Write the show. Then punch it.
Your running order becomes a cue timeline. Lock it to timecode and it drives the switcher for you, on the frame, all night. Reach for the panel and it lets go instantly. It runs on the computers you already own, so nobody has to sign off on a rack unit.
Simple, cheap, and you're still the one directing.
That's the whole argument. The rest of this page is us backing it up.
Simple
A director runs it. You don't hire somebody to sit next to them and you don't lose a week to training. The running order is on screen, the next cue is the biggest thing on it, and the rest keeps out of your way until you go looking for it. The crew's half is a link you send them.
Cheap
It's software. Windows and macOS today, Linux close behind. It drives the switcher you already own from the computers you already own, so there's nothing extra to buy, rent or fly out. If you've ever priced this kind of system, you know what we mean.
Reliable
It runs the part of the show you handed it and gives it back the moment you reach for the panel. Cut manually and it has noticed before you finish the move. And it runs as a main and backup pair, so a dead machine costs you a few seconds instead of the night.
Half of it is built for live shows. Half is built for broadcast.
Roughly. In practice almost everything here earns its keep on both, which is why it's one list and not two.
The M/E status track: what the programme actually looks like, on the same time axis as the cues. Green means you're covered and free to move. Red means you're exposed. Split and black get their own colours and you set all of them. It sends nothing to the switcher. It's there so nobody has to hold it in their head.
Know when you're covered
While the programme is under graphics you can reposition underneath it and nobody sees a thing. The track above puts that on screen so nobody has to guess.
Markers, and a window for the showcaller
Markers down the timeline, with a countdown that gets louder in colour as it runs out. The list pops out into its own always-on-top window, so whoever is calling the show can stop reading over the operator's shoulder.
One project, every date of the run
A show is a running order for one date. Take the same one down the tour. When one night wants its own version, fork it there and the other dates don't move.
Timecode in, either flavour
Linear timecode on an audio input, or MIDI timecode. It locks, then freewheels through dropouts and pulls drift back before you'd see it. Every rate from 23.976 to 60, drop-frame and non-drop, and a project moves between any two of them without a single cue shifting.
ISO recording, and the morning after
The switcher connection can arm ISO recording, which is still experimental. What isn't: match the recordings to the cue list by timecode afterwards and hand editorial an EDL that conforms first time. PDF cue sheets and CSV fall out of the same file.
Two buses, one playhead
Drive two M/E buses off one running order, each with its own cues and its own breakaway. Kill the automation on one and the other keeps running.
Everyone else just opens a link.
People don't believe this part until they've done it. There's no VPN, no dedicated network, no ticket to IT and nothing to install on anybody's phone. The operator's machine publishes the show and everybody else opens a URL. Venue wifi is fine. So is a phone on 4G, and so is somebody watching from another country.
Built for the network you actually get
The countdown keeps running smoothly when the connection isn't. Latency won't make it stutter and a lost update won't make it jump, which matters a great deal more at the back of a stand than it does at a desk. Bad wifi was the design assumption from the first day.
On your network, or through ours
Inside the venue the operator's machine serves the pages itself and nothing leaves the building. When the crew isn't on that network, the same views go out over the internet through HotPunch's servers on a subscription. Nothing to configure either way, and you can switch between them mid-run.
Anything with a browser
Phones, tablets, whatever laptop somebody brought, that ancient machine in the corner. If it loads a web page it's a screen you can use. There's no app, so there's nothing to install and nothing to keep updated.
Same link, three views
Which view you get is which link you were sent. It isn't only for the floor either: put the director's view on a tablet, on a spare monitor in the gallery, or feed it into your multiview as one more source.
OperatorAm I live, and what am I doing next. Each operator sees only their own shots, never the whole running order.
DirectorON AIR, the transition running, NEXT, and the cue notes. The gallery view on whatever screen suits.
ShowcallerThe marker feed with a live countdown, colour filter and a full-screen flash when one fires.
And the machine it all comes from
One application, Windows and macOS today with Linux close behind, publishing to everything above. It's where the show gets written and where it runs: cue timeline, guide audio and reference video, ON AIR and NEXT, markers, transport. It's dense on purpose, because you'll be working in it at two in the morning.
Every automation question is really "what happens when I want it to stop".
Nobody hands a live programme to software that only has a happy path. Here's the unhappy one.
Four states. The two on the left physically cannot reach the switcher, because that is what those states are, so there's no setting to get wrong. Commands get logged and dropped on the floor. Only Live sends, and Break sits one press from it in either direction.
It gets out of your way
Somebody cuts manually on the panel. HotPunch sees the program bus stop matching what it expected and drops into Break on its own, with no dialog and no argument about whose take it was. Break is also a button, per M/E bus, if you'd rather not wait to be noticed.
Nothing goes out until you're live
Dry run is the state you're in, so there's no checkbox to forget. GO LIVE arms on the first press and only fires on the second, remote control included.
A second machine, already warm
Put a backup machine on the network. It holds the same project and follows the primary by heartbeat. If the primary goes quiet it takes the show. If you spotted it first, there's a TAKEOVER button.
Same project on both. B follows A and knows the whole show, so when A stops answering there is nothing to load and nothing to catch up on. It takes the next cue. TAKEOVER does the same thing on purpose, if you got there first.
And one place for the whole organisation.
Your production company gets its own portal: people, rooms, and the links that reach them. Camera plots too, because somebody always ends up drawing one at midnight.
People, rooms and links
Who reaches which show, on what link, for how long. Hand them out before the crew call and revoke them after, from a browser, without going anywhere near the machine that's running the show.
Camera plots
Top-down venue plans with camera positions, supports and a legend that builds itself. Drop the venue's own drawing in as a background and place the cameras. Export it as a PDF, or hand out a public link that carries every detail and updates when you change something. It's the document everyone asks for the day before, and now it lives where the show does.
Proven on Blackmagic. Working on everyone else.
HotPunch drives what's already in your rack, over the network you already have. It replaces nothing.
Tested in production
Spoken natively, and the one we've run the shows on. The same connection carries the switcher's frame rate back into the timeline, so the app follows the rack instead of the other way round. It's alone on this line because today it's the only one we'll stand behind.
On the bench
All being worked on, against the manufacturers' own documented protocols. Companion is in there too, and it's the route that reaches nearly anything else in a rack. None of them has enough hours on real panels yet, so they ship marked experimental. We'd rather print that here than have you discover it mid-show. If one of them is your rack, say so when you request access.
In and out
Timecode comes in over LTC or MTC. Transport, GO LIVE and breakaway are all drivable from outside over OSC and MIDI, and there's a Bitfocus Companion module, so the Stream Deck already on the desk can run HotPunch as well as the switcher.
We've been quietly cutting shows since January.
Real productions, both of the ways it's meant to be worked, in rooms that forgive very little.
Beside the director
Alongside the gallery without touching the switcher. The running order, the next cue, the countdown, and nothing leaving the machine. That's the low-risk way in and it's how this started.
On the cut
And live, driving the switcher off the timeline. Same file, same running order. The only thing that changes is whether the commands go out.
Arenas and stadiums
Nothing studio-sized. Big crews, long distances, bad networks. Those are the conditions that find the weak spot in something like this, and they found ours early.
Not out yet. Already fixing your live show.
The beta runs with a handful of productions doing real work on a real schedule. If you cut a show against timecode regularly, that's the load we want on it, and yours are the notes we want back.
Everything except the last box is required. It decides who we open it to first, and whether we can honestly help you yet - if your rack is one of the experimental ones, we would rather tell you now. One email when the beta opens. No newsletter, no drip, no sharing your address.
We keep what you send here to work out who gets early access, and for nothing else. It sits on our own server, not a third party's. Write to info@hotpunch.app and we delete it.