Installing
Download the build for your machine. There are three: Windows, macOS for Apple Silicon, and macOS for Intel. If you have an Intel Mac from 2013 to 2016, take the build marked for older Macs — it is the same application compiled against an older framework so it will run on Big Sur.
On Windows, run the installer and allow it through the firewall prompt when it appears. That prompt is what lets phones on your network find the studio; deny it and phone cameras will not connect.
On macOS, drag the application to Applications and open it. The first launch asks for camera, microphone and screen-recording permission. Grant all three — screen recording is needed even if you never capture a screen, because it is also what lets the application read window titles for the source list.
Activating your licence
Skynat Live is sold as a plan: a year at a time, or month by month. Nothing renews on its own and no card is kept on file — when the plan is about to end you get an email, and you renew from your dashboard whenever you choose; the time is added on to the end. A licence bought before plans, as a one-off, never runs out.
Sign in with the email address you bought with. The licence attaches to your account, not to the machine, so you can move to a new computer without asking anyone.
The licence is checked roughly every thirty days over the internet. It is never checked during a broadcast, and a failed check does not interrupt a production that is already running — you are simply told the next time you open the application.
What you are looking at
The screen divides into four. Down the left is the rail: Video, Tools, Music, Colour, Media, Chat, Outputs, Settings. Those are the rooms.
Across the middle are Preview and Programme. Preview is what you are lining up. Programme is what the audience sees. Nothing reaches the audience until you Take.
Below that is the transition row and the scene row. Underneath those, the input sources — every camera, media file and graphic you have added.
Down the right is the mixer strip and the stream controls.
Skynat Live Max and the Max pack
Max is the same application with the heavy, GPU-deep features open: the larger speech model for captions, hair-aware cut-outs, the depth-aware studio, companion desks, and more as they ship. A Max licence opens them; the app you already have is the app — nothing else to install.
What those features need that the standard app does not carry — the models — comes as the Max pack. Settings › Skynat Live Max › Install the Max pack downloads it into the app's own data folder: every file is listed with its size and hash in a list signed by Skynat Labs, and the app checks the signature and every hash before a pack is used. Nothing executable is ever downloaded. A newer pack is offered the same way; Remove takes it off the computer.
The pack is large — the first one is about 740 MB — so install it on a good connection before the day, not on the day.
Signing in to the platforms
Settings › Connections: one row per platform. Sign-in opens in your browser and the platform hands a code straight back to the app on your computer; nothing you type passes through Skynat Labs, and the token stays encrypted on your machine. Disconnect deletes it.
X can post that you are live, with the title and the watch link. Twitch chat joins as your channel and a button fills your stream key into a Twitch destination. Facebook creates the Live broadcast on your Page from Outputs. Instagram Live has no way in for other software: start it in Live Producer and paste the key.
Your first five minutes
Add one camera. Click Add Source, pick Camera, choose your webcam. It appears in the input row and in Preview.
Press Take. It moves to Programme. That is the whole switching model — line it up on the left, take it to the right.
Add a second source, even if it is only an image. Click between them. Try the transition buttons: Cut, Fade, Wipe, Push, Zoom.
You now know how to run a show. Everything else in this manual is refinement.