Question / Help Is it possible to preview Display capture in real-time on the same monitor?

[Roy777]

Hi friends,

Trying to capture and preview the whole display with Display Capture using the same monitor results in something like a frozen screen and crazy multiplication of the mouse cursor, is there a way this could work? or the only solution would be to preview the output on another monitor?

Am I wrong? or is there already a way to do this?

Thanks a lot :)

Roy.

 

[R1CH]

What else would it show?

 

[Roy777]

What else would it show?

Auh ha... If it doesn't work like that.. then I was thinking and asking myself what if only specific sources in the scene could be previewed, like, a video capture device together with images and text and anything else you set in the scene BUT the Display capture itself?

That way you could theoretically see a complete preview in-front of you on the same monitor you capture, of everything in real-time as you capture it, without using a second monitor, which also forces you to look away from the first monitor, if your'e displaying lower thirds in real time and want to see yourself as you cam etc'. It could be great if you could do it on the same monitor.

no? :)

 

[carlmmii]

It does not work like that.

Any time you capture the thing that you output, you end up creating an infinite loop. You can't avoid this -- if you point a video recorder at a TV that it's outputting to, you get the exact same effect. It captures what it's outputting, then outputs that onto the screen, captures it, outputs it, etc.

The only way to do what you want is to actually work from the preview itself which is capturing a different screen. Essentially, you have the monitor where everything is happening (including where your mouse is), but you're looking at a separate screen which has the preview output to it. You would be working on a delay, because image processing is not instant, but this would let you see the exact output that OBS is giving for your interactions.

 

[Roy777]

It does not work like that.

Any time you capture the thing that you output, you end up creating an infinite loop. You can't avoid this -- if you point a video recorder at a TV that it's outputting to, you get the exact same effect. It captures what it's outputting, then outputs that onto the screen, captures it, outputs it, etc.

The only way to do what you want is to actually work from the preview itself which is capturing a different screen. Essentially, you have the monitor where everything is happening (including where your mouse is), but you're looking at a separate screen which has the preview output to it. You would be working on a delay, because image processing is not instant, but this would let you see the exact output that OBS is giving for your interactions.

Thank you, I was thinking about working on the second-preview monitor as well. still haven't tested how bad the delay would be but I was thinking if it could be a better solution to work on one monitor only.

If you don't preview the captured display but do preview everything else you have set in the scene, I think it should work.

So I ran a test capturing and previewing a video capture device (webcam) and a plugin that shows your keystrokes (input-overlay) and previewed it on the whole monitor in fullscreen and without showing the display capture (which if was on, would naturally cause the multiplications), and I got full screen, live, real-time, zero delay preview:

So now just imagine the black part would not exist and would be transparent. which means you'll see your actual display and not a preview of it, but overlaid on TOP of it, you'll see all other sources you have in the scene as a preview. which as my video above shows, should have zero delay so there should also not be any sync issues between the Display Capture and the other sources when you'll capture it.

And just to be clear I mean that OBS will have the display captured on the stream/recorded file of course, just that you wont see the display capture previewed, you'll see the actual display source (and also the mouse cursor of course, and not a preview of it).

 

[Roy777]

Of course the video ‏I've recorded here was the actual capture recorded to file but it was exactly the same as the preview I saw on the full screen while I was recording it.

 

[Roy777]

So here is my suggestion:

"Fullscreen Projector without Display/Game/Window capture (Preview)" Or any similar phrase..

@R1CH Do you think it could work? :) Thank you so much and I hope I'm not being too rude suggesting features and more work for you :) I just think it could be a simple but great feature that might be missing.

Maybe this should be moved to "Ideas and Suggestions"? I started it as a question not knowing if it's already possible.