No card. 4 seats. 2 party channels. 1 show live at a time. 1:1 calls and Call / Reply.
Create a show, sign crew in once, drive Talk and Listen, install the Companion keypanel, know the plan caps, and fix the usual booth problems.
Crew cannot create or change shows, channels, or party lines. That limit is checked on the server. An operator token does not override it.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Talk | On that channel. Tap to latch. Tap again to drop. Hold the key for momentary talk, and release to stop. |
| Listen | Toggle that channel in your ears. Off is labeled Off. Each channel has its own listen level. |
| Call | Short beep and an amber tally on the show. The calling channel is named. |
| Reply | On someone else's Call, if this seat can talk on the calling channel: selects that channel and arms Hold (momentary), not latch. The seat that pressed Call does not see Reply. A listen-only seat does not see it — the server would refuse with "Listen only on this channel". Reply leaves when the Call clears. It is a button, not part of the CALL string. Companion call.reply is refused for the caller's own seat. |
| CLEAR | Operator only. Clears latched Talk across the line (Clear-Com RMK mental model). Hold keys are not latches. |
| Edit (ops) | Renames a channel display name. Room / line id stay stable for Companion. |
| Master / listen | Master is overall headphones. Each channel has its own listen gain (0–100 or Listen off). |
Keyboard: T latch · Space hold · C call.
After a stretch of silence — nobody speaking on a channel this seat is listening to or talking on, no open or latched Talk, and no key or volume change on the seat — the panel drops its audio and shows Idle - tap to reconnect. The seat stays signed in. One tap restores listen and latch. Free is 30 minutes. Starter is 60. Pro and Production default to 60, and an account admin can set 15 to 120 minutes on Ops. Companion keys dim while the seat is idle, and any key press reconnects.
Bitfocus Companion is the physical keypanel. Module 0.10.9. Companion 4.3 or newer, including 5.x. Download companion-module-crewline.tgz from Ops → Surfaces. Do not unzip it. In Companion, Modules → Import module package.
Colors match the soft panel: key #0f1820, an open mic #ff3b30, listen and on-line #00e676, call and Armed #ffb021. The Crewline brand accent is #2ec8f0. Soft seats still join and enable the mic once. The deck does not join the audio room. Reply selects the calling channel and arms Hold for a seat that did not place the Call (call.reply). The caller's own seat is refused, and a listen-only seat is refused with "Listen only on this channel". The Reply key lights only for the other seats while a Call is up. A manual connection that pastes the operator token is the advanced path on the same Surfaces page. Loading the module from a developer folder is not the booth install.
| Control action | What it does |
|---|---|
talk.latch / talk.momentary | Latch, or hold. Needs the seat identity already on the line. |
talk.mute | Cough. active true or false. Gates the mic and leaves latches alone. |
volume.set | That channel’s listen level, 0–100. Does not write the master. |
volume.master | Seat master, 0–100. Does not write a channel level. |
call / call.reply / rmk | Call tally, or clear latched talks. call.reply holds momentary talk on the calling channel for every other seat that can talk there. It is refused for the caller's own seat and for a listen-only seat. |
New accounts start on Free: 4 seats, 2 party channels, one show live at a time, idle timeout fixed at 30 minutes, and 1,000 minutes a month. Companion is included. No card needed. Request access.
No card. 4 seats. 2 party channels. 1 show live at a time. 1:1 calls and Call / Reply.
$490/yr. 10 seats. Up to 24 channels. 1 show live at a time. 1:1 calls and Call / Reply.
$990/yr. 25 seats. Up to 24 channels. 1 show live at a time. 1:1 calls and Call / Reply.
$1,790/yr. 50 seats. Up to 24 channels. 3 shows live at a time. 1:1 calls and Call / Reply.
Custom. Custom seats, shows, and bridges. Up to 24 channels. Program feed. Private group lines.
Up to 24 channels. That is the same number on Starter, Pro, and Production. Bridging to Clear-Com, Hollyland, Dante, 2-wire, and 4-wire is Pro and up. Program feed is Starter and up. Private group lines are Pro and up. 1:1 calls and Call / Reply stay on every plan. Saved shows do not count toward the concurrent-show cap. Going over a cap warns in Ops and blocks the next seat, channel, or live show. People already on a live show stay connected. Companion and Clear are on every plan. Nothing is charged here.
Account owners and admins open /admin for live overview, invites, shows, read-only usage, the profile library, the audit log, and session revoke. The intercom engineer role is stored as operator and labeled Intercom engineer. Crew cannot open this desk. Invites use Resend when configured, otherwise a copyable link.
Crewline does not replace a Clear-Com or RTS frame. A bridge host joins the same line whether audio arrives as Dante or as 4-wire from an LQ-2W or Studio Technologies hybrid.
| Priority | Box | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Primary | Clear-Com LQ-2W | Venue 2-wire → IP / 4-wire. Prefer when the house already speaks Clear-Com. |
| Alternate | Studio Technologies 2W↔4W | Strong nulling; prefer when the shop is already Studio Tech. |
| Dante | AVIO / RedNet / DVS | First-class audio network path on the bridge host after the 4-wire hop. |
Path: venue 2-wire → LQ-2W or Studio Tech → 4-wire / Dante → bridge host → LiveKit participant with role=bridge on the matching channel. DIY hybrids are not the recommended venue path.
| Symptom | What to try |
|---|---|
| Peer didn’t see Call | Both seats Connected. Soft Call fans out on joined channels. Companion Call needs a paired connection and a seat that is already on the line. |
| Ghost roster after leave | Departed seats should drop within a few seconds. Close the panel cleanly. If SM / SM (2) linger, wait ~10s with nobody on the line, then rejoin once. |
| Mic permission | Allow microphone for the site, then rejoin. |
| Offline / reconnect | Stay on the page while it reconnects. If stuck, refresh and Join again with the same seat name. |
| Companion Call not lighting peers | Base URL reachable, pairing code current, module Connected, and that seat joined with the mic on. Then press Call once. |
Soft seats show OK / Degraded / Failing beside Talk/Call from LiveKit quality, RTT/jitter/loss, reconnect, mic publish, and bridge heartbeat. Ops lists every seat. Companion module 0.10.9 has seat-health feedbacks. Cough mute shows as muted, not failing. Optional degrade beep is off by default.
Assign a camera number per seat. Soft client paints red program / green preview. Drive sources from Companion tally.set (map ATEM/vMix modules) or the optional vMix XML poller. A paired Deck cannot set program and preview. Use Ops, or a manual operator-token connection, for tally.
Save channels, talk/listen matrix, seat labels, tally assignments, and Companion page layout as one named reset. Load / duplicate / delete / export / import from Ops.