Stream from the Hubl Live desktop app

Hubl Live is the desktop version of the streaming Control Room. Scenes, text, destinations and the Go live button work exactly as they do in the browser. What changes is capture: the app reads your sound board or audio interface directly, without the browser’s call processing, and captures screens itself. For a church that streams every week from the same computer, it is the better choice.

Install it

Go live

The home screen asks Ready to go live? Choose the service, and you are in the Control Room. From there, follow Go live with your service from Add what people will see and hear onward.

If a broadcast is already running, the home screen shows it with Rejoin broadcast. Once you are live, a Broadcast still live bar follows you around the app, so you can get back to the Control Room or end the broadcast from anywhere.

Run slides in Presenter

Open Presenter in the desktop sidebar. The name of the open service is the page title; choose it to switch to another service, start a New service, rename it, or delete it. Switching leaves the current slide on stage until you present or clear another. The service's items appear on the left; choose an item to see its slides. Presenter works before you go live, and the broadcast keeps running while you switch between Presenter and Livestream.

Arrange the order of service

Drag any item in the order of service to move it. Choose Add group under the list to add a heading such as Worship or Message; every item below a group belongs to it until the next group. Drag a group to move it with all its items, or click its name to fold it away. A group's ⋯ menu renames it, moves it, or removes it; removing a group keeps its items. Moving things never changes the slide on stage.

Build a service from your plan

New service lists your worship services for the next three weeks, the same services your bulletin and set lists use. Pick a date and Presenter builds it for you: each song from that date's set list in the order the band plays its parts, a title slide for each other set-list moment (such as Welcome or Offering), the sermon title, speaker and scripture from that date's sermon notes, and an Announcements item with that week's public bulletin notices and upcoming public events. Announcements and the sermon go where your set list has a row named for them; otherwise announcements open the service and the sermon closes it. Choose Blank service to start from nothing instead.

When the set list changes in Hubl, open the service menu and choose Refresh from plan. Items you have not changed follow the plan; items you edited in Presenter keep your edits, and items you added yourself stay where you put them. Refreshing never changes the slide on stage. Set lists need song-library permission, or a place on a worship team.

Choose Add item to open a separate authoring page, or select an existing item and choose Edit item. The selected slide appears as the audience will see it: click the slide and type. Use Add slide below the slide list for the next one, and drag slides in the list to change their order. The toolbar sets the look of every slide in the item. Choose Full screen, or Lower third to put the words at the bottom on a dark band, which reads well over a video or the stream. Adjust holds the background color, text color, and text size; a slide with more text than fits shrinks on its own. Choose Use for new items to make the look your church's default: new items, and services built from the plan, start with it on every computer. Slides fade into each other on stage. Image opens your church’s photo library on its Presenter section, with every other photo under All photos; photos you add or pick there stay filed under Presenter in the gallery for next time. Slide images load from Hubl, so the computer needs an internet connection to show them. If you leave the name blank, the item takes the first line of its first slide. Use Import from Hubl at the top for songs, public events, and public church announcements. A song stays together as one service item, with its sections split into slides. Song imports require song-library permission. Imported content is an editable copy; import again to pick up later changes in Hubl.

Slides from Google Slides, PowerPoint or Keynote

Download the deck as a PDF (in Google Slides, choose File, Download, then PDF). In the item editor, choose Import PDF and pick the file. Each page becomes a slide showing that page as a picture, so animations and embedded videos don't carry over, and nothing is sent as stream text. A PDF can have up to 200 pages.

Video and audio

Select a slide in the item editor and choose Video or audio. A video fills the slide; any text you type shows on top of it. Audio plays under the slide, which is handy for walk-in music behind the announcements. Turn on Loop to repeat it. MP4 video and MP3 or M4A audio work everywhere. When you present the slide, it plays from the start through this computer's sound output, and a player appears at the bottom of Presenter: play and pause, restart, a bar you can drag to jump anywhere in the file, the time played and left, and the volume for the room. Previews in Presenter stay muted. Hide stage and Clear stop the sound too.

Moving backgrounds

Choose Motion in the item editor's toolbar to put a slow, silent loop behind every slide in the item. Pick one of the built-in loops, or Use your own video for an MP4 of your church's. The loop keeps playing as you move from slide to slide, and on into the next item when it uses the same background. Text sits on top, so pick a text color that reads well over it.

Choose Add to service or Save item to return to Presenter. Cancel discards draft edits, including changes to the item's place in the service. Saving edits leaves the current output unchanged until you click a slide to present it. The stage receives the complete slide; the stream receives only its text over the current video. Use Next slide, Previous, the arrow keys, or a presentation clicker to advance. A clicker's blank button (or the B key) hides the stage.

The Stage preview shows the room's output. Choose Livestream to preview the stream in the Control Room. Open Output settings to choose the house display and Open output; with one display, use Window preview. Output settings also holds Import service, Export service, and Hide stream text. Hide stage and Hide stream text work independently. Clear removes the slide from both outputs without stopping the broadcast.

Allow camera, microphone and screen access

The first time you add each kind of source, your computer asks whether Hubl Live may use it. Allow it.

• macOS: if you said no, the prompt will not come back. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security, turn Hubl Live on under Camera, Microphone or Screen Recording, then remove the source in the Control Room and add it again.
• Screen capture on older Macs: the app’s own screen capture needs macOS 12.3 or later. On earlier versions, or if Screen Recording is off, it falls back to the standard system picker.

Sound from your board

The app captures your audio interface directly. If it cannot, the Sound section says it is using Browser fallback. The broadcast still works, but the sound can be processed the way a video call is. Check the app has microphone permission and the interface is plugged in, then remove and add the input again. Fix stream audio problems covers the rest.

Settings

• Default devices remembers the camera, microphone and screen you use each week, so you do not pick them again every Sunday.
• Updates installs new versions. The app restarts to finish. Do not update in the middle of a service.
• Cast to TV sends the live stream to a TV or streaming stick on the same network, for an overflow room or foyer screen.