Linked Sources

Linked sources let the same source appear in multiple places while preserving a single source state. This is useful for timers, browser animations, media, and other sources that should keep running across scenes.

Sources and Items

A Source is the captured entity: a browser page, camera, media file, game capture, or similar host object. An Item is a renderer for that source in a scene.

Source-level properties include things such as browser configuration, media playback, device settings, and custom configuration. Item-level properties include visibility, position, crop, rotation, color adjustments, chroma keying, transitions, and effects.

Creating Linked Sources

Users create linked sources by copying a source and pasting it normally. Unlinked copies are created through the host’s separate-copy command.

XJS can duplicate an item programmatically:

item.duplicate({
  linked: true,
  sceneId: 2,
});

Use linked duplicates when multiple renderers should share one source state. Use unlinked copies when each instance should load and configure itself separately.

Historical Behavior

Older Broadcaster versions conflated linked sources with sources that were kept loaded in memory. Modern XJS separates these concepts: a source can be linked to multiple items without necessarily being kept in memory.