ProPresenter AND Powerpoint?

[MarkKing15]

Does OBS allow me to capture/stream from multiple apps? For example, we use ProPresenter for one part of our Worship Service and switch to PowerPoint during the message as that is the speakers preference. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[AaronD]

You can Screen/Display Capture a specific monitor, which pretty much behaves as a physical capture of the cable as it leaves the computer. Then you can switch apps on that monitor, and OBS will track that.

Or you can have multiple Window Captures, each connected to a different app, and each one will stay with the app that you connected it to. Switch in OBS as usual.

I'd go with the first one myself, with the mentality of capturing a literal copy of "whatever the audience gets", downstream of whatever it takes to make *that* happen. My rig uses a physical capture card for that, but if you do it all on one machine that feeds the audience display directly, then a Screen/Display Capture should work just fine.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

Or you can have multiple Window Captures, each connected to a different app, and each one will stay with the app that you connected it to. Switch in OBS as usual.

For anyone new to OBS Studio.. this change of source can be handled numerous ways.. primarily
- Have both sources in a given Scene turning one off and the other on
however this takes time, could be error-prone and/or look less polished unless automated (hot-key setup?), so my preference would be:
- having different Scene(s) for the 2 different application sources (other sources same in both scenes, just different window captures)

Though I'd start with
1. I get speaker preference to work in PowerPoint (it's what we use)
but assuming speaker isn't running PowerPoint on their computer on stage/pulpit, etc and you are remotely capturing? that means you have in advance, the final (not to be changed mid-service) PPTx . right? Assuming OBS Studio operator running both ProPresenter and PowerPoint on same system, I'd be inclined to take PPTx and import into ProPresenter (if it has direct import option, or export in PPT to compatible format (bunch of PNG/JPGs ?? ) and run as slide show in ProPresenter? a number of options, I'd think... sorry, don't use ProPresenter

For our HoW, I started with PowerPoint as 1. had license already, 2. didn't need other features 3. enabled last minute (and even mid-service quick adjustments/corrections), 4. known by larger group of untrained volunteers... and we simply haven't had a reason to change. BUT... I prefer K.I.S.S... so I'd look into what workflow options to keep non-video application display capture to a single app ... simpler, easier on OBS Operator, etc.
If for whatever reason, using both applications was the right choice, then I'd go with different Scenes, 1 for each application.

Not sure still valid, but in our case, I run OBS Studio on a 1440p monitor, so I can run PowerPoint in windowed slideshow mode, and not re-scale PowerPoints 1080p window for our 1080p stream/recording [window just over 1080p tall, as I crop bottom status bar off]. Not re-scaling should improve image quality.. i think.. maybe.. works great for us, except when someone other OBS Operator mistakenly re-sizes PowerPoint window... one of these days I'll set up a shortcut to open PowerPoint with our designed window size [I believe these is a plugin here that does this as well]