QUESTION · SATURDAY Q&A

Has anyone had a chance to look at Bitfocus training studio yet? How did you find it for companion training?

ASKED BY · Craig Kadoky · TORONTO · 17 OCT 2026 · ▶ 00:32:57

THE PANEL'S ANSWER
Guy

Bitfocus Training Studio includes web emulators and a virtual broadcast studio with real integrations; the software is free and can control PTZ cameras, triggers, HyperDeck, and other devices; notable community member Jackson showed advanced Companion control in OBS on Tuesday.

Summarised by AI from what the panel said. Watch the moment for the full answer.

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

From the transcript.

Machine-transcribed, so it may contain errors. Every timestamp opens the episode at that second.

32:56How did you find it for companion training? You know, this, this came up a couple of weeks ago and I didn't realize until recently that they did this. I don't, I don't think anyone, I may, I certainly haven't looked at it, but I think it's really cool that they're offering, offering a free training. So I will definitely have a look at that, Craig and a guy. What do you think about this

33:17free training. Yeah, this is cool. I haven't looked at that one in particular, but a lot of people don't realize that you don't have to actually buy one of these units. There is web emulators. So the software is free. You could just go online and there are so many things that it could control. One of the things that I've always dreamed of in office hours and after hours in

33:34particular is putting a little interface where you could go in there and you would push these buttons and it would do things. So you could control a PTZ camera. You could trigger a stream to YouTube, you could make a hyperdeck, play a rewind or fast forward or play a clip or control like Alexander's DM3, but you would just see a picture of a video feed of it. As you're

33:55manipulating things, you could be anywhere in the world and just have access to this. It'd probably run in the cloud so that the IP was protected, but ideally it would also have a reset so people could go in there, play with this stuff, mess it up. But all they're doing is just pushing button, well, pushing virtual buttons or in a perfect world, we would also have some kind of

34:12a pre-tunnel or some kind of tail scale or something where it's like, okay, now you're into our instance and you can play as much as you want, but you are connected to that device. So I think we could do a lot of training here. And there's so many people in the community that use Companion and that are sharp. It's just a matter of figuring out what could we do.

34:33But I've watched some of their stuff on Bitfocus buttons, which I've been playing with as well. There's some sophistication. In fact, Jackson, one of the members in the community, And he showed on Tuesday Focus how he's controlling different things in OBS using Companion. And he built something that looks like buttons. Watch that episode if you get a chance. There's a lot under the hood there.

34:54Very cool. Craig Kodokie also said in the chat, training studio has a virtual broadcast studio that you can make connections to from Companion and get real results. Okay, that is seriously cool. I do. That's next level. We got to see that. Yeah, absolutely. I'm going to have to mess around with that. All right. And Mark, what do we got next? All right.

35:13Our next question is from Brody Hefner in New York City. Starting with Mac OS 27, the preview app allows viewing, editing, and rendering of .usd files. What are some use cases for this feature that might justify an early upgrade to the latest version of Mac OS? OS? For me, there's absolutely zero that I'll justify upgrading to a new OS because things are too fragile in the audio and video world sometimes with stuff like that. However,

READ THE FULL TRANSCRIPT →
ALSO IN THIS EPISODE

13 more questions
from Office Hours | Saturday | October 17, 2026.

The whole episode →
▶ 00:00:21Has anyone seen an ATEM on boot up successfully acquire an IP via DHCP, but Mix Effect Pro can't find it? Rebooting it again solves it. I noticed this morning in ATEM setup when this happens, the NTP time clock from time.cloudflare.com had a warning.▶ 00:05:15We produce a three-hour live show with remote guests on Zoom. The host and panelists need program return, clocks, audio meters, guest video, and producer info. We currently use multiple Zoom feeds. Is there another way to feed all of this into Zoom without having Zoom instance for each screen?▶ 00:14:50What does a Norwegian Mimo Live and a question management system have to do with each other?▶ 00:16:33Petapixel says the iPhone 18 Pro's new controls skip ISO, which hurts Apple log shooters. Do you shoot in Apple's app or only in Blackmagic camera app?▶ 00:19:26Do you have any opinions on how brick and mortar retail stores in 2026 must compete aggressively to try and keep up with online orders when Amazon sets the bar so high? How does one do that when you don't have Amazon's logistics and money?▶ 00:35:14Starting with Mac OS 27, the preview app allows viewing, editing, and rendering of .usdz files. What are some use cases for this feature that might justify an early upgrade to the latest version of Mac OS?▶ 00:38:21Blackmagic cut the PIXIS 6K to $1,995. Then two weeks later, it listed at $2,245, citing duties and taxes. Did anyone buy it for $1,995? And how do you budget when prices move that fast?▶ 00:39:57Is anyone interested that the new Apple TV has AV1 built in? And what would you want it for?▶ 00:43:24I have quite a bit of gear I haul around in my car for gigs, and it's pretty safe when transporting it, but I'd like to have better cases that protect and are easier to move. Is Pelican the way to go? Stuff like an ATEM, 27-inch screens, by 32-rack cables, all that stuff.▶ 00:49:04When buying gear online, new or used, are there simple checks to spot reproductions?▶ 00:53:43Sony Alpha 1 versus Nikon Z9, nearly the same price, but which flagship is right for you? The Sony Alpha 1 is listed at $5,698, while the Nikon Z9 will cost you $5,296.95.▶ 00:55:04With Zoom OSC Bitfocus Companion, if a user has punctuation in their name, Companion doesn't seem to like that. Can I use their Zoom participant number to send OSC commands for that participant rather than their Zoom name?▶ 00:56:42Does this accessory really turn your phone to a pro camera?