01From a file to the screen — every way inwatch · 64 s 02Outputs and screens · 1 — outputs, canvas, sliceswatch · 115 s 03Outputs and screens · 2 — clips into their zones, colour correctionwatch · 116 s 04The timeline · 1 — trim the edges, use the razorwatch · 85 s 05The timeline · 2 — make room, drop another clip inwatch · 56 s 06Transform and the CONTROLS tabwatch · 116 s 07Keyframes — and why they belong to the CLIPwatch · 93 s 08Layers · 1 — the stack, eye, solo, lockwatch · 83 s 09Layers · 2 — blend, adjustment layer, layer audiowatch · 85 s

10Live inputs · 1 — a camera and a capture card

11Live inputs · 2 — NDI, Spout, and the Refresh button

12Matrix — a source onto one screen

13Effects · 1 — the ones that read the picture

14Effects · 2 — edge detect and ISF

15Video on LED fixtures — two walls, one showwatch · 100 s

16Ask for an effect — the assistant writes the shader

17Projection · 1 — warp and corner pin

18Projection · 2 — slice masks and edge blend

19Timecode · 1 — the show's own clock

20Timecode · 2 — external LTC and MTC

21MIDI and DMX — VIIY on a desk

22Sound · 1 — layer audio and lip-sync

23Sound · 2 — parameters that follow the music

24The backup machine

25Render nodes — when one server is not enough

26Show mode and preflight

27ACTION — the screen your crew reads

28The assistant builds the showwatch · 3 min

29Saving and collect files

30Conversion — and why HAPwatch · 23 s

31The cue list — numbers and order

32Transitions and what happens at the end of a cue

33Project and bins — a whole folder in

34Presets — set it once, reuse it all show

35Recovery — undo, restore points, after a crash

36Sharing out — NDI and Spout to another app

37Test card — checking screens before the doors open

38Projector calibration — the camera does the aligning

39Freeze, blackout and the other panic buttons

40Tempo — what the engine tells you

41Art-Net and sACN in — a desk triggers VIIY

42OSC — control from anything

43MIDI Show Control

44Importing a foreign patch (MVR)

45Fixture profiles — making your own

46What the assistant can actually do

47Bake — a cue rendered to a file

48Several clips on one layer

49Colour depth and Auto 10-bit

50Two machines, one show — the whole chain

51Crew events from the editor's marker list — import and show themwatch · 101 s

52Vacant — tell us what you need

53Vacant — tell us what you need

54Vacant — tell us what you need

55Vacant — tell us what you need

56Vacant — tell us what you need

57Vacant — tell us what you need

58Vacant — tell us what you need

59Vacant — tell us what you need

60Vacant — tell us what you need

Lesson 01 · 64 seconds

From a file to the screen — every way in

01Drag the file into the bin. Straight from Explorer — a folder or a numbered image sequence works the same way.
02Right-click → “Create cue from each file”. One cue per file, with the name and the length taken from the file itself. Select forty files and you have a running order in one move.
03Or drop straight on the timeline. The file lands where you release it and joins the bin in the same gesture — no separate import step.
04Empty space makes a new layer. Drop where a layer already has video and VIIY adds a layer above it; drop on an empty layer and it fills that one.
05SAVE ALL — the red button. This is the step people miss: the editor is your workbench, and PROGRAM plays the SAVED cue. Until you save, the air does not know about your edit. It is red on purpose.
06GO. The cue is on air — on the program output and on every screen assigned to it.

Lesson 15 · 100 seconds

Video on LED fixtures — two walls, one show

01Starter library. The common fixture types — RGB pixel, RGB bar, tile, tape, single dimmer — in one click. A profile is the type: cell grid, channel order, bit depth, gamma and the sampling filter.
02Two outputs, two walls. Each wall is an output of type PIXELMAPPING, so each can be fed to its own controller. A universe belongs to exactly one output — VIIY refuses an overlap by name.
03Generate a grid. Count, spacing, start corner and Snake — the way LED strings are really wired. Universes and channels are handed out for you, and a fixture never straddles a universe: if it does not fit in what is left, it moves to the next one whole.
04Second wall, second universe. The generator asks which wall the grid lands on, so two walls take two minutes instead of editing every fixture by hand.
05The canvas is your wall, not 1920×1080. It is exactly as large as your layout (here 16×8), and it follows it: add fixtures and the output grows by itself. You never type the size.
06Open the outputs. A closed output shows a preview but transmits nothing — PREFLIGHT says so out loud before the show, not during it.
07GO. The cue on air lights both walls: the same composition, cropped onto each layout, every cell taking the colour of the pixel it sits on.
08Send Art-Net. Off by default on purpose — creating an output must never start flooding somebody else's lighting network. Stopping writes one zero frame, so the walls go dark instead of freezing on the last video frame.

Lesson 28 · 3 minutes

The assistant builds the show

A stage plan in, a running show out

Watch · 3 min

01Three documents go in. A stage plan PDF, a timecode sheet and a folder of media — the same three things you were given by the production.
02The AI reads them. Screens out of the plan, running order out of the sheet, clips out of the folder — it is not an import dialog, it is reading.
03Canvas and outputs first. It states the layout it intends in one line before building it, so you can stop it there and not after.
04The cue list, then the media. Cues are created empty with their timecodes, then each is filled with the file whose name matches the song.
05Every destructive step asks. Overwriting a cue, changing the canvas, saving the project — the operator sees an Allow/Deny banner, and the whole run is one decision, not forty.
06You still own the show. Everything it made is an ordinary cue list you can edit by hand — nothing here is a black box you cannot open.

Lesson 02 · 115 seconds

Outputs and screens · 1 — outputs, canvas, slices

Teach the server what your screens are

Watch · 115 s

01An output is one physical destination. A monitor, a projector, an SDI card, an LED processor — each gets its own output.
02The canvas is the one picture. Every screen is cut out of it, which is why a clip can span three walls and still look like one image.
03Slices decide who gets what. A slice is the piece of canvas that lands on a given screen.
04A closed output transmits nothing. It still shows a preview — PREFLIGHT says this out loud before the show, not during it.

Lesson 03 · 116 seconds

Outputs and screens · 2 — clips into their zones, colour correction

Three panels of different make, one wall

Watch · 116 s

01A clip into the zone of one screen. Place it where it belongs on the canvas and only that screen shows it.
02Or one clip across several screens. The same picture, cut by the slices, arriving in pieces that line up.
03Colour correction lives on the output. Not on the media — so a panel that runs warm is fixed once, for every clip you will ever put on it.
04It stays with the screen. The correction belongs to the installation, and survives from show to show.

Lesson 04 · 85 seconds

The timeline · 1 — trim the edges, use the razor

Trim the edges, cut with the razor

Watch · 85 s

01Trim from either edge. Grab the left or right edge of a clip and drag — the clip gets shorter or longer, and nothing else on the row moves.
02The razor cuts at the playhead. Not where you click — where the playhead stands. One clip becomes two, and both keep their parameters.
03Shift cuts every layer at once. The whole composition is split on the same frame, which is what you want when a song changes.
04The fade handle is inset on purpose. It sits past the trim zone, so grabbing the edge always trims and never starts a fade by accident.

Lesson 05 · 56 seconds

The timeline · 2 — make room, drop another clip in

The running order changed at the last minute

Watch · 56 s

01Open a gap. The clips that follow move together, keeping their spacing — you are not dragging each one by hand.
02Drop the new clip in. It lands in the room you made, not on top of what was there.
03Close a gap you no longer need. The row closes up again, in one move.

Lesson 06 · 116 seconds

Transform and the CONTROLS tab

The passport of a single layer

Watch · 116 s

01CONTROLS belongs to one layer. Everything on this tab is what the layer does to itself — position, scale, rotation.
02The anchor decides the rotation. Move the anchor and the same rotation reads as a turn instead of a jump. This is the step people skip and then fight for an hour.
03Four fits, four behaviours. Fit, Fill, Stretch and 100% each do something different against the canvas — they are not four names for one button.
04Numbers, when you need them exactly. Every field takes a typed value, and one edit is committed once.

Lesson 07 · 93 seconds

Keyframes — and why they belong to the CLIP

The trap that catches everybody once

Watch · 93 s

01Set a keyframe. Position, scale, rotation — the layer animates between the values you left.
02Move and delete keyframes. The curve follows; nothing is locked in.
03Move the playhead to the next clip and the values change. That is not a bug: the parameters belong to the clip under the playhead, not to the layer as a whole.
04What that means in practice. Animate the clip you are looking at, and check where the playhead is before you wonder why nothing moved.

Lesson 08 · 83 seconds

Layers · 1 — the stack, eye, solo, lock

What sits on top of what

Watch · 83 s

01The order is the picture. Reorder the stack and the output changes — the top layer covers what is under it.
02The eye hides without deleting. Nothing is lost; the layer simply stops being drawn.
03Solo shows one layer alone. The fastest way to find out which layer is actually doing the thing you see.
04Lock protects a layer. During a show that is the difference between a nudge and a disaster.

Lesson 09 · 85 seconds

Layers · 2 — blend, adjustment layer, layer audio

Mixing, one picture out of many

Watch · 85 s

01Blend modes. How a layer mixes with everything under it, not just with the one below.
02The adjustment layer. Effects on it treat everything below as a single picture — one colour correction for the whole composition instead of one per layer.
03Ctrl+Shift+A. An adjustment layer above the selected one, straight from the keyboard.
04Clip audio. Volume and mute live with the clip, so the sound follows the video wherever you move it.

Lesson 30 · 23 seconds

Conversion — and why HAP

Three files, one button, one second

Watch · 23 s

01The converter is free and separate. You do not need V:I:I:Y to use it — download it here.
02HAP is decoded on the GPU. That is why a media server plays many HAP layers at once where H.264 or ProRes would choke.
03Three variants. HAP, HAP Alpha (transparency) and HAP Q (higher quality).
04The honest price. HAP pays with disk space: in the video 48 MB of H.264 becomes 242 MB of HAP Q. You spend disk to buy playback.

Lesson 51 · 101 seconds

Crew events from the editor's marker list — import and show them

The list already exists — put it on a screen

Watch · 101 s

01Start from what the stage manager already keeps. A plain text list of events — no new document to maintain.
02ACTION ▸ LOAD. The list comes in as events, lined up against the show.
03The crew gets a screen, not a printout. What is now, what is next, and how long is left.

The dashed cells are not yet recorded — they are the plan, in the order we teach it. Want one of them sooner, or one that is not on the list at all? Write to support@viiy.tech: it moves up, and slot 60 exists for exactly that.