VideoLink
A video player that follows your DAW.
What it is
VideoLink is for writing music to picture. Load a clip, trim the section you're scoring, pin it above your DAW — then press play in the DAW and the video follows: in tempo, frame-locked, bar-aware.
Ableton Link keeps the clock drift-free. The included VideoLink Beacon plugin (CLAP) sits on any track and mirrors the true playhead — start from bar 33, click a locator, work in 7/8 — the picture stays exactly where the music is.
Features
Chase
The DAW owns the transport. Play, stop, jump — the video starts at the mapped frame and stays locked with imperceptible speed nudges.
Playhead mirroring
The Beacon broadcasts position, tempo, meter, and bar bookkeeping straight from the host — exact through odd meters and signature changes.
Trim & entry bar
In/out points choose the picture; "Enters bar N" places it on your timeline. Outside the range: black, or SMPTE bars.
Musical timeline
Video timecode above, live bar grid below — the grid follows the session tempo and meter.
Stays out of the way
Always-on-top pin and global hotkeys (⌃⌥⌘V / ⌃⌥⌘H) to summon or dismiss the window while the DAW has focus.
Zero-setup fallback
No plugin? Link alone still chases transport start/stop with bars counted from play.
Download
Builds are ad-hoc signed. After unzipping, clear quarantine once:
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine VideoLink.appInstall the Beacon by copying videolink_beacon.clap to ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/CLAP.
Setup
- Enable Ableton Link in your DAW (Bitwig: Dashboard → Settings → Synchronization).
- Drop VideoLink Beacon on any track — or save it into your default template. It's a pass-through; it just tells VideoLink where the playhead is.
- Open a video in VideoLink, trim with
I/O, set the bar where the picture enters. - Turn on Chase and press play in the DAW.
Keys
| Space | play/pause (standalone mode) |
| S | stop to in-point |
| ← → | frame step |
| I / O | set in/out point |
| M | mute video audio (default muted) |
| P | pin above the DAW |
| ⌃⌥⌘V / ⌃⌥⌘H | global show+pin / hide+unpin |