Scenes and Live Switching FAQ
The part of a production that separates a broadcast from a camera pointed at a person. These answers cover scenes, the Preview and Program workflow, and how to change what viewers see on purpose.
What is a scene in live production?
A scene is one arrangement of sources: a camera, a shared screen, graphics, text and anything else, positioned the way you want it on the canvas.
Switching scenes is how a broadcast moves between an opening card, a presentation, an interview and a closing shot.
What are Preview and Program?
Program is what the audience is watching right now. Preview is where you build the next thing before anyone sees it.
The two stay separate on purpose, so the workspace you are working in is never the output viewers are receiving.
How do I prepare a shot before it goes live?
Set it up in Preview: choose the scene, adjust the sources, check the framing and the levels.
Nothing you do there reaches the broadcast until you decide to send it.
What does Take do?
Take sends what is in Preview to Program. The shot you prepared becomes the one the audience sees.
It is the single moment where a change becomes public, which is what makes the workflow predictable.
How do I switch scenes without the audience seeing the change?
Build the next scene in Preview while the current one stays in Program, then take it when it is ready.
Viewers see a finished change rather than you making it.
Can I cut or fade between scenes?
Yes. A cut is instant and a fade eases between the two, and the duration of the transition is yours to set.
Cuts suit pace, fades suit a change of mood or a break between segments.
How do I know what viewers are actually seeing?
Monitor the Program output while you work. It shows the live result rather than your editing view.
That is the difference between believing the broadcast is fine and watching that it is.
How many scenes can one broadcast use?
Build as many as the show needs. Most productions settle on a handful: an opening, a main shot, a presentation layout, a guest layout and a closing card.
More scenes than you can remember during a live show tends to work against you.
Can I rearrange sources inside a scene while live?
Do it in Preview rather than in the scene currently on Program, then take the result.
Editing the live scene directly means the audience watches you work.
Do scenes keep their settings for the next broadcast?
Yes. Scene layouts, source positions and overlay setups are preserved with your production configuration.
A recurring show does not need rebuilding every week.
Can I duplicate a scene and change one element?
That is the usual way to build a set: start from a layout that works and swap the camera, the graphic or the text.
It keeps framing consistent across the show rather than slightly different in every scene.
How do I build a run of show before going live?
Create a scene for each segment in the order you will use them, then walk through the sequence once in Preview before you start broadcasting.
Most live mistakes are things nobody looked at until they were already on air.
Can I hide a source without deleting it?
Yes. Sources can be shown, hidden, locked and reordered, so something you need later does not have to be rebuilt.
Hiding is also safer than deleting during a live show.
What is the difference between a scene and a layout?
A layout is how sources are arranged on the canvas. A scene is that arrangement saved as something you can switch to.
In practice you design a layout once and then use it as a scene for the rest of the broadcast.
How many sources can one scene hold?
Enough for a layered production: cameras, screen shares, images, text, video and overlays together in one frame.
The practical limit is what the machine can compose smoothly and what viewers can actually read on a small screen.
Does the browser studio have scenes and Preview and Program?
Yes. Scenes, layers and the Preview and Program workflow are part of both FeelThere Desktop and FeelThere Studio in the browser.
What Desktop adds is video and audio files, the Web Layer, the monitor screen, stream health and OBS ingest.