Output OBS over cable TV?

[KirkPP]

Hi All! I must preface by saying I’m absolutely 100% new to this. I don’t know all the jargon or the technical nit and/or grit, I just know what I want to accomplish and I don’t know if it’s possible. If it is possible, please explain to me in the simplest terms what I need to accomplish it. Thanks in advance.

I want to output OBS on a TV, but not simply the full screen output. I want to be able to overlay scene(s) onto the screen but still watch TV as I normally would, changing the channels with the cable box remote while the OBS output remains overlayed. Is that possible with OBS? Or with any such software? If so, how exactly?

Thanks

 

[FerretBomb]

It's possible! You'll need a capture device.
Plug your cable into the capture device, and the capture device into your PC.
Add the capture device to OBS as a Video Capture Device source.
Place the VCD source into your scene.
Add whatever overlays you want on top of it.
Connect your TV to your computer's GPU as an extended monitor.
Send the Fullscreen Projector to the TV.
Set your TV as the Monitoring Device in OBS in Settings->Audio.
Set the VCD source up in the Advanced Audio Properties dialog to 'Monitor Only'.
Done!

Do note that some cable providers require HDCP for anti-piracy measures. You can get an HDCP-breaker device (usually just a cheap Chinese HDMI splitter box) to get around that though it doesn't always work.

 

[KirkPP]

What sort of video capture device? Is there something I could get that would allow me to do this with multiple TVs using multiple cable boxes in different rooms?

 

[FerretBomb]

What sort of video capture device? Is there something I could get that would allow me to do this with multiple TVs using multiple cable boxes in different rooms?

If your cable box puts out HDMI, just about any HDMI capture card.
No, you would need a computer and capture device for each one. And have them running at all times that you want to watch TV.

OBS really is not the solution you're looking for. It's a tool for real-time livestream production. Lot of people using a pipe wrench to drive nails lately though, with Zoom and all.

What are you actually trying to do? We might be able to recommend something or at least set you on the right track.

 

[deFrisselle]

So, I'm guessing you have multiple TV that will be able to be on different cable channels at one time but you want to overlay say a logo in the corner or banner, as an example, on the screens no matter what channel the TV is on
Not really what OBS was designed for I could see how to do it with one channel that gets fed to all the TVs but not individually

 

[KirkPP]

I’m a mega weather nerd. I have my computer running nearly constantly to run a multitude of tasks—one of which is a weather alert program running on its own PC. That program is able to output a map of alerts which updates as they come in. I’m able to get OBS to display it just fine, and I overlay it on streaming TV on my PC. Works great.

I’m also disabled and I live in a multi-story home; I crawl and climb to get around. My setup is upstairs, so what I was thinking would be nice is if I could display that on the downstairs TVs. A silly-sounding thing to most, and certainly not vital, but I wanted to know if it would be doable at all. I figured OBS would not be a solution, since it’s an app for live something, but I know nothing about A/V tech stuff, really, nor where to ask. I took a shot this community might know if anything like that is even possible, at all, even beyond OBS.

 

[FerretBomb]

Gotcha. I'd assumed that you might be a small motel owner, wanting to show advertisements or informational bulletins to the occupants of each room.

Yeah, there's nothing really in the consumer space to do that. If your TVs have Picture-in-Picture functionality (and most these days tend to), you might be able to connect a Raspberry Pi to each one, and use 'read-only' VNC to display a remote desktop image from your PC on one of the inputs. But it wouldn't allow a full overlay. It WOULD be way cheaper (RPi are under the $50 mark) and more power-efficient though.

In the commercial space (motel owner), I was going to recommend a Downstream Keyer (DSK) and media distribution switch. They have a bunch of cable boxes all in one room (one for each channel) and effectively run their own tiny cable TV network on-site. Costs tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars to set up, but in a commercial setting that's acceptable (especially with PPV and on-demand revenue generation).