> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.vaudiolink.eu/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# How media flows

> Understand what each product captures, forwards, and creates inside OBS.

All three products separate control from media. The control plane handles account authorization and room credentials; a relay forwards the product's native media path.

```mermaid theme={null}
flowchart LR
  A["Host or sender OBS dock"] -->|"native product media"| R(("Relay"))
  R -->|"same media path"| B["Guest or receiver OBS dock"]
  A -. "account, room, credential" .-> C["Control plane"]
  B -. "temporary guest credential" .-> C
```

<Note>
  Hosted relays do not transcode, normalize, gate, downmix, or store collaboration media. Product endpoints perform the required capture, encoding, decoding, and OBS source management.
</Note>

## Product differences

| Product      | Direction                   | Media                                                  | Receiver-side result                              |
| ------------ | --------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------- |
| ASMR Collab  | Partner-to-partner audio    | Stereo PCM or AAC path                                 | Plugin-managed remote audio source                |
| Music Collab | Vocals plus shared timeline | Opus vocal path and synchronized backing asset/control | Combined output and managed backing/video sources |
| Scene Share  | One-way sender to receiver  | Muxed H.264 video and AAC audio over SRT               | One **Incoming Program** source                   |

## Why Music Collab shares a timeline

Two independent media players drift and do not start at exactly the same instant. Music Collab prepares one backing asset and schedules playback against a common song position. Vocals are aligned to that song timeline instead of pretending internet conversational latency can disappear.

## Why Scene Share keeps audio and video together

Scene Share muxes H.264 video and AAC audio into the same SRT stream. The receiver adds that stream as one OBS source so network buffering does not create separate audio and video clocks.

## What vAudioLink does not change

The docks operate independently of the user's global OBS configuration. They do not replace:

* The configured streaming service or stream key.
* Recording format or destination.
* Global Output settings.
* Global Audio settings.
* Existing user-owned scenes and sources.

The user chooses when to add or remove plugin-managed collaboration sources.