02 · The panel
The panel.
Everything on the Tethery panel in Premiere Pro and After Effects, top to bottom.
The panel at a glance
?Idle- The question mark opens Setup and troubleshooting: guides for the first-time setup, resolution and bitrate, the sync offset and your phone; every connection type; what to do about a problem, with this session’s own numbers beside each, and Send a report when you’re still stuck; and What’s new in the version you have.
- The key opens the License page, where you activate or move a license.
- The status: Idle, Waiting for viewer, or Live with the number of devices watching. Press it to go to them.
- Connection: how the phone reaches this computer. More below.
- Start session shows the code a phone joins with. See your first session.
- Signal: the sequence, its size and frame rate, and during a session the codecs and the bitrate actually being sent.
Beside the name is the version you have: press it to see what’s new in it. Two more appear there when they have something to say: Free version on a computer with no license yet (Full version with the time left, during its two minutes a day), which you can press to see what a license adds, and, when a newer Tethery is out, its number in green, such as 0.1.2 available, which opens the Update page (Update Tethery). During a session, Stream settings and Viewers join the cards.
Connection
How the phone reaches this computer: the same Wi‑Fi, a cable, a hotspot or Tailscale. The list shows every link this computer has right now, and the round arrow beside Connection looks again after you plug something in. What are my connection options? opens the steps for each, also in Connections.
Changing it during a session moves the picture to the new link and keeps the same code, so a phone that is watching follows by itself. Once a session starts, the card holds everything a phone needs to join:
- The link the picture goes over. Changing it keeps the code.
- The code, four characters, to type on a phone. A new one every session.
- The QR for the phone’s camera.
- The address the QR carries, and Copy: Online or Local, below.
- End session ends it for every device.
Online or Local
Online is a link at connect.tethery.app. It’s easy to share, opens in any browser, and is what lets a phone keep Tethery on its Home Screen and be told when a session starts. It needs the internet, and it comes with the free version too.
Local is this computer’s own address. It needs no internet.
Neither is a connection of its own. Through either, the picture goes straight from your computer to the phone over the link chosen above, so the phone still has to reach this computer: from another network, use VPN / Tailscale. With Online, only the page and the handshake that connects the two devices pass through us, never the picture.
Resolution and bitrate
Under Stream settings, two settings decide what the phone is sent. Together they are one picture: resolution is how many pixels, and bitrate is how much detail survives in them.
Resolution
The size of the picture sent to each device.
- The question mark explains each setting in a sentence.
- Resolution, and the size being sent against the sequence’s own: here 1080p of 2160p. Press a row to open its controls under the three.
- The sizes, smallest on the left. Lower it if the picture still stutters with Bitrate on Auto. A smaller size takes effect on the next frame; a larger one than Premiere Pro is drawing takes a moment, and the panel says so first.
- Native is the sequence at its own size, with that size under it. On the free version, a sequence larger than HD streams at 1080p and Native is locked.
Bitrate
How much data each second of picture is allowed.
The lowest Auto will go. Raise it to keep detail when judging focus; lower it to keep the picture moving on a weak connection.
- Auto lowers the bitrate when the connection struggles and raises it again when it recovers. Manual keeps it where you set it, up to Full, the most this size needs.
- Auto minimum, the lowest Auto will go. Raise it to keep detail when judging focus; lower it to keep the picture moving on a weak connection.
Sync offset
The phone shows the picture a moment after Premiere Pro does. Offset makes Premiere Pro wait that moment, so the Program Monitor and the phone play together.
Hold Premiere back so it plays in step with the phone.
- The switch turns the offset on or off.
- The offset in milliseconds, with nudges of 10 and 20 either way.
- Apply uses a new offset; Discard keeps the old one.
- Detect offset measures it, as below.
Measure it
- Connect the device you’ll watch on
The delay differs by device and by network, so measure on the one you use, over the link you use. Detect offset waits until a device is watching.
- Play the sequence
Press play in Premiere Pro and let it run.
- Press Detect offset
It measures for 25 seconds, with a bar and the seconds left. Keep the sequence playing and leave the phone alone until it’s done: the phone’s buffer settles over those seconds, and the last of them count.
- Press Apply
The measurement lands in the box, and the panel says how far behind the phone was. Nothing changes until you press Apply. Then Premiere Pro holds its own picture back by that much, and the Program Monitor and the phone play together.
- Check it by eye
Scrub to a hard cut and play across it, watching the Program Monitor and the phone side by side. If one still leads, nudge by 10 or 20 and Apply again.
The offset is kept for each resolution, so going back to a size you’ve measured doesn’t mean measuring again. Measure again after a new size, especially to or from Native, or a new device or network.
Premiere Pro waits only while a session is running; ending the session hands its playback back, which takes a few seconds and a play or a scrub.
With an offset, Premiere Pro matches the phone’s picture, and the phone’s sound follows a little after it. With none, the phone’s sound and picture play together, a moment behind Premiere Pro. More in Sound.
Viewers
- Viewers, and how many are watching.
- Share bandwidth. Each device gets its own copy of the stream, so two cost twice the network of one; sharing splits the rate between them so each keeps a steady picture. Turn it off to give every device the full rate on a network that can carry it.
- The device’s name: its network’s name, or its browser’s when the network doesn’t say. Press the pencil to give it one of your own, which Tethery keeps for next time.
- What it is: the system, and whether it watches in the browser or the Home Screen app.
- Notified when a session starts: the phones that asked to be told, with session notifications, each with its pencil too. A name given in either list is the device’s name in both.
The free version shows one device at a time: the first to connect keeps the session until it ends.
Still stuck? A person reads every message: support@tethery.app