Bringing Video in from another computer

[Chrishanscom]

I tried that card first, beat my head against the wall with it, and had the support guy beating *his* head against the wall too, before finally giving up. Then I found the one that I linked above, and it works perfectly!

The reason the DeckLink Duo 2 doesn't work is because it's not its own product. It's a slight upgrade to an existing one that is also severely limited in functionality. It advertises as if you can use all 16 combinations of in or out across the 4 plugs, but the settings app won't let you do that. A simple combinatorics exercise on the options that it does have, gives a much lower number of possibilities, and none of them have 4 inputs.

If I remember right, the actual maximum is 2 inputs, and they pass through on the other 2 plugs as outputs...if you can even get *that* to work. We had some trouble there too, on both Linux and Windows, but every once in a while, I could play a test video on an output and get it to show up on an input through a short BNC jumper. That wasn't consistent though, even with their own apps.

They offered to send it to the factory to get it checked out, but when I did the combinatorics exercise with the available settings, I saw that it was pointless anyway. So I sent it back to Amazon instead for a full refund, and tried the Acasis one instead. Like I said, it works perfectly! 4x SDI, all input.

Hello Everyone: I have just gone through a computer/screen sharing reconfiguration, and in case my experience is of interest, here are my comments.

Until recently we had what I assume is common in a house of worship configuration - a livestream computer (OBS), and a presentation computer (projector/display slides). Both these computers were iMacs and on the same internal network, so screen sharing was easy using the Mac Screen Sharing app. This app allows access to both the main display and the auxiliary/projector display on the presentation computer, from the OBS computer.

Then I replaced the OBS iMac computer with a Windows 11 computer, so the Mac Screen Sharing was no longer an option. Here are the alternatives that I considered:

• NDI
• VNC e.g. RealVNC
• Hardware connection

NDI - I had tried NDI before with mixed results. When it worked it was OK, but I found it to have high resource usage and it would freeze frequently. Essentially it was unusable; however, the problems may have been due to the fact that the presentation iMac was old and unable to support NDI. If the situation comes up again, I would be willing to give NDI a try on a more up to date configuration.

VNC - I did not find a VNC app where I would be able to access the auxiliary/projector image on the presentation computer (still an iMac), from a Windows 11 computer. And I was also concerned with the potential for lag.

Hardware connection - in our setup, the 2 computers are next to each other, so it was a relatively simple process to split the cable (HDMI) going from the presentation computer to the projector, and connect it to an HDMI capture card plugged in to the OBS computer. This is the option I settled on and to date (only 2 events!) it has worked well.

Where I did have to do some work was to have multiple instances of the image - one filtered, one unfiltered. (The issue being keeping the filter from being applied to all references.) I tried applying the filter at a Group level, and this worked, but I am now using the Source Clone plugin to achieve that same results.

I hope this helps. . .

Cheers,
Tony N

Tony,

Here is something I did as Audio needs to be balanced between scenes and non existant in others so global sources were a nogo for me.

Set up a scene with just the video Source, for me I used DV- Screen, DV- Cam 1 etc. This identified the scene Direct Video Only and No audio for me. Anywhere I needed that screen or Camera for a new scene I would add the DV-Screen scene as a source. This would allow you to apply any filter you wanted to the DV-Scene and it would be the same everywhere you added the scene. Change background color and poof, changed everywhere it was used.

 

[AaronD]

For my audio changes, I still use the global sources, and then automate them in the Advanced Scene Switcher plugin:

Advanced Scene Switcher

This plugin will allow you to automate various tasks using "Macros". Macros consist of a list of conditions under which a list of actions will be performed. Examples and guides can be found in the wiki. Feel free to contribute! If you run...

obsproject.com

Of course, you can get as elaborate with that as you want, and not necessarily tied to the scenes at all.

Another rig uses a DAW, that is controlled by OSC (Open Sound Control) messages, also from Adv. SS. So I can do anything I want with audio, and still have it controlled from OBS.

Yet another rig uses a physical digital console, that is controlled mostly manually, but does have a little bit of automation, again with OSC from Adv. SS.

 

[KUCTech]

Tony,

Here is something I did as Audio needs to be balanced between scenes and non existant in others so global sources were a nogo for me.

Set up a scene with just the video Source, for me I used DV- Screen, DV- Cam 1 etc. This identified the scene Direct Video Only and No audio for me. Anywhere I needed that screen or Camera for a new scene I would add the DV-Screen scene as a source. This would allow you to apply any filter you wanted to the DV-Scene and it would be the same everywhere you added the scene. Change background color and poof, changed everywhere it was used.

Hi Chrishanscom: Thanks for your comments - always good to have multiple options to deal with situations.

Cheers

Tony N.