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OBS Studio 26.1 rolls out with Virtual Camera output on Linux

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After only two Release Candidates for testing, OBS Studio 26.1 has now officially rolled out with some fun new features for all supported platforms. If you're planning to do any sort of video creation on Linux, OBS Studio is now practically the standard. It's our go-to solution for everything when it comes to video creation (and plain audio recording since it has some easy real-time filters) and being free and open source is a nice big plus.

This release follows shortly after announcing YouTube as a new sponsor, so they have plenty of funding to keep bringing on new and advanced feature releases.

Game pictured - the excellent Children of Morta available from GOGHumble Store and Steam and the December Humble Choice also has it!

What's new in OBS Studio 26.1, here's the release highlights:

  • Added Virtual Camera output on Linux (requires v4l2loopback-dkms) and macOS
  • Added the ability to use a separate audio track for the VOD when using Twitch
    • If using Simple output mode, enable "Enable Advanced Encoder Settings", and enable "Twitch VOD Track (Uses Track 2)". Twitch VOD output will then be on audio track 2
    • If using Advanced output mode in the Streaming tab, enable "Twitch VOD Track" and select the track you'd like to use for it
  • Added OpenBSD support
  • Added the ability to ingest captions coming from Decklink devices via "Decklink Captions" from the Tools menu 
  • Added hardware decoding options for stinger transitions
  • Added an option to duplicate filters in the right-click context menu of filters
  • Added ability to copy and paste a single filter between sources
  • Added HLS support and ingests for YouTube
  • Added a Replay buffer save event to the frontend API

Various bug fixes also made it in like properly warning you of more than one instance running, which can cause some issues (especially with Virtual Camera). There's also some helpful UI tweaks, like showing you the max limitations of various streaming services.

You can grab OBS Studio from the official site.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Apps, Open Source, Update | Apps: OBS Studio
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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6 comments

Tchey Dec 14, 2020
Is it the thing to get i.e. YouTube chat url link, to have the chat visible while streaming ? Not sure how to explain it in english... It’s the only thing i miss for my usage, i think.
Guppy Dec 14, 2020
After spending quite a bit of time on google the only thing that comes close to explaining the "why" of virtual camera seems to be that you select it as a webcamera in zoom/teams/etc..

but I'm not sure why that's preferable to simply using the build in 'share desktop/window/chrometab' in those ?

What am I missing about this feature?
Maweki Dec 14, 2020
Quoting: GuppyAfter spending quite a bit of time on google the only thing that comes close to explaining the "why" of virtual camera seems to be that you select it as a webcamera in zoom/teams/etc..

but I'm not sure why that's preferable to simply using the build in 'share desktop/window/chrometab' in those ?

What am I missing about this feature?

You can "stream" your composed view to any application that usually would only accept your webcam. And the composed output might be completely different from your original screen, which might be very wide or includes stuff you do not want to show.
WizardCM Dec 14, 2020
Quoting: Guppybut I'm not sure why that's preferable to simply using the build in 'share desktop/window/chrometab' in those ?

What am I missing about this feature?

The two most common usecases:

1. Greenscreen / camera effects (usually for fun)

2. A fully "composited" view - that means animated slides + the speaker's webcam in one view. This also means that for something like a presentation (eg. teacher), switching between captured windows, pre-prepared presentation slides, their face etc is smoother and doesn't break the flow.
oldominion Dec 14, 2020
[quote=WizardCM]
Quoting: Guppy1. Greenscreen / camera effects (usually for fun)

But this isn't the same as the virtual background (it removes the background without the need of a greenscreen/green background) from Nvidia's Broadcast engine, or?
MayeulC Dec 15, 2020
[quote=oldominion]
Quoting: WizardCM
Quoting: Guppy1. Greenscreen / camera effects (usually for fun)

But this isn't the same as the virtual background (it removes the background without the need of a greenscreen/green background) from Nvidia's Broadcast engine, or?

The quality is vastly different :)

It's a bit like being on the phone in a train station: OK, you can do some processing to remove the background as much as you can, but it doesn't beat a clean environment.

I don't yet have a green screen, but would like to use one to make my background transparent when I compose the webcam view on my slides :)

Also, the other day, someone tried to show a paper to their webcam, and zoom decided that was part of the background...

Quoting: GuppyAfter spending quite a bit of time on google the only thing that comes close to explaining the "why" of virtual camera seems to be that you select it as a webcamera in zoom/teams/etc..

but I'm not sure why that's preferable to simply using the build in 'share desktop/window/chrometab' in those ?

What am I missing about this feature?

In my case, sway (which is missing in the PC settings page on GOL) is my main "desktop environment". Most software you quoted do not have support for capturing the desktop under Wayland (no XDG-DESKTOP-PORTAL support, nor the wlroots protocol).

Using a wlroots plugin for OBS allows me to capture my monitor, and feed it back to these apps (teams only sees a black screen, not sure why?). I've had to do it a lot more lately...


Last edited by MayeulC on 15 December 2020 at 8:06 am UTC
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