Will the video preview work here?¶
Every control feature in Moonshine — projectors, warping, masking, playback, the scene — works in any modern browser over any connection. Only the live video preview is fussy, and it fails in a small number of specific, fixable ways.
Moonshine tells you which one you are in with a badge on the preview. This page explains each badge and what fixes it.
The two things the preview needs¶
A secure connection. Browsers only expose live video decoding on a secure address — https://, or localhost on the machine itself. Over a plain http:// address to another machine, the decoder does not exist at all. This is a browser rule, not a Moonshine setting, and nothing in the app can work around it.
A device that can decode HEVC. The show machine encodes the preview once, in hardware, as HEVC (H.265). Your device has to decode it. Most current hardware can; some cannot.
What the badge is telling you¶
| Badge | What it means | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| No preview over http — use localhost or https | You reached the show machine at a plain http:// address, so the browser withholds the video decoder entirely. |
Use the https:// address instead — see joining from another device — or use the Windows app, which needs no certificate setup. |
| Video blocked — this device doesn't trust the stream certificate yet | You are on https://, but this device has not been told to trust the show machine's certificate. |
Open /trust.html on the show machine's address and follow it once per device. |
| Video blocked — import the Moonshine certificate into Firefox | Same as above, but Firefox keeps its own certificate store and scopes manual exceptions per port, so it needs the certificate imported rather than an exception clicked. | Import the certificate into Firefox's own store. Clicking through the warning is not enough here. |
| Preview not supported on this browser/GPU | The connection is fine; this device cannot decode HEVC. | See the table below. Use a different device, or work without the preview. |
| Stream unavailable | A transient problem. Moonshine retries by itself. | Wait. If it persists, check that the show machine is still running. |
| Disconnected | The stream closed. | Reconnect. |
The app sidesteps the first three
The Windows app connects without certificates, so the secure-connection and certificate badges cannot happen there. It is the shortest path to a working preview on Windows.
Which devices can decode HEVC¶
Moonshine asks your browser directly (VideoDecoder.isConfigSupported) rather than guessing from the browser name, so the badge reflects what your actual hardware reports. As a rough guide:
| Device | Preview |
|---|---|
| Windows on recent Intel, AMD or NVIDIA graphics | Yes |
| Mac with Apple Silicon (M1 and later) | Yes |
| Recent Intel Macs | Usually |
| iPhone / iPad, iOS 17 or later | Yes |
| Android — recent devices, Chrome | Usually |
| Older phones, tablets and laptops | Often not |
| Virtual machines and remote desktops | Frequently not — they usually have no hardware decoder to expose |
HEVC decoding is a hardware capability. A device either has the decoder or it does not, and no browser setting adds one. If a device reports unsupported, that is the honest answer for that device.
A device that cannot show the preview is still fully usable
It can drive every part of the show. Only the live picture is missing. On a mixed crew it is normal for some devices to show the preview and others not — nothing else differs between them.
If you are choosing hardware¶
The reliable combination is a recent laptop, phone or tablet reaching the show machine over https://, or the Windows app if you are on Windows and would rather skip certificates entirely.
Avoid relying on a virtual machine or a remote-desktop session for the preview: they rarely expose a hardware decoder, and that is the one thing nothing else can substitute for.
See what you need for the show machine's own requirements, which are much stricter.