03 · The phone

The phone.

The picture, and everything around it, on iPhone, iPad and Android. Tethery runs in the phone’s browser, with nothing to install.

The viewer

The picture fills the screen. Tap it, and the phone’s panel rises from the foot of the screen; it goes again four seconds later, or at another tap.

The picture: what the Program Monitor shows, as it plays. Tap it to show or hide the panel.
The panel: the sequence’s name, six buttons, and the readouts.

The buttons

Now playingBrand film

The top of the panel.

Sound, there when the session carries sound. More below.
Keep this panel open keeps the panel open instead of timing out after inactivity.
Invite someone to watch: invite another device to join, by the code, the QR or the link. More below.
Settings opens the viewer’s settings, where each feature in this chapter is turned on or off.
Leave this session, back to the code screen. The session carries on for the other devices.
Full screen opens the picture in the browser’s full screen mode.

The readouts

Status: Connected
Playback: Playing
App: Premiere Pro
Source: 3840×2160
Stream: 1920×1080
Frame rate: 23.9 / 23.976
Bitrate: 9.8 Mb/sAuto
Received: 9.6 Mb/s
Offset: 120 ms
Connection: Wi‑Fifrom 192.168.1.75
Viewers: 2
Session: K7QD

The readouts during a session.

Readout	What it says
Status	Whether this phone is getting the picture: Connected in green, Frozen while you hold a frame, and amber while it connects.
Playback	What the playhead is doing: playing, paused or scrubbing.
App	The app sending the picture. With both apps’ sessions running, tap it to switch to the other.
Source and Stream	The sequence’s size, and the size arriving. The panel’s Resolution decides the second.
Frame rate	Frames arriving each second, beside the sequence’s own rate.
Bitrate	The rate the panel is sending, and whether Auto, Manual or Full set it.
Received	The rate arriving at this phone.
Offset	How far Premiere Pro is held back to play with the phone, or off. See Sync offset.
Connection	The link the picture is arriving over, and the computer’s address it leaves from. It’s measured on the phone, so it says whether the phone followed a change of link.
Viewers	How many devices are watching.
Session	The code, to type on another phone.

Debug mode, in Settings›Help, adds the codecs, the network’s timing, the buffers and the frames dropped, for when support asks. Beside it, Color doesn’t look right lists the phone’s settings to turn off, as Color doesn’t look right does here.

Zoom and gestures

Gesture	What it does
Pinch	Zoom, up to 8×.
Drag	Move around while zoomed.
Double tap	Actual pixels, or back to fit.
Swipe sideways	The other app’s session, when both are running. See Premiere Pro and After Effects together.
Single tap	Show or hide the panel.

Zoomed in, with the magnification at the top.

While zoomed, the magnification shows at the top. Tap it to go back to fit.

On-screen overlays

In Settings›On-screen overlays, each on its own and all off to begin with, because the phone is a monitor first. They stay on the picture when the panel goes, and the phone remembers which you turned on.

The three overlays turned on in Settings, and on the picture.

Frame rate: frames arriving each second.
Playhead position: the sequence timecode at the playhead.
Play and pause: whether the timeline is playing, as Premiere Pro’s own icon.

Sound

Tap the speaker, the first of the panel’s buttons, to hear the timeline, and again to stop. Sound starts off each time the page opens, because a phone won’t play sound before a tap. If you still hear nothing, check the phone’s silent switch and its volume.

The speaker is there only when the session carries sound. For that, check Audio Stream on the Tethery row in Premiere Pro’s Playback settings. Sound is part of the full version, and After Effects gives Tethery none. No sound?

Sound and the sync offset

Premiere Pro holds its own sound back by the sync offset, and the copy it hands Tethery is that held-back sound. So you choose one of two:

Offset on: the phone’s picture plays in step with Premiere Pro, and its sound trails the picture. In our tests, a 98 ms offset put the sound 135 ms behind.

Offset off: the phone’s sound and picture play together, both a moment behind Premiere Pro.

Freeze and save a frame

Both are at the top of Settings.

A frozen frame, and Settings open under it.

Freeze pauses the picture on this phone alone, while Premiere Pro and every other device watching play on. It reads Unfreeze while it holds; tap it again to catch up with the timeline.
Save frame saves the frame on screen, a frozen one included, as a PNG. It’s part of the full version.

Where the frame goes depends on the phone. On an iPhone or iPad watching at connect.tethery.app, the share sheet opens: choose Save Image to put it in Photos. On the local link, the frame opens at full size: press and hold it, then choose Save to Photos. On Android and on a computer, it downloads.

Invite someone to watch

To bring in another phone without going back to the computer, tap the invite button on the panel. It shows what the Tethery panel shows: the code, a QR to scan with the other phone’s camera, and the link.

Invite someone to watch

Have them scan this with their phone’s camera, or open connect.tethery.app and enter the code.

K7QD

Onlineconnect.tethery.app/s/K7QDCopy

The invite, on the Online link.

The code, to type at connect.tethery.app or on the code screen.
The QR, for the other phone’s camera.
The link and Copy, to send in a message. Where the session has both, choose Online, which is easy to share and needs the internet, or Local, which needs no internet; the QR follows the one chosen.

With both apps’ sessions running, the invite has a tab for each, so a guest can watch After Effects while you follow Premiere Pro. The free version shows one device at a time: the first to connect keeps the session until it ends.

Session notifications

Tethery can tell your phone when a session starts, with a notification of its own like any app’s: on the lock screen and in the notification list, with the code in it. Tap it and you’re watching. Notifications are part of the full version, and come for sessions on the Online link.

First, add Tethery as a web app

Notifications reach Tethery only when it’s on the Home Screen as a web app, opened from there. On iPhone and iPad, a Safari tab can’t receive them at all. Put Tethery on your Home Screen shows how.

Open Tethery from your Home Screen
Join a session on the Online link, by its code or its QR.
Turn on Notify me when a session starts
In Settings›Notifications.
Allow notifications
The phone asks once whether Tethery may send you notifications: choose Allow. On Android, Chrome asks the same for connect.tethery.app. The row then says You will be told here when this computer starts one.

Play and pauseWhether the timeline is playing, as an icon

Notifications

Notify me when a session startsFrom this computer, on this device

Touch gestures

PinchZoom, up to 8×
DragMove around while zoomed

Play and pauseWhether the timeline is playing, as an icon

Notifications

Notify me when a session startsWorking…

Touch gestures

PinchZoom, up to 8×
DragMove around while zoomed

“Tethery” Would Like to Send You Notifications
Notifications may include alerts, sounds and icon badges. These can be configured in Settings.
Don’t AllowAllow

The switch in Settings, and the phone asking whether Tethery may send notifications.
Start the next session
When a session starts on this computer on the Online link, the notification arrives, from Premiere Pro or After Effects. Tap it to join with its code.

Tuesday, October 27
9:41

Tetherynow
A new session has started in Premiere Pro
Tap to join K7QD

A session starting, on the lock screen.

If notifications are turned off

If the row says Notifications are off for Tethery in this device’s Settings, the phone was told Don’t Allow, or Tethery’s notifications were turned off since. On iPhone and iPad, turn them on again in Settings›Notifications›Tethery; on Android, in Chrome’s site settings for connect.tethery.app. Then turn the switch in Tethery on.

Notification Style

MessagesBanners ›

PhotosBanners ›

TetheryOff ›

WeatherBanners ›

Allow Notifications

Alerts

Lock Screen✓

Notification Center✓

Banners✓

Sounds

On iPhone: Settings, Notifications, then Tethery, with Allow Notifications on.

On the first session where notifications can work, the phone points to the switch once. One list of phones covers both apps, so a phone turned on in Premiere Pro’s session hears about After Effects’ too, and the computer’s panel lists it under Viewers.

Codes and switching sessions

In Settings›Sessions:

Running on this computer, there when both apps are running a session, opens a page listing them. The one you’re watching says Watching, and the other has a Switch button.
Enter a different code joins another session by the code in its panel.
Leave this session goes back to the code screen. The session carries on for the other devices.
Follow the app in front switches between Premiere Pro and After Effects as you do.

On the code screen, Scan the QR code opens the phone’s camera inside Tethery, so the Home Screen app can join by the panel’s QR without going through the camera app. The first time, the phone asks to allow the camera.

Every session has a new code, so a link saved from an old one won’t open the next: type the new code or scan the new QR instead. When the session ends on the computer, the phone shows This session has ended.

Premiere Pro and After Effects together

Premiere Pro and After Effects each have their own Tethery panel and run their own session, so both can run at once on one computer, and one phone can move between them without typing a code.

Start a session in each app
Press Start session in the Tethery panel in Premiere Pro, and again in After Effects. Each app needs Tethery turned on first.
Join either one on the phone
Scan or type the code of either session. The phone finds the other app’s session by itself, and while the panel is up, a dot for each session sits above it.
Swipe sideways on the picture
Premiere Pro is always on the left and After Effects on the right: swipe left to go to After Effects, and right to come back to Premiere Pro. The other app’s last frame follows your finger in, and its dot grows once you’ve gone far enough. Let go there, or flick, and the phone switches; let go before it, and the picture slides back.
The picture arrives
The last frame holds until the other app’s live picture lands a moment later, and App in the readouts names the app now sending.

Swiping from Premiere Pro to After Effects, and After Effects’ picture arrived.

The other app’s last frame, coming in under your finger. If the phone has never shown it, the app’s lettermark stands in for it.
A dot for each session, Premiere Pro’s first. The one you’re heading for grows when letting go will switch.
App names the app sending the picture.

Other ways to switch

Tap App in the readouts.
Press Switch beside it in Settings›Running on this computer.
Turn on Settings›Follow the app in front, and the phone switches by itself whenever you move between Premiere Pro and After Effects on the computer.

After Effects gives Tethery no sound, so its session plays silent. The playhead position the phone shows is the composition’s.

What the phone tells you

When there’s no picture, the phone says why in the middle of the screen. When there is one, a short tag at the top says what it can’t show.

Message	What it means
Connecting…	The phone is reaching the computer. Reconnecting… after a picture means it’s getting it back, with the code under it.
Waiting for Premiere Pro	Connected, and nothing is being sent. Play the sequence, or bring Premiere Pro to the front if it’s in the background. No picture?
Tap to start the picture	The picture has arrived and the phone is waiting for a touch before it plays video, which an iPhone in Low Power Mode always does. Tap it. Why?
Cannot reach the computer	The session may have ended, or the phone may have dropped off the Wi‑Fi. The phone can’t connect.
Still cannot reach the computer	Turn the phone’s Wi‑Fi off, wait a moment, and turn it on again. There’s no need to reload the page.
The computer is not connected	On the Online link: the Tethery panel may have been closed, or the computer lost its internet. It picks up again if the session comes back.
This session has ended	The session ended on the computer. A new one has a new code.
No contact	A tag: the phone has lost touch with the computer, and the picture is still arriving, so it stays on screen.
Last frame	A tag, after a switch: the other app’s last frame, until its picture arrives.

Still stuck? A person reads every message: support@tethery.app