Question / Help Is a dual laptop setup possible? Mac and Windows?

[brysonprice]

I have a MacBook Pro that I use for music production in Ableton (specs i7 2.6 GHz; Ram 16gb). It’s not powerful enough to run OBS at the same time. Is there a way to use my Windows laptop (specs i5 2.5GHz, Ram 8gb) to run OBS and have it communicate with my Mac? I do have a video capture card (black magic ultra studio mini recorder).





Thanks for you help!

 

[FerretBomb]

That depends on the GPU in the Windows laptop, and the model of the i5 CPU (not all are created equal).

There are a few ways, yes. One (and the best) is to use the capture card to get the feed from your Mac into OBS, setting up the capture unit as a Video Capture Device in OBS on the Windows laptop. This can come with some considerations depending on if the device is an internal unit, or external USB (and if it's a USB 2.0 or 3.0 device; you want a 3.0, as 2.0 devices usually have multiple seconds of realtime capture latency).

You can also run OBS on both, and use an NDI send from the Mac to an NDI receive on the Windows laptop. This would put some additional load on the Mac, but far less than streaming out to the internet does. This isn't a great option, but it's a cheap one mostly for people who don't have the money to buy a capture card, or are doing massive capture (like team v team esports at a local LAN event).

 

[brysonprice]

That depends on the GPU in the Windows laptop, and the model of the i5 CPU (not all are created equal).

There are a few ways, yes. One (and the best) is to use the capture card to get the feed from your Mac into OBS, setting up the capture unit as a Video Capture Device in OBS on the Windows laptop. This can come with some considerations depending on if the device is an internal unit, or external USB (and if it's a USB 2.0 or 3.0 device; you want a 3.0, as 2.0 devices usually have multiple seconds of realtime capture latency).

So how exactly would I do this? I’m sorry, I’m such noob with this stuff and I can’t seem to find helpful info. I called Black Magic tech support today, and after a long wait, they told me what I was trying to do, couldn’t be done with this capture device

 

[FerretBomb]

So how exactly would I do this? I’m sorry, I’m such noob with this stuff and I can’t seem to find helpful info. I called Black Magic tech support today, and after a long wait, they told me what I was trying to do, couldn’t be done with this capture device

They know their hardware. It's entirely possible that the 'capture device' only records internally, and will not provide a live feed over USB to a host computer. You may need to buy a different capture device that can do that. Something like an Elgato HD60S or S+ (not the non-S! you need a USB 3.0 capture device; 2.0 usually have around 2 seconds or more of capture delay, which makes working with them a PITA) would work, or you could go the NDI route.

For a capture device, you'd plug an HDMI cable into the Mac's HDMI out port, replicate your desktop to it. The HDMI cable goes into your capture device, then the USB from the cap device goes into the Windows machine. In OBS on the Windows machine, you add a Video Capture Device source, pointing at the capture device. That's it for video. Audio is MUCH more complicated, and a true pain in the butt, especially with a DAW in the mix.

 

[brysonprice]

They know their hardware. It's entirely possible that the 'capture device' only records internally, and will not provide a live feed over USB to a host computer. You may need to buy a different capture device that can do that. Something like an Elgato HD60S or S+ (not the non-S! you need a USB 3.0 capture device; 2.0 usually have around 2 seconds or more of capture delay, which makes working with them a PITA) would work, or you could go the NDI route.

For a capture device, you'd plug an HDMI cable into the Mac's HDMI out port, replicate your desktop to it. The HDMI cable goes into your capture device, then the USB from the cap device goes into the Windows machine. In OBS on the Windows machine, you add a Video Capture Device source, pointing at the capture device. That's it for video. Audio is MUCH more complicated, and a true pain in the butt, especially with a DAW in the mix.

I know the NDI route isn’t the most ideal, but I think it’s peobably the best option for me at the moment. Then I can maybe expand to something else. Today, I tried to set it up, but wasn’t able to get it working. Are you good with NDI?

I installed NDI on both computers, and set it up as some YouTube tutorials suggested, but never got it to mirror. Not sure what I did wrong. This is the tutorial I followed:
https://youtu.be/xJNc_P63pjA

 

[brysonprice]

They know their hardware. It's entirely possible that the 'capture device' only records internally, and will not provide a live feed over USB to a host computer. You may need to buy a different capture device that can do that. Something like an Elgato HD60S or S+ (not the non-S! you need a USB 3.0 capture device; 2.0 usually have around 2 seconds or more of capture delay, which makes working with them a PITA) would work, or you could go the NDI route.

For a capture device, you'd plug an HDMI cable into the Mac's HDMI out port, replicate your desktop to it. The HDMI cable goes into your capture device, then the USB from the cap device goes into the Windows machine. In OBS on the Windows machine, you add a Video Capture Device source, pointing at the capture device. That's it for video. Audio is MUCH more complicated, and a true pain in the butt, especially with a DAW in the mix.

So I’ve been messing around this trying to figure it out and this is what’s happening:

my Windows laptop doesn’t detect my MacBook Pro inside of the NDI scene. But if I open up a scene of my MBP, it does detect the windows laptop.

Do you know what could be causing this?

 

[FerretBomb]

Entirely possible it could be a Windows Firewall issue, not allowing the needed inbound ports to receive from the Mac. I don't use NDI myself, but as I understand it that can regularly be a problem.

 

[brysonprice]

Entirely possible it could be a Windows Firewall issue, not allowing the needed inbound ports to receive from the Mac. I don't use NDI myself, but as I understand it that can regularly be a problem.

gotcha, do you know where else I could look for resources on how to figure this out?

 

[Narcogen]

Which Ultra Studio device do you have, exactly?

 

[brysonprice]

Which Ultra Studio device do you have, exactly?

it's the black magic ultra studio mini recorder : ) to my understanding (after contacting technical support) they told me that it's only for sending camera information and converting it so the computer can understand it

 

[zetmor]

You can run OBS on the Mac just to duplicate the screen and show the preview (full screen) on the HDMI output, and you capture that HDMI on the PC laptop (instead of using the Mac screen duplication): that way you don't get any vsync tearing.