This page contains information to help you use the app and the website. If it doesn’t answer your questions, or you’d like to give us feedback, please contact us.
Click here for our privacy policy.
Click here for information about editing your mosaics on nthscreen.tv.
Important. Nth Screen requires a reasonably robust connection to the internet. WiFi (connected to broadband) is best. Otherwise, try your mobile data connection. We recommend setting up the mobile with the best connection as a WiFi hotspot, and connecting the other mobiles to it. You can always upload your films later over a broadband connection.
You don’t need to be in the same place to film together but everyone has to be internet-connected.
To film together with Nth Screen:
- Join the same group
- Enter the recording session
- Record together
- Review your films in Sync
- Upload your films
- Make and share your mosaic
Join the same group
Tap anywhere on the splash page to go to the clock page. The clock is the set of three coloured bars ticking round, with information above it about the group you’re in, and buttons around it. More about this later.
Devices connected to the same WiFi network will automatically be in the same group. In the following image, the device begins in a network group with two others that had already joined.
It has automatically joined this group by being connected to the network. You can verify it is in the local network group by pressing the group button 
If you want to distinguish yourselves from others on the network or you are filming remotely, you’ll all need to use the same group name. Tap the group button again to enter a group name of your choice:
The clock will show ‘(joining…)’ for a short while. When the joining process has completed, tap the clock again to verify you are in the group you typed, say ‘mygroup’. If a friend also typed in ‘mygroup’, both would be in the group, and you would become Camera 1 of 2 and Camera 2 of 2.
However, someone else might have typed in the same name, which would mean they joined your group. You can create a more unique name, consisting of lower-case letters, digits, the dash character ‘-‘ and the special character @. The first time you type @ in a group name, the app will automatically add a random string of letters and digits.
If you want to restrict your group name to selected friends, it’s up to you to be careful who you tell about it, and how.
The website nthscreen.tv will display characters before any ‘@’ character in your group name, but none of the characters after a first ‘@’ symbol. So you can give your group a public name but hide the secret characters at the end of it. E.g. m32skaterz@8su8HjS will be displayed on the website as m32skaterz@.
Note the share button that has appeared to the left of the clock after you’ve typed in a group. Use this to send the group name to others by email or another means.
When you click on a group link you’ve received from someone, you’ll be taken to an nthscreen.tv page. Click on that link on your mobile if you want to join the group.
More about the clock
The closer the three bars of the clock, the better your device is synchronised to the Nth Screen servers. If the bars are far apart, that means the network conditions are poor. Nth Screen may struggle to synchronise your recordings with those of other devices.
If two devices are connected to the same group, the clocks should ‘tick’ at the same time. If they aren’t ticking together, check you’ve all entered exactly the same group name.
By the way, you don’t have to tap the group button: tapping anywhere on the clock will have the same effect.
Scheduling a recording
Perhaps you don’t need to be spontaneous and are planning ahead – e.g. you would like to arrange a shoot for 12 noon tomorrow. You can schedule a recording session. Everyone who receives an invitation to your session will not only know when to be ready, but will be able to see a shared countdown leading up to the recording, and receive an alert five minutes before it begins.
Click on the schedule button next to the clock:
This enables you to review (and jump to) your scheduled recordings, and create a new scheduled recording. You will enter:
- The name of the session, e.g. Sandra and Mike’s wedding
- The name of the group to use, e.g. sandraxmike@4hjy679
- The day and time of the recording in your local timezone, e.g. 3:10pm 3rd March.
Once you’ve made a recording session, you can share it with your friends via email or Facebook. Maybe even share it with the world via Twitter…. The scheduled recording appears as a link, which your friends will click on to receive (just as they receive shared groups). The date and time of the recording schedule will appear according to their local time zone.
Please note that the app won’t automatically start recording once the countdown has finished. That’s up to you: you might want to ensure enough people are ready. Equally, you can continue to use the group of that session. E.g. at a wedding, there might be one specific time for everyone to record, but then smaller groups can arrange to make their own films. Using the same group enables all the mosaics to be linked.
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Enter the recording session
Click on the camera icon to join the recording session
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Record together
Anyone in the recording session can press the record button. All the devices will begin recording together a few seconds later. A progress circle appears until recording begins, then a progress bar appears at the top of the screen as recording takes place.
By default, the devices will record for the time specified in the settings of the device that initiated the recording. However, it is possible to stop filming early, or record in several shoots. The person who started recording will have a pause button (no one else will). Pressing this will halt the recording. Once recording is halted, you can press the stop button that appears below the record button to complete the recording session. Alternatively, anyone in the group can press the record button to continue.
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Review your films in sync
At the end of a recording session the device will present the film recorded on your phone. If anyone presses the play button, the devices will all play the films in sync — as long as they remain in the same group.
If instead you prefer for your device to go back to recording mode automatically instead of review mode after a recording, you can select that option in the settings. This is useful if you have placed a device to record repeatedly, i.e. it is not in anybody’s hands.
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Upload
Films are uploaded to the Nth Screen servers only if you press the upload button that appears in the bottom-right of the review screen. You can press the upload button at any time and it will still appear with the other films recorded in the same session. You might want to wait until you have better bandwidth, for example.
After successful upload, the upload button is replaced by a share button. To the left of the share button, the mosaic button enables you to view the mosaic on your mobile dev
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Make and share your mosaic
All the videos recorded in a session will appear in a shared mosaic (a web page on nthscreen.tv). Anyone who filmed in the session can edit this mosaic; no one else can. You can edit the collection of videos much as you would be able to manipulate rectangles in a drawing program. You’ll need to coordinate if more than one person wants to edit the mosaic: if two people edit it and save it at the same time, one person’s changes will be lost.
Please note that mobile browsers may struggle to show a mosaic. Also, editing functionality on a mobile (by touch) is very limited. We recommend using a browser on a machine with a mouse or pen.
To begin editing, click on the tools icon to set Edit mode to On:
In edit mode, you can:
- Change the mosaic’s title
- Add and remove tags
- Alter the arrangement of videos. You can drag, resize, rotate, flip, raise and lower, clone (copy),and delete (remove from the mosaic) each video.
- Click on a video to drag it and change its position
- Right-click (control-click) on a video for a menu of other options
A known quirk is that resizing a rotated video may work unintuitively: try dragging the handle in different directions.
Once you’re happy with the results, go back to the tools menu to save it.
To share it on Facebook or Twitter, click the share icon:
