Window Capture questions...

[anidea]

Hi all,

I'm new here but I've been searching around to find the answer to this and have pretty much exhausted everything I've seen. Here is my issue:

When I use Window Capture option, the only option available to me is explorer.exe.

Possible options I would like to choose in Window Capture include a PDF document (acrobat.exe) or my ipad (I forget what this is supposed to show up as, but since the first theoretically should be easier/more common, I'm starting there).
I've tried running OBS as administrator, but it makes no difference. I saw that if you're on a mac (I'm on Windows, either 7 or 10) there is a privacy setting but I don't see anything for windows.
I've seen a demo online where the person adds Window Capture to their OBS scene and they get a long list of items available to them, including acrobat.exe. They have the same version of OBS (25.0.8) and are also running the 64-bit windows version. But my install does not look like theirs. They don't know what I've done differently.

What am I doing wrong? Please help :) I'm going bald from this craziness (j/k).

Thank you.

 

[qhobbes]

Try running OBS as Admin.

 

[anidea]

Try running OBS as Admin.

Thanks, but I've tried that already. It didn't help, I still only get explorer.exe options in Window Capture. No acrobat options, even when my pdf is open.

 

[Sukiyucky]

Windows capture lists all the top level windows associated with Windows applications running at the time you bring up the OBS Window Capture property box. If you notice, when you first open up the Window Capture property dialog box, there is a slight pause. That is OBS walking the window list. There are literally tens of thousands of windows running. In graphical user interfaces, buttons, toolbars, checkboxes, everything is a type of window. OBS has to determine which one are the most relevant and it does to based on windows class. It filters out some applications it doesn't want to capture, and shows you a list of those that can be captured.

It is not guaranteed to work. For example:

Some applications may prevent other applications from capturing its window contents.
Some top level windows of applications may be actually hidden and serve as only a means to "frame" the children windows
Some applications have windows with no identifiable title
Etc.

When it doesn't work, the workaround is to use display capture. It is limited though depending on how the application lays out its content for it involves cropping out from the inside to the outside borders of the stuff you want to be captured in rectangular fashion.

So try to display capture. In OBS preview, right click on the display capture source and then Transform | Edit transform | Crop. Resize the handles to make it smaller if you need to and position within the scene. Sometimes you will have to resize the application window and its inner child windows to arrange them in a fashion to your liking. But that is not an OBS problem. That is yours and the application design.

 

[anidea]

Some applications may prevent other applications from capturing its window contents.
Some top level windows of applications may be actually hidden and serve as only a means to "frame" the children windows
Some applications have windows with no identifiable title

Thanks, this is interesting. So what you're saying is that something is suppressing Acrobat? I do have the full version of Acrobat (not just the Reader), but it isn't given priority by Windows? I'm curious as to why. The windows I have open are Chrome, OBS, and Acrobat. Nothing else is running.

I'll try the workaround (display capture), but I'd really like to know what is going on here. I could understand if I had one computer doing this, but it's not just one....