Enable in Premiere Pro
Turn on the PreviewMonitor device in Premiere Pro's Playback preferences — Video Stream, Audio Stream, background output, and the Setup window.
The plugin does nothing until you tick it. Open Premiere Pro's Playback preferences, make sure Enable Mercury Transmit is on, and tick Video Stream on the PreviewMonitor row.
Open Playback preferences
| Platform | Menu path |
|---|---|
| Windows | Edit → Preferences → Playback |
| macOS | Premiere Pro → Preferences → Playback |
On macOS the item lives in the Premiere Pro application menu; on Windows it is under Edit. Either way, Playback is the entry you want in the list down the left side.
Adobe renamed this menu from Preferences to Settings in the 2025 releases. These docs say Preferences throughout, because that is what the plugin's own Setup window prints; if your build says Settings, it is the same item in the same place.
Tick the device
Confirm Enable Mercury Transmit is on
Enable Mercury Transmit is the master switch for every Transmit device, PreviewMonitor included. If it is unticked, the Transmit Device Playback table below it does nothing no matter what is in it.
Tick Video Stream on the PreviewMonitor row
The device is listed as PreviewMonitor in the Device Name column.
Video Stream and Audio Stream are two separate checkboxes in two separate columns — ticking the row's name does nothing.
If PreviewMonitor is not in the table at all, the plugin is not loaded. Quit and reopen Premiere Pro; plugins are scanned once, at launch. If it is still missing after a restart, go to Stream will not start.
Tick Audio Stream if you want sound
Audio is optional and independent. Video streams perfectly well with Audio Stream unticked.
On the free tier, audio arrives as 10-second on-demand samples rather than continuously. Continuous audio is a Pro feature — see Free vs Pro.
Leave "Disable video output when in the background" unchecked
The checkbox sits directly under the device table. When it is ticked, Premiere Pro stops sending frames to Transmit devices whenever it is not the frontmost application.
That is exactly the situation PreviewMonitor is designed for: you look at your phone, or you switch to another app, and Premiere Pro is no longer in front. With this ticked, the picture on the phone freezes and looks like a dropped connection.
Leave it unchecked.
Click OK
Streaming starts by itself the next time frames flow — you do not start anything.
The Setup button
The right-hand Settings column of the device table holds a gear button for each device. The gear on the PreviewMonitor row opens the plugin's own Setup window — a separate window owned by PreviewMonitor, not by Premiere Pro.
That window is where you find:
- the QR code for pairing an iPhone,
- the device Name other devices see,
- the Discoverable on network toggle,
- the list of trusted iPhones, with a Forget button,
- live encoder and network readouts under Advanced.
Full tour: The Setup window.
What "Audio Stream" actually commits you to
Mercury Transmit requires that any Transmit plugin which delivers audio also acts as a clock source, and PreviewMonitor does. In practice that means while a sequence is genuinely playing with Audio Stream ticked, Premiere Pro's playback timing is driven by the plugin's clock rather than by its own audio hardware.
It is a normal, supported arrangement — every audio-capable Transmit device works this way — but it is worth knowing about, because it makes Audio Stream the first thing to untick if playback timing ever behaves strangely. Video keeps working on its own.
About "PremiereLive" in Control Surface
Open Preferences → Control Surface and you will find a device listed as PremiereLive, not PreviewMonitor.
That is us. PremiereLive is the project's internal engineering name and this one display string was never renamed — the Transmit device you ticked above is correctly named PreviewMonitor, and only this Control Surface entry is stale. It is cosmetic.
What the Control Surface plugin does: it gives the transport bar on your iPhone real control of Premiere Pro's playhead — play/pause, step a frame, jump to the In or Out point — through Premiere Pro's own transport dispatcher rather than by faking keystrokes. It is installed alongside the Transmit plugin by both installers, and nothing needs configuring. Details: Transport control.
Next
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Install on macOS
Install the PreviewMonitor .pkg on macOS — the Gatekeeper block and how to get past it, the admin password, the firewall prompt, and manual removal.
Enable in After Effects
Turn on PreviewMonitor as a Mercury Transmit device in After Effects — and what transport control can and cannot do there.