Stream Deck and Companion

DCAST has a plugin for Elgato Stream Deck and a module for Bitfocus Companion. Both start and stop your streams and restreams, choose which stream the keys act on, and show the live state, the viewers now and the broadcast duration. They work on your own DCAST account with the same plan and limits as the dashboard, the Free plan included, and they talk to the DCAST cloud API. Your encoder (OBS or similar) sends the signal to DCAST as usual; the deck only controls the broadcast.

What you need

A DCAST account at dcast.pro. Every plan can connect, including the free one.
Stream Deck 7.1 or later on macOS 12+ or Windows 10+, or Bitfocus Companion.
An encoder that sends your stream to DCAST, as without the deck. A stream turns blue on the deck once its signal arrives.

Signing in works like the dashboard: the deck shows a short code and you approve it in your browser. No password is typed on the deck.

Stream Deck: put any DCAST key on the deck and select it. The settings panel starts with the DCAST account section. Leave the server address as https://api.dcast.pro; change it only for a private DCAST server.
Press Sign in. A code such as ABCD-EFGH appears in the panel.
Press Open page (or open the page yourself), sign in to DCAST there as you do in the dashboard, check that the code matches and approve it.
The panel now shows that you are signed in with your account name, and the keys fill with your streams within a few seconds. No password is stored on the deck.

If you decline or the code expires, the panel says so: press Sign in again for a new code, or Cancel to stop waiting.

Companion: add the DCAST module, keep the DCAST API address https://api.dcast.pro and save the connection. The connection status shows the code; it is also in $(dcast:login_code), and the page to open is $(dcast:login_url). Open it, sign in to DCAST and approve the code.

Actions

Stream Deck actions are in the DCAST category of the Stream Deck app:

Action	What it does
`Start / Stop`	Starts the selected stream, or stops it while it is live. In the key settings you can fix the key to one stream or restream, or make it start only or stop only.
`Viewers`	Shows the viewers now and the broadcast duration of the selected stream, or of the one the key is fixed to.
`Select stream`	Each press steps to the next of your streams. The other keys act on the stream selected here.
`Menu item`	One stream of an on-deck menu. Place several with positions 1, 2, 3 and so on; pressing one selects its stream.
`Menu page`	Shows the next page of the menu items. Give it the same number of items per page as the menu keys use.
`Stream dial`	Stream Deck + only: turn the dial to choose a stream, press or tap to start or stop it. The touch strip shows its state.

A Start / Stop key can also be fixed to a restream. It shows the duration while the restream is live and, while it is stopped, how many outputs can go out, for example 2/3 outputs.

The Companion module offers the same: actions to start, stop or toggle a stream or a restream, to choose a stream (previous, next, from a menu) and to sign out, ready-made presets, feedback colours, and variables such as $(dcast:selected_viewers) and $(dcast:selected_duration) for button text.

Colours

Keys and Companion buttons use the same colours:

Grey: not connected or not signed in.
Dark: no signal from your encoder yet.
Blue: the signal has arrived, the stream is ready to start.
Amber: starting or stopping.
Red: live.
Orange: the last press was refused. The key shows the reason for a few seconds, for example No signal, Plan limit, No outputs or Output limit.

A second press right after Start never stops a stream that is still starting.

Sign out

Stream Deck: open the settings of any DCAST key and press Sign out.
Companion: run the Sign out action from a button.

Signing out ends the deck's session at DCAST and deletes its tokens from your computer; if DCAST cannot be reached at that moment, the deck still forgets the sign-in. Changing the server address signs you out as well.

Privacy

The plugin and the module send only your own requests to the DCAST API at https://api.dcast.pro: the sign-in and the streams of your account. They collect no analytics. DCAST privacy policy: https://dcast.pro/privacy.

Support

Write to [email protected]. Streams are documented in the Streams API; plan limits and error codes are the same as in the API (see Errors and limits).