Trim without editing
Set IN and OUT on any video and only that part plays — on the card, on the progress bar, on stage. The file never changes, and you never open a video editor to cut a ten-second clip.
[ macOS · Windows — public beta ]
Run the big screen
from one window.
A background that loops underneath.The slide you cued in front of it.Captions and logos over the top.Each one its own layer, each one a click away.
For the person at the back of the room.A laptop, a projector, two minutes before doors.
LayerCue
LayerCue is a live media player for the big screenBackgrounds · slides · captions · logos · musicFree while it’s beta
[ 02 — Layers ]
One screen.
Seven layers.
A background that loops underneath.The slide you cued in front of it — lyrics, video, image.Five overlays over it all: lower thirds, logos, alerts.Each one cues on its own.Change one, the rest don’t move.
| Background | video or image, looping underneath |
|---|---|
| Foreground | the slide you cue: lyrics, video, image |
| Overlays ×5 | lower thirds, logos, alerts |
Keep scrolling — the screen comes apart.
[ 03 — Cues ]
Click a slide.
It’s live.
Every row here is a layer, and each layer holds one slide at a time.Click one and it goes up with a crossfade.Take one down with its ✕, or all of them with Clear All.The layers underneath stay as they are. Try it, this one works.
QLayerState
Session 02
The Long Now
7:30 PM — Main Hall
Dana KimCreative Director
Annex
Screen is clear
In the app: one click sends a slide live · clicking it again leaves it up · ⌥ Option / Alt-click loads a slide into Slide settings without putting it on screen
[ 04 — Screens ]
One stage.
Every screen.
Add a monitor for every screen in the room — the main wall, the stage, the lobby.Each one shows only the layers you switch on for it.It is still one stage and one cue sheet.Send a slide once, and every monitor that shows its layer has it.Each monitor has its own power switch, and LayerCue remembers each one.
01Audience
02Stage
03Lobby
In the app: the seven cells under each monitor preview — B, F and 1–5 — choose what that monitor shows. Add monitors in Settings › Stage › Output monitors; one can also be a virtual screen, a preview with no window. Docs
The showgoes out.Your desktopstays put.
Point LayerCue at the projector once and it takes that screen — nothing else.Video, images, music: out where you point them, as long as you want.
You’ve done this before.Or you haven’t. The room can’t tell.
No dragging windows across displays · no edit view on the wall · no “one second, sorry”
[ 05 — Toolkit ]
Bring it in.
Send it out.
Your material already exists — a PowerPoint, a PDF, a folder of clips.Bring it in as it is, finish it here,and send it to the switcher, the stream and every screen.
- 01
Libraries & cue sheets
Keep every presentation in a library — a real folder on your computer. Each event is a cue sheet: it holds the running order, not copies, so one song can sit in many events. ⌘F / Ctrl+F finds a title or a line of lyrics.
Docs→ - 02
PowerPoint & PDF
Open a .pptx and its slides come in as text and pictures you can still edit. A PDF comes in page by page as sharp images, up to 5120 pixels on the long side. Export any presentation back to PDF, with the text kept as text.
Docs→ - 03
Fill & key for the switcher
Add fill & key in the Stage output window and the picture and its key go out on two outputs into your video switcher, so titles and lyrics sit cleanly over the camera. LayerCue draws the stage once for both, so they never drift apart, and the key preview shows in black and white. On a Mac, one Blackmagic DeckLink or UltraStudio can send both.
Docs→ - 04
Make it with AI, if you like
Connect Claude Desktop, LM Studio or Cursor from Settings with one button, reopen that app, then just ask: build a cue sheet, split these lyrics into slides. Each edit the AI makes is one undo. LayerCue talks to that app on this computer only; a cloud AI such as Claude or Cursor sends what it reads to its own servers.
Docs→ - 05
NDI® & Syphon
Send the stage without a cable. NDI® reaches other computers, switchers and streaming apps on the network, or another app on this computer; on a Mac, Syphon hands it to another app on the same Mac. Choose the name receivers see, HD, 4K or portrait, the frame rate and a transparent background if you need one. NDI® is a registered trademark of Vizrt NDI AB.
Docs→ - 06
Safe on stage
Turn on “Lock editing while live” and no slide gets changed by accident mid-show. Esc never takes anything off the screen — each monitor has its own power switch above its preview. If a projector cable comes out, that output stops and tells you. Deleted the wrong thing? ⌘Z / Ctrl+Z brings back slides, presentations, even a whole library — unlock first if editing is locked.
Docs→
[ 06 — Details ]
Small things
that hold up
on stage.
Fit it without Photoshop
Scale and crop any video or image right where it sits: show the part you want, filling the screen without stretching it — or let a blurred copy of the picture fill what’s left over.
Screens you don’t have yet
Build the show against a virtual screen before you ever plug into the projector — 16:9 out of the box, and 4:3, vertical or any size you add in Settings.
Overlays that leave on time
Give a presentation an auto-dismiss time and its overlays go down by themselves — the speaker’s name leaves after eight seconds while you are already cueing the next thing.
Long text splits itself
Paste a whole song or a reading and LayerCue breaks it into slides for you. Style one of them the way you like, then paste that look onto the rest.
PowerPoint, still editable
Open a .pptx and every slide is rebuilt from LayerCue’s own text boxes, shapes and pictures — the words stay words. Spot a typo five minutes before you start and fix it right here: no PowerPoint on this computer, no going back to export it again.
Every presentation is a file of its own, and your libraries and media sit in plain folders on your computer — back them up, keep last year’s on a shelf. Your show stays yours.
[ 07 — Rooms ]
Rooms with
a screen.
If a screen faces people, somebody has to run it.LayerCue is for that somebody.
- 01
Concerts & theatre
Looping scenery behind the act, surtitles above it, and a blackout that lands exactly on the beat.
- 02
Conferences & events
Walk-in slides, speaker lower thirds, sponsor loops — cued in order, not fumbled between apps.
- 03
Worship services
Lyrics over moving backgrounds, scripture for the sermon, announcements — run by a volunteer, not a video engineer.
- 04
Talks & classrooms
One person, one laptop: your clips, your slides, your PDFs — in the order you’ll tell it.
- 05
Shops & cafés
Menu boards, promos, a notice in the window — on a TV, a monitor or an LED wall. Changed in ten seconds, not ten minutes.
[ 08 — Beta ]
Free
while it’s
beta.
The aim is to hold what the professional tools hold,at a price one person can pay without thinking twice.Right now it is beta, so there is no charge at all.Run a show with it and tell us what got in the way.No account is needed to run a show.Settings ask for a Google sign-in once.Turn on “Keep settings in my account” and they follow you.
- macOS
- 13 or later · Apple silicon & Intel
- Windows
- 10 (1809) or later · x64 · Microsoft Store
- Price
- free during the beta