If you’re a digital creative, you know what it’s like when your tools can’t keep up with your workflow.
Your line jitters while drawing. The brush lags behind your stroke. The colors on the display don’t match your selection.
Even using modern technology, solving these issues is more complicated than you’d think. Most popular streaming and video compression technologies struggle with professional, creative workflows. They introduce latency, blur images, and degrade color accuracy.
Back when Astropad was just getting started with products designed for professional creatives, we immediately hit a wall because off-the-shelf video compression tools simply couldn’t get the job done.
So we built a better solution.
It’s called LIQUID — a proprietary, low-latency, high-fidelity display protocol. It was built from the ground up to combine ultra-fast inputs, pixel-perfect visuals, and seamless wireless mirroring.
LIQUID is baked into every digital product we make, and it’s what gives Astropad users a creative edge that can’t be found anywhere else.
Here’s a closer look at how it works.
Where traditional streaming tech fails
Most video transmission solutions are built to solve a very specific problem: Video files are huge, and modern networks have a load limit to the amount of data that they can effectively transfer.
When you’re in a video call or streaming visual media through Netflix or YouTube, your network needs to transfer and deliver a large amount of data from a shared server to your personal device. When done correctly, the meeting goes off without a hitch, and the video you’re streaming comes in crisp and clear.
Video codecs make all of this possible. These algorithms compress and decompress video files, reducing overall size while maintaining acceptable quality. In addition to shrinking the size of a video during transmission, codecs may also eliminate redundant information, create distortions, and reduce overall video quality.
Despite these drawbacks, modern video transmission is impractical without using a codec due to the amount of information involved. Raw video can be gigabytes per second in high resolution. Codecs like H.264, H.265, or AV1 compress the data for streaming, storage, and playback. In normal situations, these systems work well because you’re essentially watching pixels as they stream in.
The problem? Creatives working in digital environments aren’t just watching pixels. They’re interacting with them.
And that’s exactly where traditional streaming technology breaks down for our use case. Modern codecs are optimized for compression and playback, not real-time interaction. They’re great when you’re watching a movie or playing a video game, but they struggle when you’re drawing with a stylus and rapidly changing pixels within a limited space.
Before building LIQUID, we tried everything else. We tested traditional video codecs and static image compression. We even looked at game streaming protocols and video call infrastructure. In every case, the codec was built to move large amounts of data, but it wouldn’t minimize latency.
That’s when it hit us: Modern compression solutions can’t meet the demands of creative professionals.
Although things have (somewhat) improved since LIQUID first launched, off-the-shelf encoders still struggle in these critical areas. They just aren’t designed to handle this kind of work.
Building for creatives, not compression
LIQUID was built specifically to support the kind of workflows and visual elements that creative professionals depend on.
That includes all of the following:
- Color accuracy. To save space, traditional video encoders cut out redundant color profiles during compression. LIQUID retains full fidelity, even at Retina resolutions.
- Sharp lines. LIQUID doesn’t blur lines or pixelate data. It renders exactly what you draw.
- Instant feedback. With end-to-end latency often under 16 milliseconds on a local network, what you see feels like it’s happening natively.
We built LIQUID specifically with drawing, editing, and animating in mind. That meant engineering for speed, clarity, and input precision — not just data efficiency.
To do that, we needed to reimagine how video encoding should work. We also needed to marry compression technology with network delivery protocols to ensure that we could achieve the high-fidelity, low-latency solution that creatives needed.
Tile-based rendering
In order for traditional video protocols to work, they need to treat the screen like a stream of images. When one pixel changes, the whole frame often gets processed, compressed, and sent again. That might be fine when you’re watching a movie, but things fall apart quickly when you’re drawing a line or making subtle adjustments in a design.
LIQUID takes an entirely different approach.
Rather than constantly redrawing the entire screen, LIQUID breaks everything down into small, independent tiles — typically 64×64 or 128×128 pixels. Each tile is treated as an independent unit and, when changes occur, LIQUID only processes the data for that tile. Taking this approach means that the system has far less data to process, so information is transmitted faster and with minimal latency.
If you’re familiar with video compression protocols, you probably know that HEVC (H.265) also offers tile-based rendering as part of its compression solution. However, this feature is somewhat different. Primarily, HEVC tile encoding is used for parallel processing split across multi-core CPUs/GPUs and meant to maintain encoding speed at higher resolution.
This sounds similar to LIQUID, but H.256 tiles are designed as a feature within an algorithm designed around bitrate efficiency. The entire system relies on inter-frame prediction (P-frames and B-frames), — which still require buffering and delay — and this requires far more processing power to perform.
So, what’s the difference?
With LIQUID, tiles aren’t just about internal optimization. They’re a foundational component for how the algorithm streams data.
LIQUID integrates tiling with its GPU pipeline, so this task is offloaded early and optimized for speed. From that point forward, updating the tiles requires much less data processing. Every tile is also treated independently and can be updated individually, without needing to reference previous frames. If a tile hasn’t changed, it’s left completely alone.
The differences are nuanced, but they make a huge difference when working on projects in real time. For example, because of how HEVC works, packet loss can corrupt entire frames and create blocky artifacts while the decoder tries to rebuild the image. With LIQUID, packet loss is restricted to a small tile, and recovery is much faster because data loss is localized.
Custom networking — powered by Velocity Control
Most remote systems rely on standard networking protocols like Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) when sending data.
If you’re not a network engineer, TCP requires that both the sending and receiving machines establish a connection, agree on the data that needs to be sent, and confirm with one another that the data was sent and received in full before continuing. It’s a convoluted process that improves delivery and minimizes errors, but it also takes longer because of all the checks that need to take place.
By contract, LIQUID is built using User Datagram Protocol (UDP), which allows data packets to be sent across the network without the additional checks. When packets are dropped or delayed, LIQUID can react more quickly by sending more data through the network.
However, LIQUID doesn’t do all of this by itself. At the center of this process is a network monitoring tool we call Velocity Control. This feature monitors network conditions and automatically adjusts how data is sent and prioritized. While you’re working, it’s constantly tuning LIQUID to respond smoothly, no matter what’s happening inside your network.
Trade-offs by design
While these custom protocols help to set LIQUID apart, they aren’t inherently better at everything. LIQUID is more like a precision instrument, built for and excelling within a specific use case.
In fact, the same features that allow LIQUID to deliver low-latency, high-fidelity responsiveness at a granular level also make it a poor choice for constant, full-screen motion like playing a YouTube video. Traditional codecs like H.264 and H.265 are purpose-built to handle that and similar tasks.
The earliest iterations of LIQUID couldn’t account for that. While users enjoyed the snappy responsiveness that LIQUID delivered while writing and drawing, streaming a video on a LIQUID-enabled device caused reduced framerates and lag as the algorithm struggled to keep up with the incoming data stream.
More recently, we’ve fixed that problem by transforming LIQUID into a multi-codec system that switches dynamically based on what you’re doing.
If you’re watching a video, the system automatically switches to a traditional codec. When you’re writing or drawing, LIQUID takes over for better precision and control.
It’s the best of both worlds, and it’s all happening under the hood and out of sight.
Why LIQUID matters
When we first built LIQUID, our goal was to turn the iPad into a pro-level drawing tablet for Mac.
At the time, that meant designing for iPads that were over a decade behind today’s hardware. Everything needed to be fast and extremely efficient — to the point that we needed to write GPU kernels and assembly code in order to maximize performance.
Today, that same core technology has scaled with us. We’ve rewritten it multiple times to better align it with faster devices and sharper displays. But it’s still at the heart of what we do, and it’s what sets us apart from everyone else.
Used across Astropad products
LIQUID isn’t just a cool piece of tech; it’s the engine that powers the digital component of the products we create at Astropad.
It’s a foundational technology that lives in most of the products we ship, including each of the following:
- Astropad Studio. Built for illustrators and designers who need pixel-perfect stylus performance.
- Luna Display. Built to turn an iPad or Mac into a fully wireless second screen.
- Astropad Slate. Built to control your Mac using your iPad and Apple Pencil.
Wherever you find it, LIQUID ensures that brush strokes, selection, and edits happen in real time with no guessing, minimal lag, and zero visual compromise.
Why LIQUID stands apart
While we’ve talked about LIQUID in the context of video compression, it’s primarily a mirroring solution like Apple Sidecar or similar third-party apps.
None of the other products on the market were built with professional use in mind. For example, Apple Sidecar is great for casual use and for simple mirroring, but it sacrifices responsiveness and image clarity when compared to a system built with performance in mind.
LIQUID is different. It wasn’t designed for general-purpose screen sharing; it was purpose-built for creative professionals who need lower latency for real-time feedback, higher quality visuals, Apple Pencil support, and seamless performance (even over Wi-Fi).
What it means for you
Just because LIQUID was built for professionals doesn’t mean that Astropad products are strictly for professional use.
Tens of thousands of users prefer the added precision and versatility that Luna Display delivers to secondary displays, even if they aren’t planning to write, draw, or create. Similarly, aspiring artists invest in Astropad Studio because it transforms their iPad into a drawing tablet without the need for expensive, single-function devices like a Wacom tablet and similar high-end drawing displays.
However, the fact that LIQUID was built with those use cases in mind sets it a head and shoulders above the rest for every user. If you’re looking for highly responsive, low-latency screen sharing or better overall image quality, LIQUID makes that possible, regardless of how you intend to use it.
Creators deserve custom-built tools
At Astropad, LIQUID isn’t just another piece of tech. It’s a reflection of how we think creative software should be built.
From the outset, we’ve always believed that professionals deserve tools that get the job done, feel great to use, and are responsive and intuitive in all the right ways. At the end of the day, LIQUID makes your tools feel invisible so that you can do what you want with the technology at your disposal.
We didn’t build LIQUID as a workaround or an add-on to existing systems. We built it because nothing else met the bar for what we wanted to create and what our users needed.
When you’re sketching your next idea, editing a video frame-by-frame, or just moving windows between screens, LIQUID is what makes it all feel seamless. When your tools can keep up with your creativity, it’s easier than ever to do your best work.
Want to give it a try? Pick up any of our LIQUID-powered products today and feel the difference firsthand!
