Using the Video Keying screen

What is the Video Keying screen? 

Video production teams and broadcasters may want to overlay dynamic Pigeonhole graphics over their own video feeds. The Video keying screen enables this by providing a single colour background to overlay a video feed. 

Sample video feed of a speaker with Pigeonhole reaction graphics overlay 

Currently, only Reactions are supported as a graphic overlay at the moment. 

Have a request for a certain graphic type or interaction you would like to overlay on your video source? Reach out to us at support@pigeonholelive.com. 

Setting up graphics for video keying

On available plans, you will find the video keying screen option in the Projector Panel. 

Selecting this option will turn the background to a default green background. 

The background is then available for video keying by a video production professional. 

Ensure that you have Reactions enabled on your selected session. When attendees react using their reactions widget in their Audience Web App, the reactions graphic will animate in real-time over the video feed. 

Changing background colour 

If you need to change the background colour, select the paint icon to reveal a colour picker. Choose a new colour, and remember to Save to reflect your choice. 

The colour choice will be saved for that session, including future instances of the same session. Other sessions will remain as the default green, unless modified. 

Hiding reactions

If you need to temporarily hide the reactions, toggle the clap icon. This hides the reactions on the projector panel, but your audience will still be able to react on their Audience Web App, allowing for control over the keying layer by activating reactions when needed for your video. Toggle the clap icon to show/hide reactions. 

Commonly asked questions

When should video keying be used? 

As Reactions are the only available graphics for the moment, it is recommended that the video keying screen be used in sessions where Reactions are enabled. This is possible for any session where the parent session has Reactions enabled. 

How do I cast different polls within a session group while having a separate dedicated Projector Panel for video keying only? 

Event organisers may want to key the audience reactions to a session group's polls in real-time as a video layer. 

It can be commonly used for broadcasts or live streaming events. An example use case is where one screen displays a speaker with the reactions overlay, and another screen displays the polls. 

With the screen  displaying polls, session casting is typically used to redirect different polls on screen, and it redirects all instances of the projector panel that are in the same session group to the redirected poll. 

For a screen displaying the speaker and reactions overlay, where the screen should not be redirected to another session, we recommend using a presentation app such as PowerPoint or Google Slides. A Pigeonhole session presented on a presentation app would not be redirected in a cast, allowing the desired screen to stay on the same session. This allows video production teams greater control over their desired screen views. 

My video keying screen does not fill up the entire screen of my video display

You may experience some blank space around your presentation app or projector panel screens. This is due to aspect ratio differences, and you may have to adjust the aspect ratio in PowerPoint or Google Slides to suit your video display of choice.