Inputs and Outputs

Vector takes feeds from the network and a capture card, and sends pictures out three ways: a slot’s source over NDI®, a still to disk, and the composed multiview to a card.

The Input Settings Surface

Vector — Input Settings is a window of its own, closed by default, opened with Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+I.

What you set here is a source’s default, overridden by a source’s own declaration. A second line names where to edit that override: the source’s chip in the Sources Palette and its row in the Color window.

Color management

The group’s sub-label is The default a source that has not been declared starts from. Its controls are the Color window’s transform editor, with Follow the signal on Input: and None (shown untransformed) on Output (ODT):.

Under the editor it shows A source on this default is asked for: {label} and lists the remembered sources that override it.

Vector saves the default in sources.json. The declarations placed over it are Color Management and LUTs’ subject.

Processing

Limit to 1080p processing decides how a scope with no stride of its own measures a frame above 1080p.

At the cap, a scope measures every pixel of an HD frame, and a quarter of a 4K frame. With the box off, it measures every pixel of the frame, however large.

The cap is the default, saved in sources.json. Set a scope’s own stride on its properties pane, beside the Every pixel box, so one scope can differ.

Compositor

Compose on the GPU chooses whether the GPU or the CPU composes the canvas. It applies at the next launch, not while Vector runs.

A --gpu-compositor or --cpu-compositor flag, or the VECTOR_GPU_COMPOSITOR variable, beats the saved choice. The order is flag, then environment, then the saved choice, then the default, the GPU route.

Vector saves the choice in sources.json, and an unset field means no choice was made.

PSE analysis

The measurement settings live per scope, in its PSE analysis group on the properties pane: the display the measurement is declared against, and three thresholds — luminance (cd/m²), coverage as a percent of the displayed area, and frequency (Hz).

The rest is the display it assumes where a scope has declared none.

Below it is Not measurable in this build, one attention-colored row per metric showing {metric}: absent — {reason} — Angular pattern arms and Flashes a second (a timed metric).

The Per-Slot Settings Window

The Sources Palette’s cog opens Slot {n} — settings, 360 points wide, for every slot.

• Shape: — Native, 16:9 or 4:3. Native is the picture’s own pixels, the other two widen it to the shown shape.
• Zoom — logarithmic, from 1.0, which fits the frame, to 8.0.
• Pan X and Pan Y — each from -1.0 to 1.0, moving the window inside the picture.
• Reset window — withdraws this slot’s window and the page’s declaration for the slot, then shows which went.

A source the Sources Palette names adds a separator, the heading Color · {label} and the Color window’s editor.

What Vector Can Take

• NDI®. A source is an ndi:// address, discovered and never typed. Vector snapshots every two seconds, and Refresh Sources forces a look. The Sources menu shows the method above the actions: mDNS or Discovery Server.
• DeckLink capture. A card plugged in after Vector started is found by a rescan: Blackmagic Inputs ({n}) — Rescan. A capture source shows a BMD: prefix in its name, and then appears like any other — the + on its Sources Palette slot, the Sources menu and the web API.

What Vector Sends

• A slot’s source, forwarded back out over NDI®. The strip’s forward toggle republishes a bound slot’s input under its own NDI® name. A forward re-encodes the source: picture unscaled and unoverlaid, audio as a stereo mixdown.
• DeckLink output, for the composed multiview. The DeckLink tab’s DeckLink Output section sends the composed multiview to a card, with the DeckLink box and, while it is on, Device:, Mode:, Levels: and Link:.
• A still and a screenshot. The strip’s still button saves the source’s frames, before any overlay, as vector-source-<slot>-<w>x<h>.png. Save scope screenshot saves the window as vector-window-<w>x<h>.png, and the tile last shown as vector-scope-…. Both go to the directory chosen on Preferences.

A forward goes out while the NDI box under Output Targets is on and Vector is licensed, with or without Enable Output. The composed multiview follows both switches.

How a Frame Is Sized Into Its Tile

Two settings decide how a decoded frame reaches its tile: the slot’s window and the declared shape.

The slot’s window decides which part of the frame every tile on that slot is shown. The declared shape is the shape the picture is shown at. The picture is the whole frame, taken to have that shape, so a declaration adds no bars.

A scope that shows a picture fits it inside its tile, so a wrong-shaped tile letterboxes it. Shape:, Zoom and the pan sliders are remembered per slot, in sources.json, and a fitted window is stored as nothing.

NDI® is a trademark of the Vizrt Group.

DeckLink and UltraStudio are products by Blackmagic Design Pty. Ltd.

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