Picture and sound together
The buffer holds the finished OBS program, audio and video as one stream. A DUMP removes both. Nothing drifts.
Put a real phone number on your stream. Take real callers. Keep a safety delay and a DUMP button between the show and the audience. All of it run by you, from one computer.
Host on camera, phone number on screen, unpredictable callers, bumpers, rough edges. Airlock is the control room. It does the jobs a station used to have people for.
A real telephone call to your Airlock number. No app, no link, no account for the caller.
The caller hears that the call may be broadcast and gives a name and a topic. You see a caller card: Waiting, Screening, Cleared, On Deck.
The caller is live with you. The audience hears the finished program through the safety delay, seconds behind.
Eject disconnects the caller. The next one is already on deck.
DUMP throws away the unsafe seconds still in the buffer, ejects the caller, plays your bumper for exactly that long, and rebuilds the delay. The audience never gets the removed material, then or later.
The delay runs on your own machine, between OBS and your stream. The cloud can go away; the delay stays. Try it: the strip below is a buffer. The host is on the right, the audience on the left.
Simplified. The real engine works on encoded video and audio packets, cuts on keyframes, and reports its state the same way: UNPROTECTED, BUILDING, PROTECTED, DUMPING, RECOVERING.
The buffer holds the finished OBS program, audio and video as one stream. A DUMP removes both. Nothing drifts.
The control screen says PROTECTED only when the measured buffer depth is at the target. Building, low buffer, recovering and faults all read NOT PROTECTED.
AI may screen, transcribe and warn. It never presses DUMP. Editorial authority stays with the person on camera.
PSTN audio. No video callers, no download. If they can dial, they can call in.
Every essential show operation happens from the host's computer: take, hold, eject, dump, delay health.
Telephony, screening and sync may live in the cloud. The delay and the DUMP path never do.
Airlock will not make your show look corporate. Low-fi is a feature. OBS keeps your scenes, overlays and encoder.
Video callers, mobile apps, multi-host production, autonomous AI censorship, clip publishing, ad insertion.
OBS sends the program to Airlock. Airlock sends the delayed program to whatever you stream with. One number, provisioned for you.
Airlock is built one vertical slice at a time, each with its own acceptance test on a real machine. The code, the decisions and the evidence are public.
| Slice | What it proves | State |
|---|---|---|
| VS0 | A synchronized local A/V delay in the OBS program path, with DUMP and bumper recovery. 33‑minute runs, dumped material verified absent downstream. | proven |
| VS1 | A real telephone caller and the host talk live through Airlock. Take, Eject, caller hang‑up, one‑command start on Windows. | working on the owner's desk |
| VS2 | Caller queue: several callers waiting, screened, cleared, on deck. | next |
| VS3+ | AI screening cards, DUMP tied to Eject, the solo producer board. | planned |
Decision records and evidence live in the repository: github.com/khammrich1/airlock.
The delay engine and the DUMP button are open source and run on your machine at no charge, forever. The paid plans add the part a station used to need a switchboard for: a number, screening, a queue, and someone to call when it breaks.
You are comfortable with a terminal and a Twilio account and want full control.
One host, one show, real callers, nothing to configure but OBS.
Several shows or hosts under one roof, or one show with a lot of phones.
Prices are provisional until launch. Early‑access seats keep whatever price they signed up at for the first year. Caller minutes are counted while a caller is connected to you, live or screening; your own stream time is free. Taxes extra where they apply.
Airlock is not open to the public yet. If you host a live show and want real callers, put your name down. Seats open in small batches, and you hear from a person, not a drip campaign.
hello@airlock.tv
No. They dial a normal phone number from any phone. They hear that the call may be broadcast, give a name and a topic, and wait. That is the whole caller experience, on purpose.
On your own computer, between OBS and your streaming encoder. It is a local program, not a cloud service, so a lost connection or a dead Airlock server cannot take the delay or the DUMP button away from you. The cloud parts (the number, screening, the queue) stop; the safety does not.
Everything still waiting in the buffer is thrown away, the caller is ejected, your bumper plays for exactly the length that was removed, and the delay rebuilds. The removed seconds never reach the audience, and they are not in your stream's VOD either, because the stream never received them.
No. OBS keeps your scenes, overlays, cameras and encoder. OBS hands the finished program to Airlock, Airlock holds it for the delay, and the delayed program goes out to your stream. Airlock adds the phone, the screening and the safety, nothing else.
Minutes while a caller is connected to Airlock: being screened, waiting on deck, or live with you. Your own stream time, however long the show, costs nothing. Dead air is free. The included minutes reset monthly and unused ones do not roll over.
No. AI may screen callers, transcribe and warn you. It never presses DUMP and never ejects anyone. Editorial authority stays with the person on camera. That is a rule of the house, not a setting.
The host software is built and tested on Windows with OBS first, because that is where the shows are. The engine itself runs on Linux too (that is how it is tested), and macOS is on the list once the Windows package is solid.
Monthly, cancel any time, no contract. If you leave, your number is released after 30 days unless you ask to port it out first. Your call logs are yours to export before then.