Companion — openRCS
Analog Way LiveCore and Midra on a Stream Deck
What it does
A Bitfocus Companion module for Analog Way LiveCore and Midra processors. Take and cut screens and groups, drive the T-bar, recall master and screen memories, freeze an input and black an output, with on-air tally coming back to the button.
It talks to the switcher directly on TCP 10500 rather than through openrcs, using the same reverse-engineered protocol the control surface uses. Takes are done as a swept T-bar instead of the device's auto-take verb, because that's what a NeXtage 16 actually finishes.
- Take, cut, step back and manual T-bar, per screen or group, bank-aware
- Master and screen memory recall — take it, or load it to preview
- Input freeze and output black
- On air, transitioning and available feedbacks
- Ready-made take and memory presets
- A raw-command escape hatch that accepts Companion variables
Where it stands
Released at v1.2.1, which names QuickMatriX in the Midra platform's label (nothing it sends changed). v1.2.0 added Load multiviewer layout and makes a load to preview name its bank, instead of relying on whatever another client left there. Its recall sequence was checked on a NeXtage 16 over a plain socket, but neither action has been pressed from Companion itself yet. v1.1.1 fixed the release package crashing on load: every packaged release before it died in Companion looking for its package.json outside the module and got restarted forever, though a checkout on the developer modules path never did. v1.1.0 made Take and Cut work on a Midra: the unit's own take verb, pulsed 0 then 1 with the preset-update mode switched off first, the cut run through the T-bar's middle to the far end, and positions scaled to the Midra's range. That was proven through the module's own socket layer at a real Pulse2, with a preview edit taken to air and a cleared preview cut to air. v1.0.3 was the first release that connected at all under Companion's current module API. Every earlier install came up as an errored connection with no actions and no TCP link, because a 1.x-style variable table stopped initialisation before the socket opened. The protocol layer is shared with openrcs and its take path has been driven against a real NeXtage 16, but the module itself hasn't yet been run from a Companion instance against live hardware. Pick the platform that matches the switcher, because LiveCore and Midra differ in terminator and identity query. The control protocol has no authentication. A NeXtage 16 has held this module, openrcs-server, Analog Way's client and its Companion module all at once. It isn't in the official Companion module store, so import the release package or install it as a developer module.