Lesson 12: The settings that matter
Settings is where ZoomISO is shaped to your needs. There is a lot here, so we will walk through each area in plain terms. You do not need all of it on day one. Read it once to know what exists, then come back to the part you need.
Open Settings from the button at the top right, next to your profile picture. The categories run down the left-hand side.
General
The General category gathers the everyday controls for capture, rendering, audio, and warnings.
Capture
Here you set the Capture Permissions Mode, switching between Recording and Live Streaming. This is the same choice we met in Lesson 6, and it decides which permission ZoomISO asks for and what participants are told. You can also have the output pipeline start automatically as soon as you join a meeting, so you are ready faster.
Render
These settings control how ZoomISO processes video inside the app.
- Engine. Choose between Metal, the default and recommended option, and vImage, a legacy option. Metal uses the graphics chip for fast, hardware-accelerated work. vImage uses the main processor instead, and some features may be limited in that mode. Unless you have a specific reason, leave it on Metal.
- Default format. The frame rate and resolution given to each new output you create. Note that some destinations, such as Blackmagic devices, only offer a fixed list of formats, so ZoomISO matches your choice to the closest one they support.
Audio
A list of default values that decide how each row of a newly added audio device is set up, so you are not configuring everything by hand each time.
Auto assign
This manages the Auto Assign feature, which routes participants to outputs automatically based on meeting criteria. You can include or exclude people from being auto-assigned based on things like their role in the meeting or whether their camera is on. With continuous evaluation switched on, people can also be removed from outputs automatically if they later stop qualifying, for example if they turn their camera off.
Interface
Controls for the system performance summary and a warning shown when you reduce the number of outputs. If you switch the performance details off, ZoomISO stops calculating them in the background, and any performance capture in progress stops too.
In-meeting
This section sets the camera, microphone, and speaker that ZoomISO uses with Zoom. It also gives you a shortcut to the Zoom settings menu, and a toggle to switch off the previews of the video being returned to Zoom, which can tidy your screen and save a little effort.
Output Effects
Two helpful options for the effects window from Lesson 9: replace the app’s default frame-guide image with your own, and set a warning before deleting overlay images so you do not lose one by accident.
Video Loss
This area decides what an output should do when the signal from Zoom is unavailable, for instance if a guest’s connection drops. The top of the tab shows a live preview of what viewers will see when Video Loss kicks in.
- Delay time. How long ZoomISO waits for live video to return before switching to the loss content. This wait is skipped when the video stopped for a known reason, such as the person turning off their camera or leaving the meeting, since there is no point waiting in those cases.
- Loss modes. What the output shows during a loss: a picture you choose, a freeze of the last frame, black, colour bars, or a tidy profile-picture layout built for each participant from their name, initials, and image.
- Name on loss. A toggle to print the output’s name over the loss content, so you can still tell which feed is which.
NDI and SRT
These control the two main ways ZoomISO sends video across a network. They are powerful and detailed; here is what each part is for.
NDI
NDI can run as Full Bandwidth, using a codec called SpeedHQ processed on the main processor, or as NDI HX3, where you choose H264 or HEVC and the video is compressed by Apple Silicon’s built-in encoder. Choosing HX3 reveals extra settings for tuning quality and how much network capacity it uses. With automatic bandwidth control, information from Zoom and from the NDI transmitter feeds back to the encoder so it can tune itself; in manual mode you simply set a target bitrate yourself. NDI also has advanced network controls for groups, discovery servers, network adapters, and multicast, plus a Tally indicator that can show customisable border colours on feeds being previewed or aired by a receiving system.
SRT
SRT lets you build a table of channels, each with its own network settings. You pick a hardware-accelerated video codec, paired with AAC audio, sent as a standard stream over SRT. ZoomISO can connect in Caller, Listener, or Rendezvous mode, which are simply different ways for two ends to start talking, and it can automatically accept incoming connections. A Stream ID lets you tell several SRT streams apart when they share one network port. Any channels you create here then appear in the Output Device dropdown back on the Outputs tab.
Don’t be put off. NDI and SRT have a lot of dials, but you only touch the ones your setup calls for. For a first run, the defaults plus a single NDI output are plenty.
OSC
Settings for controlling ZoomISO from external systems. This is a whole topic of its own, so it has its own lesson next.
Recording
The location, naming, and format choices we covered in Lesson 11 live here.
Logs
A scrollable view of what the app is doing internally. Messages are sorted into severity levels: Verbose, Info, Warning, and Error. Choosing a level shows that level and everything more serious above it. Errors point to something that may harm the app, warnings may or may not matter depending on context, info messages are routine notices, and verbose shows fine detail. You can save the logs to a file, which is exactly what the support team will ask for if you ever report a problem.
In short
General covers capture, the Metal rendering engine, audio defaults, auto-assign, and interface warnings. In-meeting sets your devices. Video Loss decides what shows when a feed drops. NDI and SRT are your network video methods, detailed but optional. Logs help you and support diagnose issues. Learn what is here, then return for the piece you need.