IHihuman·Oct 16, 2020
Here's the compatibility list for the mac obs webcam plugin. I wonder if Sony's driver has the same issues.
https://github.com/johnboiles/obs-mac-virtualcam/wiki/Compat...
In Sony cameras can now be used as webcams for Macjohnboiles
obs-mac-virtualcam
Objective-C++2020–2020
johnboiles / obs-mac-virtualcam · Archived
obs-mac-virtualcam
ARCHIVED! This plugin is officially a part of OBS as of version 26.1. See note below for info on upgrading. 🎉🎉🎉Creates a virtual webcam device from the output of OBS. Especially useful for streaming smooth, composited video into Zoom, Hangouts, Jitsi etc. Like CatxFish/obs-virtualcam but for macOS.
7Distinct people
10Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
4KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
ARCHIVED! This plugin is officially a part of OBS as of version 26.1. See note below for info on upgrading. 🎉🎉🎉Creates a virtual webcam device from the output of OBS. Especially useful for streaming smooth, composited video into Zoom, Hangouts, Jitsi etc. Like CatxFish/obs-virtualcam but for macOS.
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use has been verified yet.
What people are saying
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Also in these discussions
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This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:56:07 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by week10 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2020-04-07 19:24:15 UTC to 2020-10-16 02:11:13 UTC. Weeks start Monday, UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 6 | 2020-04-06 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-04-13 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| Apr 13 | 2020-04-13 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-04-20 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Apr 20 | 2020-04-20 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-04-27 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Apr 27 | 2020-04-27 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-05-04 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| May 4 | 2020-05-04 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-05-11 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| May 11 | 2020-05-11 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-05-18 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| May 18 | 2020-05-18 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-05-25 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| May 25 | 2020-05-25 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-06-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jun 1 | 2020-06-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-06-08 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 1 | 3 |
| Jun 8 | 2020-06-08 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-06-15 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jun 15 | 2020-06-15 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-06-22 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jun 22 | 2020-06-22 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-06-29 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jun 29 | 2020-06-29 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-07-06 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jul 6 | 2020-07-06 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-07-13 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jul 13 | 2020-07-13 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-07-20 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jul 20 | 2020-07-20 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-07-27 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jul 27 | 2020-07-27 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-08-03 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Aug 3 | 2020-08-03 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-08-10 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Aug 10 | 2020-08-10 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-08-17 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Aug 17 | 2020-08-17 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-08-24 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Aug 24 | 2020-08-24 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-08-31 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Aug 31 | 2020-08-31 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-09-07 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Sep 7 | 2020-09-07 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-09-14 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Sep 14 | 2020-09-14 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-09-21 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Sep 21 | 2020-09-21 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-09-28 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Sep 28 | 2020-09-28 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-10-05 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Oct 5 | 2020-10-05 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-10-12 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Oct 12 | 2020-10-12 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-10-19 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
What Hacker News says
10 sourcesNote for anybody thinking they want to use this with Zoom/Slack/Discord/etc: It appears that this has the same restrictions that other DAL-based apps have and you'll need to re-sign the app or disable SIP to use it that way. I've been using an OBS virtual camera for this purpose and have had to do this a few times now. It will depend on the target app if they have this in their allowed plugins list.
https://github.com/johnboiles/obs-mac-virtualcam/wiki/Compat...
In Show HN: NeuralCam Live – Using ML to Turn iPhones into Smart WebcamsFWIW there's definitely some performance optimization that could be done in my plugin. Three things I know of:
1) Potentially an entire framebuffer memory copy could be avoided if we could get CMBlockBufferCreateWithMemoryBlock to work. See the CMSampleBufferCreateFromDataNoCopy method (currently unused -- linked below) in my code. It mostly worked but the virtual camera video wouldn't show up at full resolution in OBS, which is how I typically test while developing. Not sure why it wasn't working; possible it's an obscure OBS bug.
https://github.com/johnboiles/obs-mac-virtualcam/blob/master...
2) It might also be possible to get the virtual camera to advertise one of the pixel formats that OBS supports natively which would avoid the pixel format conversion in the CPU. I _bet_ this is where the majority of the performance hit from my plug
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in happens. I'm not sure if this is possible, however. Maybe OBS doesn't natively support any formats you can use for virtual cameras.
https://github.com/johnboiles/obs-mac-virtualcam/issues/102
3) If #2 isn't possible, maybe the pixel format transformation could happen on the GPU? I don't know much about GPU programming but maybe this would help.
The Zoom release notes are a bit misleading. They didn't enable all virtual cameras, but instead a very specific list of virtual cameras. Here's how you can see that list
strings /Applications/zoom.us.app/Contents/Frameworks/nydus.framework/Versions/A/nydus | grep "Developer ID Application"
A number of folks have reached out to Zoom support to request that my plugin be added. See the latest in https://github.com/johnboiles/obs-mac-virtualcam/issues/4 for details.
I wouldn't fault Zoom for being restrictive about what they include in their allow list, since every addition adds risk, but it looks like they've already included closed-source applications from individuals as of 5.0.5. At least my code is open source and auditable!
In OBS (macOS) Virtual CameraIt's seemingly a MacOS Code Signing limitation.
https://github.com/johnboiles/obs-mac-virtualcam/issues/4
In OBS (macOS) Virtual CameraSpice up your video conferences with OBS compositing (allows you to do green screen, multiple cameras, etc)
https://github.com/johnboiles/obs-mac-virtualcam
In Ask HN: What's your quarantine side project?First Official Release of the macOS OBS Virtual Camera
1 points · Open discussionJohn Boiles has a proof of concept of the OBS virtual cam. I tried it out and it worked for me, although I had to build it and OBS from source. He has good instructions.
https://github.com/johnboiles/obs-mac-virtualcam
In Tell HN: Toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and now web camsI made a plugin that sorta works for this last week: https://github.com/johnboiles/obs-mac-virtualcam
In Share OBS output as a webcam in Hangouts, Zoom etc