Posting this here to hopefully raise some awareness and get an answer.

Does anyone know why vMix staff are deleting all comments about Companion in their Youtube videos when they bring up StreamDecks for tutorials?

Companion has been used by Twitch, RiotGames, Blizzard, Jagex, Redbull, just to name of the few that I know use it and in some cases assisted with their integration. On top of that there are hundreds of Companion users who use the vMix module that I haven't worked with first hand. So my question is, with such an extensive usage by the professional broadcast community, why are vMix developers actively censoring comments that mention it?

If it was a video sponsored by Elgato then I'd completely understand, but there has been no disclosure of sponsorship by them so I'm somewhat confused as the default Elgato software is almost never used in high-end environments in favour of either Companion or a bespoke solution for StreamDeck integration.

Of course they're free to do what they will with comments on their own video, I was just hoping for an answer from vMix staff.

At the end of the day, any feature comparison between Elgato and Companion will show that Elgato was aimed at the streamer market and it works perfectly well for Twitch/YouTube streamers as that is their target audience, but the vMix plugin for the Elgato software simply lacks the extensive command set, or the feedback, that Companion or other 3rd party solutions offer. Which is why in professional environments Companion is almost universally used over the Elgato base software.

The video example shows the Elgato software being used to simply run a shortcut, so yes it can do every function in vMix as all it's doing is acting as a keyboard. I haven't seen the Elgato software showing a countdown of the time remaining on a VT that's running (with 10th of a second accuracy), or have Tally to indicate which input is in preview or program when you have a rows of buttons for your preview/program bus, or display text on the button that matches data source or Text input values, or change the colour of buttons when an input or bus audio is peaking, or even simply displaying an matrix of audio routing so at a glance you can see how everything is routed.

If vMix staff don't want to make guides for 3rd party apps, that's cool, but to dismiss 3rd party apps which are used by a significant portion of the professional market is somewhat petty and hinders their userbase to pretend like these apps (and it's not just Companion) don't exist.

Edit: And just to be clear, none of the developers for the vMix module for Companion earn any money from it. Companion itself is entirely free. Some companies contract with devs to develop modules to integrate with their hardware/software, but the vast majority of developers work on this open source project entirely for free, to benefit the community. I'm not wishing vMix to advertise Companion for people to make money, I'm not wishing for them to advertise Companion at all, I just wish they would allow discussion on YouTube so that vMix users themselves can see the potential of what can be done with the software and see all the options available to them so they can make the most informed decision as to what is best for their use case and their work flow. If it's Companion, awesome, if it's Elgato's software, that's awesome too, whatever is the best for that user is the 'right' decision, but hiding options from your userbase just hinders their ability to know all that is possible with vMix.

I never said they 'have' to do anything. I'm just posting this here for visibility and hope to perhaps get a response as they have shown no interest in a courtesy 'hey, I removed your comment for ... reason, please don't bring it up in the future, thanks'. on YouTube, as if they did I would have left it at that.



I'm not saying someone is not professional for whatever choice of interface they are using. Just that higher-end productions in general use higher-end solutions, and that's simply not the Elgato software. Elgato themselves state that they target their software for streamers and not broadcast/event production.



keep in mind the specific topic of the video was "How to control vMix layers with shortcuts.". They showed a variety of solutions, I offered an additional option as to leave it to the reader to be better informed (and keep in mind that Companion would have been the only free option, as it offers a web interface allowing control by a mobile device or webpage, where as their other options required a hardware device). In a previous video they've even deleted comments not from those of us who work on Companion but a viewer who simply asked a question as to if the Elgato software could do a thing that Companion could do as they wanted info about the Elgato software but the mention of Companion was enough for the user to have their commend deleted.


Do you not think it's a benefit to educate the userbase, or at least allow other users to, so that users can see what is available (and potentially at a lower cost) to achieve the goal of the tutorial? As previously mentioned, the tutorial was for controlling layers, the comment was specifically showing an option to do exactly that but with more feedback.

Hello, thank you for sharing. But I don't know how to apply this module. Can you send me how to enable this module and vmix! thank you. If you can, can you send a video tutorial to your email. My email is 109607213@qq.com

The custom command sends a TCP message prepended with `FUNCTION `.

So for example if you wanted to use the custom command action to do a 5 second fade to input 5, you would set he Custom Command action to `Fade Input=5&Duration=5000`.

There needs to be a space between the function you're performing and the params (so in the case of my example, there's a space between Fade and Input). All parameters should be split with an ampersand `&`, and if you're trying to use special characters/symbols then please make sure you appropriately encode them before putting them in the custom command text box (this is of particular importance if trying to reference an input by name that includes spaces, ampersand or any special characters, or when updating the text on a title input for example).

Well if 3rd party API references are going to be advertised then I'll throw mine into the mix https://util.dist.dev/vmixapi as it's also the one we recommended in the Companion module, and within some broadcast communities for usage with or without Companion as it provides a URL builder to get people started which can easily be used to construct TCP commands.

I'm glad you like the module!

Currently it's only possible to use a specific input for the Video Timer feedback. Being able to get this feedback for preview/program is something that's in the test build that we're working on but that's not yet publicly available.

The action is for sending a function over TCP to vMix, so has to be structured as such, eg COMMAND Param1=123&param2=456. A common mistake is people using the syntax COMMAND?Param1=123&param2=456 which is incorrect as that'd be for a HTTP request which is not used here.

The action is also for running functions and any params they made need, not for multi-line scripts. If you want to use a script then write that in the vMix script editor and use Companion to start/stop that script.

Text layers in a title input are now a Variable within Companion 3.0, which allows it to be used for much more than what the feedback offered.

For example, $(vmix:input_INPUT_layer_INDEX_titletext) is a variable where INPUT is an inputs name, number, or GUID, and INDEX is the numerical index (starting from 0) of the text layer in the title, and can be used in button text, most text inputs options, triggers, etc...

With your example, the title text of layer 2 of your Poster input (assuming in Companion your vMix connection is labelled as 'vmix', if it's something else you'd have to adjust the following) would be:

$(vmix:input_Poster_layer_2_titletext)

If you put that on a button it'll automatically update as the title changes.

titletext.png (15kb) downloaded 4 time(s).

In my case, the button shows the text "Home 1" because for testing I just used one of the default vMix titles and that was the text on layer 2 of the Poster input.