Preview & Live Output
The two-stage on-air workflow, preview a verse before committing, then toggle Go Live to send it to broadcast.
Kairos uses a two-stage workflow before anything goes to broadcast: preview to check the verse, then Go Live to commit it to NDI. This is the same convention every modern live-graphics tool follows.
The two panels
The right side of the dashboard has two stacked canvases:
- Preview: what you're about to send on-air. Click any verse in the queue and it lands here first.
- Live display: what's actually being broadcast. Greyed out and reads "Go live" until you flip the toggle; switches to a pulsing "On air" indicator the moment the broadcast goes live.
The preview canvas reflects the active theme exactly, typography, backgrounds, alpha, everything. What you see is exactly what your switcher will receive.
The Go Live toggle
The switch in the live display header has two states:
- Go live (off), Kairos is not broadcasting. NDI is silent. Nothing reaches your switcher.
- On air (on), the verse in the live canvas is being sent over NDI to any consumer on the network. The indicator pulses.
Flipping the toggle commits the current preview to live. The preview panel stays in sync, when you click a different verse in the queue while on-air, it goes straight to broadcast.
The first time you flip the toggle
By default Kairos asks you to confirm before going live for the first time in a session. The setting is Settings → Output → Confirm before going live. Leave it on if you want a safety net; turn it off once you trust the workflow.
Working the queue against live
The typical operator rhythm during a sermon:
- A verse you want is detected (or you build it from the quick-nav input).
- You click it in the queue → it lands in Preview.
- You glance at the canvas to confirm it's the right reference, translation, and styling.
- You press Enter (or click Go live) to send it on-air.
- The next verse moves up. Repeat.
If you want to take the overlay down between verses, flip Go live off. The next time you flip it on, the same verse comes back up.
Switching themes mid-service
Changing the active theme reflows the preview canvas immediately, but the live canvas only updates when you commit the change. This lets you preview a different theme without disturbing what's currently on-screen.
See Themes for how theme switching is wired.
Media on-air
If you have a media item assigned to the live display (a background image, a sermon graphic), it shows under the verse overlay. Clear it with the Remove action in the live display header.