Encoding settings
The settings panel — encoder engine, codec, GOP mode — plus the Resolution Limit chip on the HUD, and exactly what Reset to Defaults restores.
Encoding in PreviewMonitor is manual. You pick the encoder, the codec, the GOP mode, and the resolution ceiling, and those choices hold until you change them. Nothing adapts behind your back — which is the point for anyone judging a picture.
The gear button in the HUD opens the settings panel. It has four cards and a reset button.
The panel floats under the HUD and closes when you tap outside it.
Encoding
Encoder
The list of engines comes from the host — the plugin probes the machine and sends what it actually found. The first entry is the host's own recommendation and is marked Recommended on its second line.
Windows lists only the hardware vendors present, in this order, followed by the software encoder:
| Entry | Subtitle |
|---|---|
| NVIDIA NVENC | GPU |
| Intel Quick Sync | GPU |
| AMD AMF | GPU |
| Software (CPU) | CPU |
macOS lists exactly one entry, VideoToolbox, which dispatches internally to Apple silicon's media engine or to Quick Sync on an Intel Mac. There is nothing to choose.
The qualifier and the recommended mark live on the subtitle line so a long engine name never wraps.
The engine is remembered per computer. The app stores your choice against the paired machine's identity, so a Windows box with NVENC and a Mac on VideoToolbox each keep their own selection, and switching between them restores the right one automatically. Before the list arrives — usually within about 100 ms of streaming — the row shows a dash.
If a machine has a hardware encoder from a vendor other than NVIDIA, Intel, or AMD, no picker entry is produced for it and only Software (CPU) is listed.
Codec
H.265 or H.264. The default is H.265.
H.265 gives a better picture for the same bitrate, which matters on a busy Wi-Fi network. H.264 decodes on a wider range of hardware and is the safer choice if you see decode stalls.
On an Intel Mac, the plugin reports its architecture and the app flips the default to H.264 — unless you have already chosen a codec by hand, in which case your choice is left alone permanently.
GOP Mode
How often the encoder emits a keyframe. Three modes, and the value they request from the encoder:
| Mode | GOP size | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| All-Intra | 1 | Every frame is a keyframe. Largest bitrate, but a lost packet can never corrupt a later frame. |
| Short | 5 | A keyframe every five frames. |
| Long | 600 | A keyframe roughly every 600 frames — the default, and marked Recommended. Smallest bitrate, because most frames are cheap predicted frames. |
"Recommended" only shows inside the open list — the collapsed row stays a plain value.
Long GOP does not actually reach one keyframe every 600 frames on NVIDIA and Intel hardware. Those encoders' Media Foundation transforms partially ignore the requested GOP size and insert a keyframe roughly every second regardless.
The plugin works around this for All-Intra and Short by forcing keyframes with its own frame counter, which those two modes need. Long cannot go below the hardware's own ~1 Hz floor without bypassing Media Foundation entirely.
In practice this costs nothing: Long GOP's real win is bandwidth — small predicted frames — not a low keyframe count. But if you are measuring keyframe intervals, that is the number you will see.
The bottom of the card shows the source sequence the plugin announced, for example Stream: 1920×1080 @ 25 fps.
Resolution Limit
Resolution Limit is not in this panel. It lives on the HUD as its own chip, between the layout button and the gear, showing the active rung as text.
It was moved out of the panel deliberately: it is the one setting the free tier caps, and a cap buried three scrolls into a panel is a cap nobody can discover. On the chip you can read the current value without opening anything.
The chip reads 720p, 1080p, and so on — or Src for Source, abbreviated to fit the 44-point circle. Tap it for the full ladder.
The chip carries a lock badge whenever a cap applies to your tier.
All nine rungs, with the short-side pixel count sent to the plugin:
| Rung | Short side |
|---|---|
| Source | no cap — the sequence's native resolution |
| 2160p | 2160 |
| 1440p | 1440 |
| 1080p | 1080 |
| 720p | 720 — the default, marked Recommended |
| 540p | 540 |
| 480p | 480 |
| 360p | 360 |
| 240p | 240 |
The limit applies to the short side, so it is orientation-independent: 720p means 720 pixels on the narrow axis whether your sequence is 1920×1080 or 1080×1920.
The free tier is capped at a 360-pixel short side. Source and every rung above 360p carry a lock and open the upgrade options instead of applying. If a subscription lapses mid-session, the rung is folded down to 360p in the picker and on the wire — the stream keeps running, just smaller. See Free vs Pro.
720p is the recommended default because it is the balance point for phone monitoring: sharp enough to judge on a phone-sized screen, small enough that Wi-Fi and latency stay comfortable. Reach for Source or 2160p only when you genuinely need to inspect detail.
On Windows with an NVIDIA or Intel GPU, choosing Source or 2160p on a 4K sequence can produce a black screen with no error, if the Setup window's Use NVIDIA / Intel HW HEVC encoder toggle is off. Software HEVC above 6 megapixels is refused outright, and the failure is silent on both sides. Either turn that toggle on in the Setup window, or switch the codec to H.264. See No picture.
HUD
| Control | Range | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Controls | Stay on / Auto-hide | Stay on |
| Hide after | 2–15 s, 1-second steps — only shown in Auto-hide | 4 s |
| Max zoom | 2×, 3×, 4×, 6×, 8×, 10×, 15×, 20×, 25×, 30× | 10× |
Max zoom uses discrete stops rather than a continuous track. Zoom is multiplicative, so on a linear scale the free tier's 2–4× would occupy about 7% of the width and the thumb would barely move — a cap that reads as a broken control instead of a locked one. Ten evenly-spaced positions give the free tier three real landing spots.
Max zoom is capped at 4× on the free tier. The slider still draws the whole scale; the locked span is dimmed and the row title carries a lock. Tapping either opens the upgrade options. The setting is shared with Preview from Photos or Files.
See The live view for what Stay on and Auto-hide actually do, including the cases where the timer is never armed.
Developer Tools
One control: Show stats. Turning it on closes the settings panel immediately, so the metrics appear on the HUD instead of hiding behind the card. See The stats HUD.
Reset to Defaults
The red button at the bottom of the panel. No confirmation — everything it changes is reversible, and the panel is only reachable from a live stream.
It restores:
| Setting | Restored to |
|---|---|
| Resolution Limit | 720p on Pro; the highest rung inside your tier's cap (360p) otherwise |
| GOP Mode | Long |
| Codec | H.265 |
| Encoder | cleared, then re-resolved to the host's recommended engine as soon as the plugin's list arrives |
| Audio Sync | Low Latency |
| Controls | Stay on |
| Hide after | 4 s |
| Show stats | off |
| Max zoom | 10× on Pro; 4× on the free tier |
| Layout | Standard |
| Mute | un-muted on Pro; muted on the free tier |
It is global, not per-computer — the per-machine encoder memory is wiped too. It does not touch your caption, profile photo, engagement counts, paired computers, or purchases.
Every value it writes is tier-correct, and the whole set is re-checked against your entitlement afterward, so Reset can never hand a free account a Pro-only value.
Once the reset lands, the app pushes one consolidated snapshot of every setting to the plugin rather than a dozen individual changes.
To wipe everything — settings, paired computers, first-run flags, cached files — use Reset App… in Privacy and data instead.
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