No sign of projector windows in Windows Capture dropdown

[Corin]

Hi all - I've been attempting to set up OBS following YouTube instructions for "The Ultimate Teleprompter Setup for Virtual Presentations"
In the video, the guy sets up two windowed projectors (Always on top) and then adds a window capture for one of them as a source.
When I go into Window Capture, however, I can't see any OBS windows, let alone the windowed projectors.

I have the "Hide OBS windows from screen capture" unchecked in Settings->General, so I don't know why they don't appear in the windows capture dropdown.

It's possibly worth noting that I'm using Windows 11 Virtual Desktops but I have them all on the same desktop (and monitor) and none of them are full-screen, including OBS itself. I'm on OBS 30.0.2 in Portable mode.

Any suggestions, please?

 

[koala]

I guess you misunderstood something. OBS will ever only capture the main window of an app with window capture, no secondary windows. So it's not possible to do what you're asking. It may be the guide talks about window capturing the app that's displaying the prompter notes.

It's also never necessary to capture an OBS projector window, because what you see in this projector window is already something captured by OBS. The preview, some scene or even some single source.

 

[Corin]

Tell me more about misunderstanding...

 

[koala]

It seems this is a Mac specific feature of window capture, however this is the Windows support forum.

I still don't get it why you want to capture a preview window of OBS. It's already present in OBS, you don't need to capture it again. In this case, you have a capture of the preview of a capture. Why don't you just use the original capture directly?

 

[Corin]

It seems this is a Mac specific feature of window capture, however this is the Windows support forum.

I still don't get it why you want to capture a preview window of OBS. It's already present in OBS, you don't need to capture it again. In this case, you have a capture of the preview of a capture. Why don't you just use the original capture directly?

I guess it's best to ask the guy on Youtube who explains that the process works for Mac and PC. I guess not then. Shame. Thanks anyhow.

 

[AaronD]

I still don't get it why you want to capture a preview window of OBS. It's already present in OBS, you don't need to capture it again. In this case, you have a capture of the preview of a capture. Why don't you just use the original capture directly?

Maybe to have two layers of production without having two instances of OBS or the Downstream Keyer plugin??? Otherwise, I don't know either.

Downstream Keyer

This plugin adds a Downstream Keyer dock to OBS studio.

obsproject.com

Potential XY problem.

XY problem - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[koala]

The issue with these guides is that they're just guides for exactly the environment used in the guide. A different environment might still fit the guide, or some subtle difference might require a different approach.
I browsed the guide, and yes, it relies on Mac-specific features of window capture.

Well, it makes OBS doing two things at the same time. First is streaming, its main purpose. Second is overlaying the OBS preview with something that helps you doing the stream and showing this to a projector.

What you can do under Windows is doing a screen capture of the monitor OBS is running on and cropping this to the actual preview part of the OBS window. Then use this source for creating a scene you also include your notes. In other words: instead of the window capture of the OBS preview as shown in the guide, do a screen capture of the OBS monitor and crop to the OBS preview part.