OBS_Sorta_Newbie
New Member
I have been using OBS Studio on my Lenovo Thinkpad for a while now and am fairly comfortable with it when using with Zoom, Google Meet, etc using an external camera and ivCam.
But I am now trying to help my daughter, who has visual impairments from a TBI, use Zoom to stream video for her piano instructor to be able to see and here her. Trying to get it set up to actually work properly has been a nightmare. I am hoping someone can help me here so I can help her:-)
Her computer hardware:
MacBook Pro M1 (late 2021) with 16 GB RAM and 512GB SSD.
Camera(s)
Setup:
We set up a two camera scene, nested into a parent scene, as shown here (this is how it shows on Zoom):
So far so good, but then:
Barrier 1: She currently has a Yamaha P-105 Digital piano and there does not seem to be an easy way to transmit MIDI to the Macbook so we know that for now the audio is going to have to come from an external camera. OK, so we try to use the audio from the Brio. We quickly learned, well I quickly learned, that using OBS Virtual Cam was not sending audio to Zoom. Tried doing it as a program stream, but audio is inconsistent at best, and am not sure if we have to have set up a separate audio source in the scene to capture the audio from the Brio. I am not an audio guy by any stretch of the imagination and don't have an A1 at home to save me from myself, I have tried all kinds of virtual audio drivers including Blackhole, Soundflower, and Loopback.
I even wanted to try NDI for Mac, but am at a loss in how to make it work as it is so different than the Windows version. There is a far smaller set of tools and I could not find anything that maps these tool names (or maybe I gave up to soon in frustration):
So am I overthinking this and is there really a very simple way to accomplish what we are trying to do? Note: We are upgrading her old keyboard that CAN feed actual audio and/or midi to the MacBook and then the DAW. But that is a ways off and does not help is now:-(.
Barrier 2: Scenes/Sources are not saved/preserved between OBS Studio startups. How can something so basic like not being able to save the settings intuitively not be available on a MacBook? I have found lots of reports of this online, but no easy fix my addled mind can deal with when tired:-(. Does anybody know of an easy workaround form this that I am maybe missing so she does not have to go in and re-add the sources every single time?
Thanks all and I hope I do not seem totally ignorant, I just don't know my way around Macs at all!
But I am now trying to help my daughter, who has visual impairments from a TBI, use Zoom to stream video for her piano instructor to be able to see and here her. Trying to get it set up to actually work properly has been a nightmare. I am hoping someone can help me here so I can help her:-)
Her computer hardware:
MacBook Pro M1 (late 2021) with 16 GB RAM and 512GB SSD.
Camera(s)
- Brio Webcam overhead with the goal of capturing the audio and video into OBS.
- Macbook Pro Built in Cam
- IPhone 13 (when I find suitable ivCAM substitute as discussed below.
- Latest OBS version
- Logic Pro and Cubase 12 for her DAWs
- Different flavors of virtual drivers
Setup:
- We set up a Brio Webcam overhead on a boom with the goal of capturing the audio and video into OBS. Connects to MacBook via USB-c (adaptor)
- We also have her MacBook serving as a side camera so her teacher can see her posture and form. (Note will be replacing with iPhone for this camera if I can find an easy to use, decent Mac-compatible equivalent for iVCam)
We set up a two camera scene, nested into a parent scene, as shown here (this is how it shows on Zoom):
So far so good, but then:
Barrier 1: She currently has a Yamaha P-105 Digital piano and there does not seem to be an easy way to transmit MIDI to the Macbook so we know that for now the audio is going to have to come from an external camera. OK, so we try to use the audio from the Brio. We quickly learned, well I quickly learned, that using OBS Virtual Cam was not sending audio to Zoom. Tried doing it as a program stream, but audio is inconsistent at best, and am not sure if we have to have set up a separate audio source in the scene to capture the audio from the Brio. I am not an audio guy by any stretch of the imagination and don't have an A1 at home to save me from myself, I have tried all kinds of virtual audio drivers including Blackhole, Soundflower, and Loopback.
I even wanted to try NDI for Mac, but am at a loss in how to make it work as it is so different than the Windows version. There is a far smaller set of tools and I could not find anything that maps these tool names (or maybe I gave up to soon in frustration):
So am I overthinking this and is there really a very simple way to accomplish what we are trying to do? Note: We are upgrading her old keyboard that CAN feed actual audio and/or midi to the MacBook and then the DAW. But that is a ways off and does not help is now:-(.
Barrier 2: Scenes/Sources are not saved/preserved between OBS Studio startups. How can something so basic like not being able to save the settings intuitively not be available on a MacBook? I have found lots of reports of this online, but no easy fix my addled mind can deal with when tired:-(. Does anybody know of an easy workaround form this that I am maybe missing so she does not have to go in and re-add the sources every single time?
Thanks all and I hope I do not seem totally ignorant, I just don't know my way around Macs at all!
