ChessZCam · Android + Windows
ChessZCam release log
What each recent build brings to a live broadcast and to post-game review.
Trial candidateStudio 1.1.416 October 2026
More comfortable viewing and clearer ways to keep working.
- Zoom board photos naturally. Pinch to zoom, drag to inspect the board and double tap or double click to fit the photo again. A reset button and keyboard controls are available too.
- A clear way back. Unavailable tools and pages offer Home and Back controls, so you can return to your work without closing Studio.
- Trial time at a glance. A branded trial card shows the remaining time and end date, with a shaded progress bar and clearly arranged actions.
Trial candidateStudio 1 · build 1.1.316 October 2026
Turn your OTB recordings into a reviewed game record and a video worth sharing, with more design choices and easier ways to correct the moves.
- Three new video designs. Titan, Prism and Arena Stage offer distinct metallic, glass and championship-style frames. Adjust the board, player bars and analysis panels, with ChessZCam and zonChess.com branding.
- More useful PGN exports. Export one connected, reviewed game as Standard PGN, or keep separate parts and review information in Detailed PGN while you finish the record.
- Add missed moves without starting over. Insert missing moves and keep later moves that remain valid. Rescan when needed, and use Undo to reverse the last change.
- Match moves to the right video frame. Step through frames, adjust a move's reference time and use neighbouring part markers to see where a correction should begin and end.
- Clearer review and gap repair. A compact status summary points to what needs attention. Guided correction tools help you work through uncertain moves and reconnect parts for a continuous PGN.
- Continue your work on another day or PC. Save and reopen review projects with corrections and settings. Relink the original video when moving a project; saving problems show a recovery option.
- Flexible overlay videos. Create landscape or portrait output, try Auto arrange, then move and resize panels to suit your footage. Add Stockfish analysis after reviewing the game.
- Camera framing that keeps its proportions. Webcam and capture-card previews preserve the source aspect ratio, helping you align the board without a forced stretch.
Results depend on clear, stable footage. Review the detected moves before publishing. Need a hand or have an idea? Email admin@zonchess.com.
In development
Mid-October 2026 builds
15 October 2026
Studio comes first: its trial candidate makes correcting a recorded game clearer, and the live modes became sturdier after two tournaments in October. Studio 0.29 (trial candidate) · Phone app 1.22 · Live 1.12.
- ChessZCam Studio trial. A free 14-day trial on one PC, counted from the moment you agree to the terms and start it in Studio — no code needed. Starting it needs the internet once; video processing stays on the PC. After the trial, saved projects can still be opened, corrected by hand and exported. Packages →
- One status line in Review. “Connected · one game” — or the one thing still to fix, with a single button for it. Counts and part boundaries fold away under Details; the markers on the timeline stay.
- Easier corrections. Fix a move's frame timing in place, connect a gap with legal moves entered on the board, and keep every move after it. Undo takes back the last change.
- Safer saving. If a review cannot be saved, the screen names the reason, and a recovery copy can be written without touching your original project.
- Board moved? Marked. Analyze Video marks where the board was moved, with “realign and rescan from here” in Review.
- Sturdier live detection (Android, next phase). The board realigns by itself after a small bump; focus and exposure locks as in Broadcast; every live game saved as its own record in a Live games list.
- Scan QR & connect. The phone pairs with the ChessZCam Live console by scanning its QR.
- Viewer Mode. A camera view while the record catches up, the captured pieces of both players, and promotions read from the real piece.
- Capture cards in Studio. Studio keeps the source's own aspect ratio instead of forcing 16:9.
- Video export on the phone. A 13-minute tournament game exported as an overlay video on the phone itself.
- New guides. ChessZCam for OTB creators (the workflow in motion) and the illustrated recording guide.
Earlier builds
October 2026 trial builds2 October 2026Viewer Mode, a richer Live broadcast, and a phone app that works sideways. Phone app 1.18 · Studio 0.23 · Live 1.8 (trial builds).
- Viewer Mode (new). Parents and coaches outside the hall follow the live digital board on their own Android phone, on the same Wi-Fi or hotspot. Two phones are enough; a PC is optional. See how Viewer Mode works →
- Viewer QR on ChessZCam Live. A separate read-only QR for spectators, with on/off and replace controls and a connected-viewer count.
- Live: lower-third playlist. Cards for players, event, round, venue and a free line, cued by hand or automatically.
- Live: verdict lane with an audience note in English, Malay or Chinese; opening names for book moves; check and checkmate marks.
- Live: two new overlay styles (Mecha Arena, Neon Glass Studio), six in total, and a designer that aligns, matches and stacks panels as a group.
- Export layout editor (Studio and phone). Board and eval bar move as one group, player bars share one size, snap guides; Auto arrange suggests layouts that keep the camera's view of the board clear.
- Record Game Video. Record straight from a chosen camera in Studio or on the phone, with the game data saved beside the video.
- Review tools. A visible move-actions menu, a guided way to recover after an arbiter's interruption, analysis per part for games recorded in several parts, and an optional incident banner in exported videos.
- Three languages. The whole app in English, Bahasa Melayu and Chinese, with consistent buttons and type.
- Phone layout sideways and video export on the phone (in testing; long games are not proven yet, so Studio remains the reliable route).
September 2026 build23 September 2026From detector to complete studio: analyse, review, repair, grade and export — on the phone, on Windows, and live on air.
- Six operations on Home. Record Game Video, Analyze Video, Detect Live Game, Broadcast Live, Sync PGN to Video and Open Project, plus a searchable saved-games library.
- Analyze Video. Automatic corner detection, adaptive 1–4× scanning, and every move stored with its timestamp and video frame.
- Review & repair. Add moves by clicking or dragging (castling and promotion included), repair several missed moves and rescan once, end the game at the last real move, and analyse long recordings part by part.
- Stockfish on the device. Balanced or Deep analysis, ten move grades from Book to Blunder, per-player accuracy, offline opening names and commentary in English and Malay.
- Overlay video export. MP4 with the overlay burned in, transparent WebM or PNG sequence; the Obsidian Glass HUD in seven finishes, landscape or portrait, up to 4K, with three premium board packages and 3D piece sets.
- ChessZCam Studio for Windows. Webcam, capture-card and OBS Virtual Camera input, render presets, and one-click pairing with the Live console.
ChessZCam Live for vMix/OBS — new logo, new console. A Tally-style operator screen, a correction screen that blocks illegal positions, and an Overlay Designer with four styles, ten modules and saved presets.- Help inside the app. A searchable help centre and a guided Analyze Video tour with a bundled 90-second demo clip. See the real screens →
Studio foundation29 August 2026A private paired link for live use, and a full review path that turns recorded tournament video into a finished game.
- Paired phone and PC. The phone and console pair with a code, so your detector slot belongs to your phone alone even on a shared hall network. Install the current phone and PC builds together.
- The game record is kept. Every confirmed move is written down as it happens, so the record stays safe whatever the phone, the battery or the venue does next.
- Archive hands straight to review. An archive session passes its footage, framing corners, board rotation and metadata to the review panel, so you start with the video already in place.
- See exactly what differs. The review panel lists which squares need emptying and which need filling, with the piece — a precise, checkable list.
- Suggested legal sequences. ChessZCam proposes a legal path of up to four plies that connects two positions, scored against the camera evidence and against chess sense, ready to accept.
- A board you can tap. Origin then target on squares big enough to hit standing up, with promotion asked rather than assumed.
- Mark the real moment. Each corrected move can be timestamped at its actual point in the video — the foundation for properly synchronized overlay video.
- What we are hardening now. Local-network stability, long-session recovery, and correction flow when lighting or camera movement changes mid-round.
Tournament baseline29 August 2026One consolidated, protected codebase behind both the phone app and the PC console.
- One shared foundation for the phone app, the PC console and the overlay, so every surface renders the same board and follows the same game logic.
- A protected baseline that every future build starts from.
Fast Scan & operator tools25 July 2026The build used through the Keong Hoe tournament broadcasts.
- Adaptive Fast Scan. Recorded video is processed far faster than real time by driving the playback rate adaptively while counting stable observations — without skipping past a move.
- Side-by-side review. The footage sits next to the correction board, so you see the evidence and fix the position in one place.
- A calmer operator surface. Clearer status chips, a collapsible setup rail, a stable board display and a rebuilt Live Overlay dock and panel.
- Three languages. Onboarding and help in English, Bahasa Melayu and Chinese, with terminology aligned between the phone app and the PC console.
- Brand pass. The ChessZCam logo as app icon and home hero, with cyan and chrome design tokens drawn from it.
Live overlay consoleRolling · PC moduleWhat a broadcast operator can rely on during a live round.
- Every move acknowledged by the PC before it leaves the phone, so both ends always agree on what has been played.
- One clean catch-up. If the Wi-Fi drops and several moves stack up, the overlay resyncs once and lands on the true position.
- Validated before display. Each incoming position is replayed and checked against the game so far before anything changes on screen.
- Hold with confidence. Pause the overlay for a replay or a graphic; the game keeps tracking underneath and Resume jumps straight to the current position. The phone shows “PC HOLD” throughout.
- 12-hour broadcast state. Closing and reopening the console mid-event picks up exactly where you were.
- Match camera / snapshot. Ask the phone for a fresh look and get the captured frame first, then the position read from it — evidence and result together.
- One active source at a time, with console and overlay reachable only from the PC running them. Since October 2026, spectators have a separate read-only Viewer link on the same network.
