User guide
Everything you need to install Pickscreen and run your wall on game day. Inside the app, F1 or ? shows the same key list any time.
- What you need
- Install
- First launch
- Controls
- Settings
- Two screens
- Free, trial, and license
- Good to know
- Help
What you need
- Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit
- A Chromium-based browser such as Brave, Chrome, or Edge (Pickscreen finds it for you)
- Your own subscriptions to whatever you want to watch
Pickscreen includes no content. Every pane is your own browser, signed into your own account, playing exactly what it would play in an ordinary tab. If you cannot watch it in your browser, you cannot watch it in Pickscreen.
Install
- Download Pickscreen.exe from the download page and run it.
- Pickscreen offers to install itself into your user folder and add a Start menu entry (a desktop shortcut is optional). No administrator approval is needed. Choose Not now to run it from wherever you downloaded it instead.
Pickscreen is code-signed, but the certificate is new, so Windows may show a "Windows protected your PC" screen for the first few weeks. Click More info, check that the publisher reads Fedor Doubov, then click Run anyway. If the publisher shows any other name, delete the file.
Updates. Pickscreen checks for a new version when it starts and shows a notice when one is available. Updates are free.
Uninstall. Use Add/Remove Programs like any other app. This removes the app, its shortcuts, and your app data, including your service sign-ins.
First launch
Pickscreen opens a grid on your monitor with a short tour the first time. Press T any time to see it again.
- Fill a pane. Click an empty pane (or press Tab) and pick a service from the list, or paste any URL. The list includes ESPN, Paramount+, YouTube TV, DirecTV Stream, Fubo, Sling TV, Peacock, Hulu, Max, Netflix, Prime Video, Apple TV, NFL+, NBA, MLB.TV, Twitch, and YouTube. Anything else that plays in your browser works by pasting its address.
- Sign in and start your stream. Double-click a pane to bring its browser window forward. Sign in, start the game, then minimize the browser. Pickscreen crops the pane to just the video automatically. Each service keeps its own sign-in, so you only do this once.
- Pick what you hear. Click a pane or press its number. That pane plays sound and everything else goes quiet.
Panes are display-only. Anything you want to do inside a stream (change the game, pause, sign in) happens in the real browser window. Double-click the pane to get there.
Controls
Sound
| Do this | To |
|---|---|
| Click a pane, press 1 to 9, or use the arrow keys | Hear that pane and silence the rest |
| Shift + Up / Down | Raise or lower the volume of the focused pane (remembered per stream) |
| M or the speaker button | Mute or unmute the focused pane |
Panes
| Do this | To |
|---|---|
| Click an empty pane, Tab, or Enter on an empty pane | Open the picker and choose what goes in it |
| + / - | Add a pane, or remove the focused one |
| Drag a pane onto another | Swap them |
| Double-click a pane, or Enter | Bring its browser window forward |
| Esc | Close the picker, or cancel a drag in progress |
Layout
| Do this | To |
|---|---|
| L or the layout button | Choose a layout: Grid, or Focus with a big pane on the left, right, top, or bottom |
| Drag a gutter between panes | Resize the rows or columns on either side |
| Double-click a gutter | Even up that one divider |
| R | Even up the whole grid |
| C | Toggle between cropping to the video and showing the whole browser window |
| P | Saved arrangements: load, save, or delete |
| [ / ] | Previous or next saved arrangement |
App
| Do this | To |
|---|---|
| S or the gear button | Settings |
| D | Move the wall to the next screen, or swap it with the wall already there |
| H | Minimize Pickscreen |
| U | License, trial, and purchase |
| T | Replay the first-run tour |
| F1 or ? | Show every key and control |
| Esc | Quit |
Settings
Press S or click the gear button. You can change:
- Screens. Which displays get a wall. Tick more than one for a wall on each (see Two screens).
- Fill the whole monitor. Let the grid cover that monitor's taskbar.
- Pane gap. The space around each pane, where the focus outline is drawn.
- Accent color and whether the focused-pane outline is shown.
- Browser. Which installed browser Pickscreen uses.
- Browser window size. Sets the aspect ratio of the panes.
Screens, pane gap, monitor fill, accent, and the focus outline apply immediately. Browser and window size changes take effect the next time Pickscreen starts.
Two screens
If you have more than one monitor, Pickscreen can put a wall on each. Press S, tick the screens you want under Screens, and Save. Each screen gets its own wall with its own layout and picks.
- Want the same service in more than one pane? Pick it again. Each extra pane keeps its own separate sign-in, so the first time you open a second pane of a service you sign in once more, and never again after that.
- Only one wall plays sound. Click a pane on either wall to hear it; M and the volume keys act on whichever pane is playing, from either wall.
- D moves a wall to the next screen, or swaps it with the wall already there.
- Saved arrangements cover every screen. Loading one that was saved on two screens while only one is open asks whether to open the other screen or load just the one.
- Untick a screen in Settings to close its wall. If that wall has streams playing, Pickscreen asks first.
The free tier's 2 panes are 2 panes in total, whichever screens they sit on.
Free, trial, and full license
- Free: 2 panes in total across all your screens, forever, with no account.
- Trial: the full 16-pane grid, free for 7 days. It starts by itself the first time Pickscreen runs, nothing to press or choose. Press U any time to see how many days are left, buy early, or paste in a license key. No card is needed. When the trial ends you keep the free tier.
- Full license: $19.99 once, no subscription. All 16 panes forever, on up to 2 of your PCs, with free updates. Press U and choose Buy Pickscreen, or see pricing. Your key arrives by email at checkout; paste it into the U window and click Activate.
Every purchase has a 7-day refund window. To move a license to a new PC, deactivate the old one from your purchase page.
Good to know
- More panes ask more of your PC. Each pane is a real browser playing real video. A modern PC handles a full Saturday grid comfortably; the free tier and the trial let you test your own hardware before paying anything.
- Stream limits still apply. Each service's own terms, including its limit on simultaneous streams, are unchanged. Pickscreen does not change those limits and will not help you get around them.
- The grid cannot be screen-shared or recorded. Protected video is never captured by Pickscreen, so panes appear black to screen recorders and video calls. This is by design and is the same reason the app works at all.
- Services change. Streaming sites update their players and terms at any time, so no particular service can be promised to work forever. If something breaks, tell us.