The House in the Picture

You want everyone on set to see the same thing: the camera image with the overlay — timecode running, scene name showing, recording status visible. The director in the production office, the crew backstage, the DIT at the cart, the team in the green room. All of them, without running separate cables or streams to each destination.

OBS has a built-in Preview Projector that makes this straightforward. It puts your composited output directly onto a connected display, which you can then feed into whatever video distribution infrastructure is already in the building.

The Idea

When CueCollab’s overlay is composited in OBS (via a browser source), the OBS program output carries the complete picture: camera image with timecode, recording status, scene name, and any other elements you have configured. Fullscreen Projector mode puts this exact signal onto a physical display output — HDMI, DisplayPort, or SDI via an adapter — which you can then split, route, or encode like any other video signal.

Typical distribution targets:

• Backstage confidence monitors
• Video village / production office screens
• Director’s or showrunner’s monitor
• Makeup and green room TVs
• DIT / creative’s laptops via capture card
• Remote locations via video-over-IP (NDI, AVoIP, Dante AV)

Setup

1. Open the Preview Projector in OBS.

   Right-click anywhere on the Preview canvas and select Open Preview Projector. In Studio Mode, right-click the Program canvas instead.

   Choose a display from the list to open the projector fullscreen on that output.

2. Verify the signal.

   The selected display should immediately show your live composited program output. Confirm the CueCollab overlay is visible and updating.

3. Connect your distribution hardware.

   Plug the display output into whichever distribution method fits your production:

   Distribution type	Hardware example
   HDMI splitter	Feed multiple monitors directly
   Video matrix / switcher	Route to selected destinations
   SDI converter	Convert to SDI for longer cable runs
   NDI encoder	Stream over IP to any NDI receiver
   Video-over-IP encoder	Dante AV, AVoIP, SDVoE systems
   Digital signage player	Screens in foyer, green room, office

4. Keep OBS running in the background.

   Fullscreen Projector stays active as long as OBS is open and a scene is active. If you close OBS or the display is disconnected, the signal stops. Pin OBS to the taskbar or set it to launch on startup to keep things reliable.

Tips for Production

• Dedicated GPU output: On machines with a dedicated GPU and integrated graphics, assign the Fullscreen Projector to the secondary output to avoid any impact on the primary display used for OBS control.
• Resolution match: Set the display resolution to match your OBS canvas resolution (usually 1920×1080) to avoid scaling artifacts. Check this in your OS display settings.
• Persistent across restarts: You can use OBS’s Scene Collections and Profile system to save the Fullscreen Projector setting, but note that OBS does not always restore projector windows automatically after a restart — add it to your pre-show checklist.
• Audio follows video: The Fullscreen Projector is video-only. If downstream displays need audio (e.g., for a green room), route audio separately via your audio infrastructure.