Web Broadcast

Heads up: This is an experimental feature aimed at a pretty specific use case. To use it, you need access to a relay server and a broadcaster token. If you don't know what those are, this page probably isn't for you yet — but read on if you're curious.

The web broadcast system lets you stream your live visual performance to anyone with a web browser, in real time. Instead of sending a video feed (which requires encoding, bandwidth, and introduces latency), Liquid LSD sends the parameters of your visuals — the numbers that drive the shaders. The browser re-renders the visuals locally on the viewer's own GPU. The result is zero encoding latency and full 60fps rendering on the viewer's end.

How it works

Your Liquid LSD app
      |
      | (lightweight parameter stream over WebSocket)
      v
Relay server
      |
      | (fanned out to all viewers)
      v
Each viewer's browser — renders the visuals locally using WebGL

The relay server caches the current visual state so new viewers who join mid-show get the right picture immediately.

Setting it up

Open Preferences (Ctrl+P / Cmd+P) and go to the Web Broadcast tab:

Setting	What it does
Server URL	The address of your relay server (e.g. `wss://relay.example.com`)
Broadcaster Token	The secret key that authenticates you as the broadcaster
Target Rate	How many parameter updates to send per second (5–60). Higher = smoother, more network traffic
Auto-Connect	If enabled, broadcasts automatically when the app starts

These preferences are saved between sessions in lsd-preferences.properties.

Once the URL and token are set, Output → Web Broadcast appears in the top menu. Toggle it to start or stop broadcasting.

Status indicators

The title bar shows your broadcast status:

[CONNECTING] (yellow) — Handshaking with the relay.
[LIVE] (red pulsing) — Actively streaming.
[LIVE ERR] (red warning) — Connection dropped or bad token.

If the connection drops, Liquid LSD reconnects automatically in the background without interrupting your audio or visuals.

The web player

The standalone browser client (web/index.html) presents the visualizer in a retro CRT television shell.

Power switch: Click it to turn the visualizer on. The browser requires this interaction to start Web Audio (standard browser security policy). Turning the TV on triggers a CRT warmup animation; turning it off plays a vintage beam-collapse animation.

Volume dial: Drag the rotary dial up or down to adjust volume. The curve is tuned to feel perceptually linear — small moves at the bottom, bigger moves at the top.

Fullscreen: Double-click the TV screen to expand to full-screen. Double-click again or press Esc to go back to the TV shell.

What viewers see. Each deck's source and its parameters, the deck FX chains and the master FX chain, the transition and crossfader, the channel levels and the beat all go over the wire, so the web TV follows your mix closely. A few things stay desktop-only: external video sources (Spout, NDI, PipeWire, webcam) show as nothing, and anything the web player does not have (a custom shader you added to your own library) is skipped. Viewers join in the middle of a broadcast on the right beat.

The viewer's browser also connects to a live audio stream and runs its own audio analysis, keeping the visuals reactive to music even when you're not broadcasting.

Autopilot mode

When no broadcaster is connected, the web player switches to Autopilot — running its own curated visual playlist against the live audio stream. It keeps the visualizer interesting and audio-reactive 24/7 without needing a human operator.

When a broadcaster connects, Autopilot smoothly hands off control to the live stream. When the broadcast ends, it picks up again automatically.

The web presets and playlists used for Autopilot live in web/presets/ and web/playlists/, separate from your desktop preset library. Web presets are ordinary desktop .lsd files, so you can copy one across in either direction (a preset using only sources the web has). A playlist line can add an FX chain after a bar: my-preset | my-chain; the desktop's FX chains and transition presets ship with the web TV.