RibbonReady user guide
Last updated: 4 November 2026 (version 1.12)
RibbonReady turns one video into a ready-to-play file for every LED ribbon you tick, at each venue's own size, frame rate, length and file type. This guide walks through the whole app, from your first video to blackout zones and the Designer. Click Help › User guide at the top of the app any time to come back here.
Getting started
Install on a Mac
- Download the Mac zip from the download section and double-click it to unzip.
- Drag RibbonReady into your Applications folder. This matters: macOS won't let the app update itself while it runs from Downloads.
- Double-click RibbonReady. The first time, macOS says it can't verify the app. On macOS 15 or later, click Done, open System Settings › Privacy & Security, scroll to the bottom and click Open Anyway next to RibbonReady. On macOS 14 or earlier, right-click the app and choose Open.
You only do step 3 once. If the Open Anyway button isn't there, double-click RibbonReady again first, because it only shows for about an hour. More about this message.
Install on Windows
Download the Windows zip, unzip it and double-click RibbonReady. If a blue box says Windows protected your PC, click More info, then Run anyway.
Activate it
The first time it opens, RibbonReady asks for your licence key. Paste the key from your email and click Activate. You only do this once on each computer.
Not ready to buy? Click Try it free for 7 days. The trial does everything, but every file it makes has a large RibbonReady watermark across it, so you can check the layout but not play it at a game. There's one trial per computer.
The app at a glance
Along the top of the window:
- Converter and Designer switch between turning a video into ribbon files and designing a sponsor tile from scratch.
- The licence button shows who the app is licensed to, or how long the trial has left. Click it to see your licence.
- An update button appears when a new version is ready (see Updates).
- Help opens a menu: User guide opens this guide in your browser, and Send to support sends us a question with the app's log (see Getting help).
- Quit closes RibbonReady. Closing the window does the same. If videos are still being made, it asks first.
The converter runs top to bottom in five steps: Video, Screens, Settings, Preview and Your files. The button to start is always at the bottom of the window. At the very bottom is Diagnostics, a log of everything the app does, which is handy if something goes wrong (see Getting help).
Making ribbon videos
1. Choose your video
Click Choose video… and pick your video, or paste the full path to it and click Load. RibbonReady shows a thumbnail and the facts it found: size, frame rate, length and so on. The new files are saved in the same folder as your video.
Under the video, Content says whether it scrolls sideways. Auto works it out for you, and the note underneath says what it found, for example scrolls left at about 120 px/s and its edges join seamlessly. Pick Scrolling or Not scrolling if it guessed wrong. This matters at venues like Optus Stadium, which have separate files for scrolling and non-scrolling content.
RibbonReady also checks the video against the screens you tick: frame rate, height and length. If something doesn't match a venue's spec, a warning says what and which screens, so you can decide whether it matters.
If your video repeats a logo along its length and the copies don't sit level, you'll see The repeated logos in this video aren't level. Leave Line up the repeated logos ticked and each copy is moved onto the same rows as the first when the files are made.
2. Tick your screens
The screen list holds every venue's ribbons, sorted into leagues. Click a league tab, then tick the screens you want. Ticking a venue's name ticks all its screens. Use the search box to find a venue or screen by name.
Each screen shows its size and the spec it will be made to: frame rate, length, file type and anything special, like timecode or a blackout zone.
The Ticked tab shows only the screens you've ticked, with a strip under each one showing how your video will be laid out on it. Untick all clears your ticks.
Need a size that isn't in the list? See Custom sizes.
3. Check the settings
The settings start from each venue's spec, so most of the time you can skip this step.
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Frame rate | Venue spec gives each screen the rate in its spec. Pick 25, 30, 50 or 60 to make every file at that rate, or Video's own to keep your video's rate. |
| File type | Used for screens that don't have their own file type. MP4 and MOV are H.264. HAP is what Daktronics recommends above 3840 px wide, but the files are big (about 300 MB per 30 seconds at 13408 px). MP4 + HAP makes both. Venues with their own spec keep it: AFL and NRL use MOV. |
| 1920 × 1080 stripped | Tick this to also save each ribbon cut into 1920 px rows, stacked from the top left, for systems that play ribbons that way. If the venue's pixel map (for Resolume or an LED processor) puts the ribbon part way along the first row, set First row starts to that many pixels in from the left. The ribbon then carries on from the left edge of the next row. Leave it at 0 for the usual layout. |
| Length | Venue spec gives each screen its own length: 30 seconds at most grounds, 15 at the SCG. Shorter videos loop to fill it and longer ones are trimmed. You can also pick the video's own length, 5, 10, 15 or 30 seconds, or a custom length. |
| Layout | How the video fills a screen that's a different width. See below. |
| File names | Video + size names files like Sponsor_13408x80.mp4. Video + venue + size adds the venue and screen. Cricket always uses its own names, like Sponsor_TL-1.mp4. |
| Timecode | When a screen needs it adds timecode only for screens whose spec asks for it. Every file adds it to all of them, Off to none. Timecode goes on the right audio channel and your video's sound, mixed to mono, on the left. Files with timecode get _TC in their name. You can set the start time. |
| Background colour | Fills any space left at the ends of a screen. RibbonReady matches it to the ends of your video when it loads. Pick your own colour, or click Reset to automatic to go back. |
| More options | The maximum bitrate for MP4 and MOV files, 10 Mbps unless you change it. |
Layout decides what happens when your video and the screen are different widths:
- Automatic (recommended) picks the best way for each screen.
- Smart extend is for wide designs: it keeps the start and the end of your video and repeats the middle to fill a longer screen. This is how a 7168 px design becomes a 13408 px one.
- Whole tiles repeats your video as whole tiles, centred, with the background colour filling both ends. No logo gets cut in half.
- Edge to edge starts at the left edge and repeats to the right, so the last tile is cut off.
4. Preview
The preview shows every ticked screen at true pixel size on a 1920 × 1080 frame, so what you see is exactly what the screen gets. Long ribbons are cut into 1920 px rows, with a small strip of the whole ribbon above them.
Drag the time slider to see a different moment in the video. If there are too many screens for one frame, use the arrows to page through them. Click the picture to open it full size, or Save picture to keep a copy.
Tick Also make a 1920 × 1080 preview video to get a video of the preview alongside the files, ready to send to a client or venue for sign-off.
5. Create the videos
Click Create videos at the bottom of the window. The button says how many files it will make, for example Create 4 videos. A progress bar shows how far along it is, how long it's taken and roughly how long is left. Click Cancel to stop.
When they're done, Your files lists every file with its size and spec. Click Show in Finder (or Show in Explorer on Windows) to open the folder.
Your screen list
RibbonReady comes with the ribbons at Australian A-League, AFL, NRL, NBL and cricket venues, and you can change the list to suit the screens you work with. Click Edit list in step 2. Each screen shows its league, venue, screen name, width and height. You can also give it its own frame rate, length and file type, use it only for scrolling or only for non-scrolling videos, add timecode, and set the end of its file name (like TL-1). Leave a field on its setting to use whatever step 3 says.
- Click + Add screen to add one of your own.
- Click Remove to take a screen off your list.
- Click Restore default list to go back to the list RibbonReady came with.
- Changes save automatically. Click Done when you've finished.
Custom sizes
The Custom sizes tab has three slots for one-off sizes, made at the same time as the venues you tick. Tick a slot, enter the width and height, and optionally a name, frame rate, length and file type. Leave frame rate or length on Setting to use the settings in step 3.
Click Save to My screens… to keep a custom size in your list under My screens. You can also send it to us to consider adding for everyone: it sends the size and spec with your licence name.
When the venue list changes
We keep the venue list up to date as screens change. RibbonReady picks up the new list the next time it's online and shows a note above your screens saying what changed. Your ticks, your own screens and any blackout zones you added yourself stay as they are. If you changed one of a venue's own screens, the list's spec for that screen comes back with the update.
Know a screen that isn't in the list? Send us the venue's specs and we'll add it.
Blackout zones
Some ribbons have a physical gap in the middle: a bench between two boards, a break in a parapet, a camera position. A blackout zone tells RibbonReady where that gap is, so nothing important lands in it. The zone itself comes out black.
Adding a zone
You can add zones in two places: in Edit list (each screen has + Add blackout zone), or in the Designer under On the ticked screens. Each zone has:
- Start, the first pixel of the gap.
- End, the pixel just after the gap. The zone runs from Start up to End.
- px from the left edge or right edge, which edge you're counting from. Pixels count from 0 at that edge.
For example, on a 13408 px ribbon with a 96 px gap starting 6656 px from the left, enter Start 6656, End 6752, from the left edge. A gap in the last 120 px of the right-hand end would be Start 0, End 120, from the right edge. Counting from the right is handy when you've measured from that end of the stand.
A screen can have as many zones as it needs. Click + Add blackout zone again for each gap. If a zone runs past the end of the screen, has no width or covers the whole screen, RibbonReady says so next to it.
How the layout works around a zone
- Still designs, and designs that scroll up or down: each LED section between the zones gets its own whole tiles, centred, so no logo is ever split by a gap.
- Designs that scroll sideways: the video is laid out as if the sections touched, then cut at each zone. The scroll carries straight across the gap, as if the board continued behind the bench.
The layout strips in the Ticked tab and the Designer show the zones striped in black, with a note saying how each screen was laid out, for example each section gets its own whole tiles (5, 5).
The Designer
The Designer is for making a sponsor tile from a logo and some text, without opening another program. You design one tile, and RibbonReady repeats it along every screen and builds it as a still or scrolling ribbon. Click Designer at the top of the app.
Designing a tile
- Give it a Design name, usually the sponsor's name. It's used for the folder and file names.
- Set the Tile width and Height in pixels. 80 px high suits most ribbons; the tile width sets how often it repeats.
- Pick a Background colour.
- Click + Text to add text, or + Logo… to add a picture (PNG, JPEG, SVG, WebP or GIF). A PNG or SVG with a transparent background works best.
Drag anything on the canvas to move it. It snaps to the centre and to the top and bottom edges; hold Alt (Option on a Mac) to move it freely. Drag its corner to resize it. Use the arrow keys to nudge it 1 px at a time, or hold Shift for 10 px. Press Delete to remove it. Fit, 1×, 2× and 4× zoom the canvas.
Under the canvas, the ribbon strip shows part of the ribbon at true pixel size, so you can see how the tiles join.
Layers lists everything in the tile. Click one to select it. The buttons move it forward or back, duplicate it or delete it.
Properties changes the selected item:
- Text: the words, font, size, colour, bold, italic and underline, plus an optional Shadow and Outline. The font list shows the fonts installed on your computer; choose Other installed font… for one that isn't listed.
- Logo: position and size. Keep its shape stops it stretching. Fill the height makes it as tall as the tile, and Height with 8% margin leaves a little room above and below.
- The line-up buttons centre it across or down the tile, or push it to an edge.
Your design saves itself as you go. Save file keeps a copy you can open on another computer with Open…, and New starts again.
Seeing it on the screens
On the ticked screens draws your tile on every screen you've ticked in the converter, squeezed to fit the window, with a note saying how it fits, for example 5 whole tiles of 1280px, with 384px of background at the start and 384px at the end. This is also where you can add blackout zones.
Building it
Choose Build as:
- Static makes a still tile. Each screen gets whole tiles, centred.
- Scrolling makes it move Right to left, Left to right, Upwards or Downwards. Set the Clip length (5 to 120 seconds) and the Speed. With Seamless loop ticked, the speed snaps so the clip ends exactly where it started, so it loops without a jump.
Save to is the folder the design goes in, which starts as Documents/RibbonReady Designs. Click Build static ribbon or Build scrolling ribbon. RibbonReady saves the tile, the design and its clip in a folder named after the design, then loads the clip into step 1 of the converter with the right content and length already set. Check the preview and click Create videos.
Licences and the free trial
Click the licence button at the top of the app to see your licence: who it's licensed to, the key, when it expires and when it next checks in online. RibbonReady keeps working offline between checks.
- Check now checks your licence straight away, for example after you renew.
- Deactivate this computer frees up your licence to use on another computer. You'll need your key to use the app here again.
- Manage your subscription opens your billing page, where you can change your card, see invoices or cancel.
During the free trial, a bar at the top says how long is left, with Enter licence key and Buy a licence. Entering a key removes the watermark from new files straight away.
Updates
RibbonReady checks for new versions when it's online and downloads them in the background. When one is ready, a button at the top says, for example, Update 1.10.1 ready · Restart. Click it to install the update now, or leave it and it installs the next time you open RibbonReady. It never installs while videos are being made.
Hover over the button to see what's new. After the update, the button says which version you're on, and clicking it hides it.
Troubleshooting
My Mac says Apple could not verify RibbonReady
That's expected the first time. Follow step 3 of Install on a Mac, or see this answer.
The update won't install on my Mac
Move RibbonReady into your Applications folder and open it from there. Updates can't install while it runs from Downloads or another folder.
A screen warning says my video doesn't match
The check in step 1 compares your video with the specs of the ticked screens. A frame rate or length setting that differs from the spec is easy to fix: choose Venue spec under Frame rate or Length. If the video is shorter than the screen is tall, it's enlarged to fit and may look soft, so ask for a version made at the screen's height. If the video is longer than the files, the end is cut off.
Logos are cut in half on a screen
Set Layout to Whole tiles, or Automatic, which uses whole tiles when it can. If the screen has a physical gap, add a blackout zone so tiles land on each side of it.
Getting help
If something goes wrong, or you have a question, click Help › Send to support. You'll also find Send to support on every error message and in the Diagnostics panel at the bottom of the app.
- Write what you were doing and what happened.
- Enter your email for our reply. If RibbonReady is activated, you can leave it blank and we'll reply to the email on your licence.
- Click Send. You'll get a reference number, and we'll reply by email.
It sends the app's log of what it did this time and the time before, the app's version, your computer's name and code, your licence details, your settings, the screens you've ticked and the name and size of your video. It never sends videos or pictures. Click See exactly what's sent to read the whole thing first.
Still stuck? Email [email protected] and tell us what you were trying to do.