How to get OBS/computer to show video from external camera

[mdhll]

Hello! New to OBS here. I am using it for the purpose of running sports broadcasts. These broadcasts require connecting my computer to a separate encoder which streams games through a pay site. I know other broadcasters use OBS to run graphics and do replays, but I have not found one who uses windows. Last night I tried attaching our broadcast camera to my new laptop (an HP Victus) and I could not get the camera feed to display on the computer nor through OBS. Does anyone know how I can run this camera feed into OBS?

Thanks!

 

[AaronD]

What's the camera?

How does it connect?

Do you have the right hardware to make the connection?

Does it use the standard driver or a proprietary one? If it's proprietary, have you installed it?

Does it come with an official app? If so, what does that do?
If the official app doesn't work, call their support and have them get you at least to that point.

 

[Brookers55]

Have you got a video capture card - ie Camlink - to plug your HDMI output from the camera into and then to output via USB into the laptop?

 

[mdhll]

What's the camera?

How does it connect?

Do you have the right hardware to make the connection?

Does it use the standard driver or a proprietary one? If it's proprietary, have you installed it?

Does it come with an official app? If so, what does that do?
If the official app doesn't work, call their support and have them get you at least to that point.

Camera is a Panasonic P2HD. I'm not sure if I should connect it to the USB port (with a HDMI/USB converter I just bought) or directly into the HDMI input, but neither seems to work. The computer has a graphics card. I have not installed any drivers, so it only has what was installed by HP. I'm not aware of any official apps for the computer. There is no app for the camera.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

99.9%+ of the time, Graphics card is for sending, not receiving video (I recall some older professional workstation graphics cards LONG ago that could take a video input). I suspect I'm forgetting something more recent.
but in this use case, generally, no, your video input will NOT plug into your graphics card (GPU sub-system)

Often, camera and computer dependent, HDMI will be higher resolution than USB.. but not always.. in general, for USB to be decent with 1080p and higher video, absolutely needs to be USB3

To avoid unexpected challenges, learn real-time hardware resource monitoring, and with a laptop especially, the indicators of thermal throttling

A quick google search indicates multiple models ( 9+?) of Pan P2 HD... so, this all depends on specifics. Personally, I avoid wireless whenever possible for trouble-free / reliable transmission. Wireless can work *if* you have the right in-house expertise and monitoring tools. but otherwise, you risk just asking for trouble, especially in an environment where you aren't into complete control of related RF spectrum usage
Whether to use SDI or HDMI (or NDI) depends on your setup

 

[AaronD]

What Lawrence said.

A quick Google search for the laptop says that the HP Victus is intended for gaming, so I would *hope* that it would have good enough thermal design to keep the specs up indefinitely, but that hope doesn't always pan out beyond the marketing hype.

It's quite common for casual-use laptops to rely on thermal mass for cooling, more than airflow and fin area, because they really don't do very much after the webpage or app finishes loading. Their specs look great, but can't be sustained for more than about 30 seconds. If a marketer gets a hold of that and doesn't understand the constraints......