Question / Help Using laptop built-in webcam over LAN

[Exigeous]

I found a few great Android apps that do just this - an app runs on the phone and a client runs on the PC which presents the Android webcam to Windows as a standard camera. You can then go into OBS and use that for streaming and it works great.

I'm looking for the same thing but using Windows as the server. I'd run an app on my Laptop that would take the webcam video and stream it to my main PC. An app there would take that video stream and present it to Windows like any other webcam just like the Android solution above.

I keep finding apps that almost do this but still haven't found something that works like this.

Any advice is greatly appreciated,

-Ross

 

[Fenrir]

If you have an app that outputs to RTSP (many of the "IP Camera" apps will) you can open the URL in OBS through either Media or VLC source.

Also note that this is the classic section, so if you're still on Classic, we recommend that you update ASAP!

 

[Exigeous]

Fenrir thanks for getting back to me so quickly - to make sure I understand you're saying that OBS can simply read in a RTSP stream and display it like any other type of video input (webcam, window capture, etc)? If so damn, that's awesome - I'm rather familiar with RTSP so that'll be a snap to setup.

As for the version my apologies for putting this in the wrong forum, I am in fact using OBS Studio and not classic. Can you move this for me? I suppose it's not a big deal to me as I have my answer but others may want to know the same. As you can tell I'm rather new to OBS and have only been streaming a short time. I'm really just playing with streaming to learn more about the community, etc. It's also been nice to be able to go back and review something I saw in a game like Elite Dangerous or to help instruct others with a racing sim like Assetto Corsa or Project Cars. I've had several recommend I check out and switch to XSplit and every time I ask why would I do that, OBS is fantastic and does everything I need - for free!

Keep up the great work!

~X

 

[Fenrir]

Fenrir thanks for getting back to me so quickly - to make sure I understand you're saying that OBS can simply read in a RTSP stream and display it like any other type of video input (webcam, window capture, etc)? If so damn, that's awesome - I'm rather familiar with RTSP so that'll be a snap to setup.

As for the version my apologies for putting this in the wrong forum, I am in fact using OBS Studio and not classic. Can you move this for me? I suppose it's not a big deal to me as I have my answer but others may want to know the same. As you can tell I'm rather new to OBS and have only been streaming a short time. I'm really just playing with streaming to learn more about the community, etc. It's also been nice to be able to go back and review something I saw in a game like Elite Dangerous or to help instruct others with a racing sim like Assetto Corsa or Project Cars. I've had several recommend I check out and switch to XSplit and every time I ask why would I do that, OBS is fantastic and does everything I need - for free!

Keep up the great work!

~X

Moved for ya, no worries!

And yes, you can just open the RTSP stream with Media Source or VLC Source (which needs VLC to be installed on your system to be enabled). Most of the IP Camera apps you find on mobile will output to RTSP, as that's kind of the standard in that space. I use "IP Camera" on Android and it outputs RTSP that I can load in OBS with no issues. However, note that there will probably be a delay on the video just by nature of the setup, so be prepared for that.

As for xsplit.... Not touching that one. ;)

 

[Exigeous]

Thanks for the move and ongoing help - I thought I understood it but now that I'm at my PC I'm stuck again. I really need to stop the heroin don't I?!?!?

So II understand how to setup VLC on my server device (Surface Pro - calling it server since it's sending the video stream) but I'm not understanding how to bring that stream into OBS. I assumed (and shouldn't have) that I'd see an input type in OBS but I don't, unless I'm missing it. Do I need to install VLC on the client (OBS computer), open it, have it connect to the stream from the sever then capture that window into OBS? I actually do something similar with an Android phone, I have it stream using it's camera to an app on the PC and then I capture and crop that window in OBS, works great.

So what is my dum and stoopid brayne gettin' wong naow?

 

[Fenrir]

Thanks for the move and ongoing help - I thought I understood it but now that I'm at my PC I'm stuck again. I really need to stop the heroin don't I?!?!?

So II understand how to setup VLC on my server device (Surface Pro - calling it server since it's sending the video stream) but I'm not understanding how to bring that stream into OBS. I assumed (and shouldn't have) that I'd see an input type in OBS but I don't, unless I'm missing it. Do I need to install VLC on the client (OBS computer), open it, have it connect to the stream from the sever then capture that window into OBS? I actually do something similar with an Android phone, I have it stream using it's camera to an app on the PC and then I capture and crop that window in OBS, works great.

So what is my dum and stoopid brayne gettin' wong naow?

You should see VLC Source as an option to add directly in OBS. If you're using 32bit OBS, you need to install 32bit VLC. 64bit OBS, 64bit VLC. If you're not sure which you're using, just install both, should be perfectly safe.

Once VLC is installed, you'll see the VLC source in OBS itself and you can add the RTSP URL to that.

 

[Exigeous]

Again my thanks, that makes perfect sense. Hopefully this will have me going, if my stupidity continues I'll report back ;-)