Installing Visibox

What you need

Mac	macOS 12 (Monterey) or later. Visibox is a universal app, so it runs natively on both Intel and Apple Silicon Macs.
Windows	Windows 10 or later, 64-bit.

There are no specific hardware requirements. Higher-resolution content and larger Projects benefit from a faster drive and a faster CPU and GPU. If playback is not smooth on the machine you have, Optimizing Visibox is the page to read.

Download

Go to spaceage.tv and use the download button for your platform. It always gives you the current release.

Older releases are on the Legacy Downloads page, which also carries the release notes for each one.

Install on a Mac

1. Open the downloaded disk image.
2. Drag Visibox into your Applications folder.
3. Eject the disk image and open Visibox from Applications.

Put it in Applications and leave it there. Visibox updates itself in place, and it cannot do that from a disk image, your Downloads folder, or anywhere else. Running it from the wrong place is one of the reasons an update check fails. See Update Settings.

The first time you open it, macOS confirms that you want to open an application downloaded from the internet. Click Open.

Permissions macOS will ask for

Visibox asks for these when it first needs them, not all at once. Each one is refusable, and refusing costs you only the feature it belongs to.

• Camera, the first time you add a Camera Clip.
• Microphone, the first time you use an audio input.
• Screen recording, if you turn on System Audio Input. See Audio Settings.

Visibox also checks two System Settings that interfere with full-screen output, and offers to change them for you. Let it. See Setting Up for Live Performance.

Install on Windows

1. Run the downloaded installer.
2. Visibox installs and opens on its own.

Windows may show a Windows protected your PC screen the first time. Click More info, then Run anyway.

The installer puts Visibox where it can update itself. If you unpack a copy by hand instead, updates will not work, and Update Settings tells you so. See Update Settings.

Antivirus

Real-time antivirus reads every file Visibox writes, which includes large video files as they import and a fresh backup every five minutes. That slows things down, sometimes badly.

The first time you open a Project, Visibox notices which scanner is running and offers to exclude the Project folder. With Windows Defender it can do it for you, and Windows asks you to approve it. See Antivirus and file indexing.

First launch

Visibox opens with no Project. Two good next moves:

• Choose Help > Download/Open Demo Project… and look around a finished Project. This is the fastest way in.
• Follow the Quick Start, which goes from here to a Clip on a screen in eight steps.

Signing in

Visibox has a free plan, and a 14-day trial that turns everything on. You do not need to pay to start, and you do not need to decide now.

Sign in from the Registration window, which Visibox shows you when it needs to. Your Account covers what each plan includes and how activation works across computers.

Visibox checks in with our servers from time to time to confirm your plan. It keeps working when the machine is offline, so a venue with no internet is not a problem. See Working offline.

Updating

Visibox checks for updates on its own and asks before it downloads anything. It never interrupts a show: while the Output, Controller or Lyrics window is full screen, it does not check, does not open the update window, and does not ask you to relaunch.

Everything about updates, including how to check on demand and how to skip a version, is in Update Settings.