How To Sync A Facetime Camera On A Mac With A PC To Livestream on OBS
Video and audio guide for livestreaming on Twitch
I have been doing a ton of research on livestreaming because I have a home studio where I produce electronic music as LUCKYKAT. It seems like the perfect opportunity to open the kimono and let fans into my creative process.
Having looked at livestreaming platforms Twitch, D-Live and Caffeine, I realized I was going to face a dilemma: I have a PC tower which is the brute force behind my programming on my DAW Ableton Live 11 but it doesn’t have a built-in HD camera. My two extreme sports cameras cannot be used for livestreaming. I invested in a Mac for my live shows but the operating systems (MacOS and Windows) are not compatible with each other.
I didn’t want to have to shell out another $500 or more on an HDR camera that would be used just for livestreaming or DJ sets and some of the webcams I have used in the past were really low resolution.
Two screens would be essential. I would use the PC screen to show my programming on Ableton. I wanted to use the Facetime HD camera on the Mac in place of the webcam and put the two camera together to run simultaneously on Streamlabs OBS.
VIDEO
First, I tried simply plugging the Mac into the USB port of my Mac. As expected this didn’t work.
Secondly, I tried opening OBS on both computers and trying to link them using Bluetooth. Still no joy.
Then I found a little rabbit hole which went deep…
After reading a Stack Exchange forum post and comments in a subreddit discussion, I managed to find a way that seemed like it could work. This is what I did:
- Go to https://ndi.tv/tools/
- Scroll down midway, click download, and download all files and drivers for Mac.
- Run all 3 programs you downloaded.
- Download OBS on iMAC (not streamlabs OBS, regular OBS).
- Go to https://github.com/Palakis/obs-ndi/releases/.
- Download both the https://ndi.palakis.fr/runtime/ndi-runtime-4.5.1-macOS.pkg and the obs-ndi-4.8.0-macOS.pkg.
- Restart computer.
- Once you’ve installed NDI and OBS on the Mac you need to create a new scene with the Video Device media source and configure it for your webcam. Make sure you make the video full screen on OBS on MAC.
- Then in the menu bar select Tools > NDI Output Settings and check the ‘main output’ box. This will make the program output available to the Windows computer.
- Close and re-open StreamLabs OBS (on windows PC).
- Create new source in StreamLabs OBS (on windows PC) and select NDI source.
- Your Mac desktop and the NDI OBS video cam (from iMAC) should both be available to use.
I was excited and followed these steps only to hit a wall. It wasn’t clear if the Mac had to be connected to the PC and that is where the cloud of uncertainty returned. It felt as if I was so close to finding the solution.
Then I came across a simple plan that the A-Team would have been proud of.
I opened OBS on my Mac and made sure that in the Tools menu, NDI Output Settings was clicked on and the ‘main output’ box was checked.
I used a free tool — OBS Ninja — on my Mac and selected “Add your camera to OBS”. This kicked up a URL.
Then I jumped on my PC and opened StreamLabs OBS.
I then repeated the action of going to obs.ninja to “add the camera to OBS” and added a new Source by clicking the “+” symbol.
Then I selected “Browser Source” and copied the URL that was given on OBS Ninja on my Mac to the PC.
Make sure to hit “Start Virtual Camera” on OBS so that it syncs with OBS Ninja.
BINGO!! I could now see the webcam stream from my Mac on my PC. This virtual camera setup offered low latency which meant that there were very few buffers and the quality was miraculously high.
This technique means that I saved a lot of money on having to get a new digital camera and it also means I am using all the resources I currently have at my disposal. Bootstrapping 101 entrepreneurs!
I am using StreamLabs OBS rather than OBS on the PC and for livestreaming to Twitch because it offers extended widgets that can be used to monetize my channel. Viewers can subscribe, tip, buy merch and music. I want music to support me as soon as possible, so I am monetizing my content from day one.
The more revenue I can make, the more time I can spend making music for you. My goal is to be making music 100% of my time by December 2022.
Follow my musical journey here and subscribe to my Twitch channel to watch upcoming Ableton Live programming sessions and chat with me.
Here was my 1st test:
The only thing to note is that for identity reasons, the camera is flipped 180 on StreamLabs.
What I like is that you can organize your screen depending on your goals for viewers. I wanted Ableton to be the main screen as people would be learning. In the bottom right of the screen, I added my webcam image so people can see it’s me and that I didn’t outsource the streaming overseas and you can also add a pop-up window to show notifications like New Subscriber or Tips.
SOUND
The biggest headache was one I didn’t expect: getting the sound from my desktop to come through to Twitch viewers.
I tried the obvious — going to the “Sources” window on StreamLabs, selecting the “+” symbol then adding “Audio Output Capture”. This didn’t work.
I thought maybe the issue was my new audio interface but after troubleshooting using the signal flow, still no sound.
I finally did some digging on forums and came across Voicemeeter Banana — a weird name I know but a lifesaver. The Virtual Audio Interface is available as a desktop plugin and looks like this:
I downloaded the “Voicemeeter 2.0.6.2 (ZIP Package)”.
I recommend checking out some of the signal flow diagrams and tutorials to get set up.
I opened the app and my Settings were as follows in the Virtual Input section:
- On Left Fader, I selected A1, B1 and B2 only.
- On Right Fader, I selected A1 and B1 only.
- At the top right next to where it says “Hardware Out”, hit A1 and from the dropdown, select your device that controls your audio. On my PC, it was my audio interface.
Really important: when you are using the plugin, do not close the window or the sound will shut off. Instead, minimize the window while livestreaming.
Next, go back to StreamLabs and double click on “Audio Output Capture” in the “Sources window.
When this pop-up window opens, click on “Audio Output Capture” and make sure “Audio Monitoring is set to “Monitor Off” or you might get a feedback loop.
Under the “Global Settings” tab, click the dropdown “Audio Monitoring Device” and set to your audio interface or computer sound card.
Scroll down and under “Desktop Audio Device 1, select your sound output device.
Now open a browser window and play a YouTube video or any music on your desktop. You should be able to see the video playing on the StreamLabs window and in the “Mixer” window in the bottom right, you should see a signal for the music coming through. Make sure it stays under 0dB or you will get clipping and hurt your viewer’s poor little ears!
You are now ready to do your first Twitch livestream with video and audio! :)
Probably going to make a video of this at some point to further help you. Let me know if this worked for you and how it went in the comments.
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Patreon
Bandcamp
