somnewhat beginner problem - web cam not working

[xucaen]

I don't know what I am doing wrong, so I'm hoping to get some feedback here on how I should set up my web cam.

In a nutshell, I created several scenes, each reusing the same camera source. so to my thinking, I create different scene, each with my camera , and then I think during my stream I can switch scenes...

Is this correct?

Because the issue I have is, when switching scenes, the web cam doesn't work... but only works in the first scene I enter...

Here's the really confusing part: if I delete my scenes and re-create them, each with a web cam, they all work. but after shutting down for the night and starting back up the next day, only one scene will have the camera working, the others do not.

What am I doing wrong?

 

[AaronD]

Windows still has exclusive access to video devices. Only one thing can use each physical source at a time. That was done a long time ago for performance reasons (WinXP or maybe before), and never undone. Other systems *have* undone that (or never done it in the first place), and it's NICE! Ubuntu Studio Linux, for one example, which is what I use.

Ubuntu Studio – A free and open operating system for creative people.

ubuntustudio.org

Anyway, there's still a way around it on Windows, or any other system that is still exclusive. Instead of creating a whole new independent source every time you use it, which asks Windows for another copy of it and gets denied, copy (right-click or Ctrl+C) the one and only source and paste a reference to it. Or, when you add a source, pick the already-existing one instead of creating new again.

Because there's only one copy of it then, across all of the scenes that use it, OBS only asks Windows for it once, and then it reuses that one copy internally.

But because there's only one copy of it, you also have only one list of filters that applies the same way to all of them. If you don't have any filters, or you have the exact same filters anyway, that's fine, but if they're different, you'll have to solve *that* another way too.

If you have to have different filters each time it appears, you can use some additional scenes for that. The source itself has the common filters, if any, that are always applied first no matter where it's used. And then you have a set of scenes that only have that one source in them. Each of those scenes has its own list of filters, that you can use to make them different. Then use those scenes as sources in your "real" scenes.