Virtual Cam Plugin 2.0.5 not working with OBS 28

[PaiSand]

You aren't forced to update. If something isn't working anymore on a new version of OBS you can still use the previous version where everything works for you.
You can't keep delaying advancement because someoone else refuse updating or abandoned development on some plugins.
What you can do is pay someone to develop what you need, or pay to this plugin creators to update their plugins. I think if they get paid for the effort and time it takes to do so they will gladly comply.

 

[FerretBomb]

I really despair at your attitude ddFrisselle. You are basically saying yah boo to users like me and many others. The problem this time has been such a big change has broken many plugins real users use and all I see at the moment are schadenfreudesque comments like that, that add absolutely nothing and are clearly intended to upset those people impacted.

Supporting plugin updates is in the interest of developers because without the plugins and the user community, OBS would be nothing compared to what it is now. It would be a little used app, if it survived as a project at all. Plugins provide features that attract users and that use in turn attracts investment in the project, makes developers feel their work is worthwhile and introduces new developers. That is why the developers have tried to help ensure plugins work.

So, in practice there is an obligation on both sides, from the main developers not to change too much too often that it puts a burden on the plugin developers and on the plugin developers to continue support if the can. Sometimes they can't for many reasons.

The core OBS dev team cannot provide support for plugins. They already have a TON on their plate just maintaining the core program. Expecting them to maintain every plugin is just insane. It would be like expecting Ford to provide support for every aftermarket add-on made for their cars. NOT feasible.

The move to Qt6 was necessary; Qt5 is no longer supported, and has caused issues for a while anyway. If you want to yell at someone, yell at the Qt group for not including backward/forward compatibility between versions.

Speaking as someone who DOES use the full-fat virtual-camera plugin, I am also inconvenienced by this. I'm sticking to 27.2.4 as a result, until I can change my workflow to accommodate the loss of this abandoned plugin, or someone else picks up maintaining and updating the code.

There is ZERO obligation for OBS to maintain plugins. They warned plugin devs about the necessary update to Qt6 well ahead of time. If plugin developers no longer had time or interest in maintaining their code, go complain at them.
Or better yet, say thank you for the utility they provided for free for so long, and ask if they would be interested in updating it for the money you are willing to pay them out of your pocket.

 

[G0MJW]

Like you I have not updated yet and I can work around. While you are right there is no obligation, when a production team abandons its legacy community, it is very likely the product will not be around for much longer. Ford don't as a rule make changes that would break the compatibility of accessories in an existing car, though with over the air software updates, they might in future. A new model, yes, but that's somewhat different. The reason the developer stopped developing was his plugin was so good it became incorporated into the core code. I the OBS core team will decide to simply add the missing audio to the built in virtual camera. Meanwhile perhaps we need a concept of long term support for major version changes where all the working main code builds and plugins that worked with it are archived. That's already there for OBS but not as far as I know for the plugins.

For now I will try to warn off the beginners from updating, but chances are they will because they are not programmers, they don't have the knowledge and have been continually told they must to keep up to date by Microsoft etc and so will just click on every update request, not realising this will break things. At least OBS updates are not automatically enforced.

Interesting point about paying someone. I was not even aware that was an option. Funding might be possible for a specific plugin that does what we are using the virtual camera for, which is generating H265 mpeg transport streams at very low bit rates. Success requires the use of codec options not supported by the built in ffmpeg. This is why the virtual camera was needed, to send the video and audio to an external ffmpeg process. I would do it myself, but the toolset required to build a plugin seems daunting and when I went to install it I found QT appears to be moving towards being a closed source commercial product with a $300 per month price tag. No doubt you can still build with free tools but I'll bet it's going to get a lot more difficult going forwards as the commercial and open versions diverge.

 

[PaiSand]

when a production team abandons its legacy community.
Interesting point about paying someone. I was not even aware that was an option.

The creator of the plugin abandoned it's development, not OBS team.
Even Ford changed all their line of cars to new designs, new engines, new everything, which leads to the obsolecens of all the third parts done so far. The old model is doom and just a few will still make parts for it or the costs kills them.

You're kidding about not knowing you can pay someone to develope somethign, right? right? 'ight?

 

[dev47]

FYI- there is a new alternative virtual output plugin, currently waiting for moderation/approval.
Not sure why it has not been posted on the forums yet, I assume the moderators are busy due to the OBS 28 launch, but you can find the project on GitHub in the meantime

GitHub - dev47apps/droidcam-obs-virtual-output: An alternative virtual output plugin for OBS Studio

An alternative virtual output plugin for OBS Studio - dev47apps/droidcam-obs-virtual-output

github.com

 

[G0MJW]

FYI- there is a new alternative virtual output plugin, currently waiting for moderation/approval.
Not sure why it has not been posted on the forums yet, I assume the moderators are busy due to the OBS 28 launch, but you can find the project on GitHub in the meantime

GitHub - dev47apps/droidcam-obs-virtual-output: An alternative virtual output plugin for OBS Studio

An alternative virtual output plugin for OBS Studio - dev47apps/droidcam-obs-virtual-output

github.com

I wasn't aware. That looks interesting. Thanks for the link.

 

[G0MJW]

Thanks @dev47 - the alpha works. Brilliant. Well done. I don't know if there are any bugs but I had it running for an hour without and crashing and once I had worked out what the device names are, ffmpeg encoding worked too.

My names were "DroidCam Video" and "Microphone (DroidCam Audio)" for anyone playing along. The audio one had me puzzled for a while but easy enough to ask ffmpeg what was on my machine.

An odd thing, maybe deliberate, but the frame rate doesn't adapt to the OBS frame rate. For those of us in 50Hz countries that can be important, especially with LED lighting. I also found some issues with the aspect ratio, but that's probably finger trouble. I expect I need to explicitly define it in my script.

Mike

 

[koala]

The big question is WHY did the developers update OBS when they knew a lot of plugins would not work with it?

It's a chicken-egg problem. It's a social problem, not a technical problem. If you don't release a new OBS version until every plugin developer updated their plugins, not many plugin developers will update their plugins accordingly, because there is no user demand and no user will actually use updated plugins. Plugin authors will wait for actual demand. But no updated plugins mean not ready to release a new OBS version.

On the other hand, if you tell plugin authors that they need to update their plugins for the upcoming OBS version, and tell this a month in advance, and give source access to them (github is open to everyone), sensible authors will start to update their plugins in time, and the others when user demand raises due to the released update. In the meantime without plugin update, there is always a fallback: not updating to OBS 28 until your favorite plugins have been updated as well, so you have always access to some working OBS version.

So to get plugin upgrade development running, there is a need to release the new OBS version. It has to be available. Not beta, but actually a real release. And to keep the release some kind of secret until plugins have been released along with it isn't feasible as well, because very many users (probably the vast majority) doesn't use any plugin, so keeping a released OBS version away from them makes no sense.

 

[dev47]

@G0MJW - correct, the audio/video parameters are set by the consumer (ffmpeg/zoom/discord/etcc) and output from OBS is matched to that.
See the last bullet point in the README on GitHub.

 

[kobratrading]

@G0MJW

From the same guy on GitHub, I also found this:

Virtual Camera

I downloaded the portable version of OBSv28, and also used the "StreamUp" Plugin Installer. All but one of the plugins works, which is good. But the actual button for OBS Virtual Camera (the built in one, NOT the plugin) has completely disappeared! Does anyone have any insight into what caused...

obsproject.com

I'm testing it now. So far, it seems to work flawlessly. See the rest of my thread for other relevant "virtual camera" related issues as well. Hope this helps some people.

 

[DarthLunga]

FYI- there is a new alternative virtual output plugin, currently waiting for moderation/approval.
Not sure why it has not been posted on the forums yet, I assume the moderators are busy due to the OBS 28 launch, but you can find the project on GitHub in the meantime

GitHub - dev47apps/droidcam-obs-virtual-output: An alternative virtual output plugin for OBS Studio

An alternative virtual output plugin for OBS Studio - dev47apps/droidcam-obs-virtual-output

github.com

I am unsure how this works. From all the things I've read on it, it is only for android/mobile devices to be used as cams. I have a dedicated Canon with a camlink as my cam. The way I used the virtual cam plugin was through OBS I could have VC 1 be my scene that is just my cam and another vc attached to my main scene that I can send as a director's cam to my guests showing the stream. I tried downloading and installing this, I see it as a source in OBS but I don't where I can attach my cam to it.

 

[dev47]

@DarthLunga - the plugin has since been approved, I recommend going through the description there, which is more detailed:

DroidCam Virtual Output

An alternative virtual output plugin that connects OBS Studio with the DroidCam virtual camera drivers. Note: This plugin is not connected to the DroidCam phone app, see the DroidCam Source plugin instead. Key Differences Existing virtualcam...

obsproject.com