Why is OBS not recognising my MacBook after being connected up by a HMDI cable.

[StuartSpencer92]

Hello. I am having trouble connecting a MacBook device to OBS using a capture card that picks up what the lecture projector sees.

The MacBook keynote and displays all work fine in the lecture theatre, after connecting the MacBook using a HDMI cable, so all present will be able to see the presentation.

OBS can pick up PowerPoint slides fine, so the capture card is working. However, when I try to see if OBS can pick up the MacBook it only shows the Mac display for 5 seconds and goes to a blank/black screen again.

I have also tested this on another streaming platform, Xsplit, and the exact same thing happened in that software too: the MacBook screen wasn't showing as an output.

Does anyone know what might be the issue? (I haven't got OBS installed on the MacBook but don't believe its absence is the issue).

Any help is much appreciated.

 

[AaronD]

I might be mistaken, but I remember a big deal a few years ago about Mac always encrypting its video output no matter what, in an effort to prevent copyright infringement of commercially-supplied content without having to actually detect it and make the switch. Of course, this greatly annoyed almost everyone that wanted to show their own personally-created content on a rig that legally couldn't accept encrypted video for the same reason. (don't show commercially copyrighted content)

If that's what's happening here, then most of us are not going to help you circumvent the encryption, for the same reason again. *You* might be okay, but some kid is going to read this public forum...

You might ask on the Mac subforum, to see if it could in fact be encrypting itself, or if there has to be something else going on.