Well, I have tried out a number of different options, most of them being pretty pants. It would seem that the general VIrtual Web camera software is dominated by silly options that add needless effects, or install additional "surprise" software (that can cripple your system), all wrapped up in an interface that comes from circa 1998. Other options which fared better are similar to OBS, yet crucified my CPU.
So, what I wanted to achieve was to be able to switch from a Desktop sharing scene and a Web Camera scene, both of which were redirected to a virtual camera output, that can then be used to show with remote users via whatever VC app I wanted to use. Desktop sharing HAD to be a high frame rate, so video clips (i.e. YouTube) would look, well, like a video at the far side. VC is capable of 30fps at 1080p, although this requires 2.4Mbps, so 720p is more common. Lastly, I wanted a simple Hot Key combination that I could switch between the scenes.
Of the Virtual Web Camera software I tried, were:
- ManyCam - Seem to be an easy interface, and initially I thought the added image overlay wasn't too offensive, however the results were poor in the trial version, with the resultant image squashed into a smaller frame containing the overlay, so attempts to switch between a WebCam scene and Desktop sharing screen resulted in image you could hardly make out at the far end..Further, a colleague mentioned that this might have screwed up their system in the past, although I seemed to have no issue.
- SparkoCam.- Horrid interface (especially on a high resolution screen with larger fonts. The image overlay is way too obtrusive to allow any practical use, but I was able to get a better output to the far end than ManyCam
- Altercam - I think this might have been the one that screwed my system. Had to do a system restore afterward.
- FFSplit I dont think this did what I needed.
- SplitCam - again horrible and unusable.
The Broadcast type software I tried were:
- XSplit Broadcaster. I have to say this was a pretty cool package. Easy to understand and setup and and nice slick interface. The free option gave everything I needed (am way more besides). Obviously this is aimed at gamer video bloggers, so the software complains that I don't have a dedicated graphics card. However, I'm not wanting to do super high frame rate game capture, just basic desktop capture. My system runs a relatively ok specification with an Intel i7 6500U processor and 8GB RAM (Windows 10 64 bit), However, as soon as I fired up the software CPU usage idled at around 50%!!! Bare In mind that I have added no input capture at this stage. After rebooting several time and ensure that most normal apps were closed, I did manage to get a satisfactory output. CPU load was topping 80-90% though with the VC client running as well.
- vMix Live - 60 days trial, The interface is old and clunky, and so many options that didn't work. For example, it doesn't read the capabilities of the Web Camera properly, so gives you loads of resolutions, frame rates and colour space options only to throw an error if you select one that the camera can't handle. Then there is the CPU usage, oh dear oh dear. I thought XSplit was bad, this was awful, CPU was running at 80-90% once the Web Camera and Desktop sharing scene was added, so when I cranked up the VC client, we hit 100% and the frame rate to the other side was diabolical.
This brings us back to OBS. I add the Web Camera and Desktop capture to a couple of scene and my laptop barely flutters, currently sitting at 12%. So, the question then, will OBS ever see this functionality?
Lastly, I was messing around with somy virtual audio cable software too - Voice meter and VB-Audio cable from VB Audio. Again this allowed me to pipe back the normal audio output from the video, but it looks as though all of the broadcast software and OBS could do exactly the same thing.
If anyone has any further idea on achieving this, or how to to get the other OBS alternatives working without melting my laptop, I would appreciate it.
