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Show HN: ZoomerBackgrounds – community-sourced virtual video backgrounds
41–50 of 84 posts
Re: Show HN: ZoomerBackgrounds – community-sourced virtual video backgrounds
#42I wonder: does anyone know of a solution which does something similar in a more software agnostic way? I imagine a software that takes a webcam manipulates the image and emulates another webcam which one could select then in every software that supports webcams. Does such a thing exist?
Snap Camera, CamTwist, and OBS are all options for that. Zoom recently had issues with using these virtual webcams on macOS, don't know if it's been fixed.
Re: Show HN: ZoomerBackgrounds – community-sourced virtual video backgrounds
#43Re: Show HN: ZoomerBackgrounds – community-sourced virtual video backgrounds
#44If folks want to use video backgrounds, there is a simple way, if your source is on youtube.
youtube-dl
In many cases these days, it will yield a mp4 file that you can plug directly into Zoom. Sometimes it will download in other formats, you might need to convert.
Re: Show HN: ZoomerBackgrounds – community-sourced virtual video backgrounds
#45I wonder: does anyone know of a solution which does something similar in a more software agnostic way? I imagine a software that takes a webcam manipulates the image and emulates another webcam which one could select then in every software that supports webcams. Does such a thing exist?
On Linux ffmpeg can output to a /dev/videoX device using v4l2loopback in order to spoof a webcam, I was able to play a looped video as a webcam and connect to websites that require a webcam.
On kubuntu I had to mknod (I think) the video device, then apt install v4l2loopback, then modprobe videodev and the v4l2loopback module, then use ffmpeg.
ffmpeg can capture from any video source including your running Xsession (eg a desktop area). So in theory you could output a pythonCV window or something this way.
OBS can probably do that better.
Re: Show HN: ZoomerBackgrounds – community-sourced virtual video backgrounds
#46I wonder: does anyone know of a solution which does something similar in a more software agnostic way? I imagine a software that takes a webcam manipulates the image and emulates another webcam which one could select then in every software that supports webcams. Does such a thing exist?
Yes, you can do this with OBS. The virtual webcam feature can be added as a plugin. And chroma-keying is a built-in feature. I use a Mac, and I've been toying with this a bit over the last weeks (e.g. https://davidbieber.com/snippets/2020-04-09-exploring-obs/ )
It's super easy...if you have a suitable chromakey backdrop and decent lighting on it. What I'd love is a plugin that replicates (or at least approximates) some of the "virtual chromakey" features of Zoom et al.
I don't currently have access to a good chromakey backdrop and it really is much easier to do it well with a bright green matte screen behind you.
It ain't important, but it would sure be nice!
Re: Show HN: ZoomerBackgrounds – community-sourced virtual video backgrounds
#47Hi HN, author here! As students facing online instruction, we built ZoomerBackgrounds to solve firsthand the everyday problems of having subpar backgrounds and spoke with several friends working in industry about their background needs. The result is a product we really think you're really going to love. We had a lot of fun making this over the weekend and hope you all enjoy :) For the tech stack we used react on the…
This is probably a trademark infringement on Zoom, in my personal opinion; this is not legal advice.
You might want to ensure you're doing what you need to for safe harbor provisions on copyright too.
Edit: I see you addressed the later.
Re: Show HN: ZoomerBackgrounds – community-sourced virtual video backgrounds
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here you go, it's pretty wild: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvrZJ5C_Nwg
Is this guy serious? Listening to the lyrics has hardcore African Child vibes.... or is this just parody? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-YCZr0epts&t=84s
Kirin J Callinan and Alex Cameron both like to invent characters and then write songs from the character's perspective as sincerely as possible. Sometimes the characters they are playing are just exaggerated version of themselves. They write 'serious' songs with elements irony and sometimes this means the songs fall closer to the 'parody' end of the spectrum.
I think their best attempt at this was Alex Cameron's album 'Forced Witness'[0]. Alex imagines what a Marlon Brando obsessed, porn addicted loner from the 80s would look like in 2017 with access to the internet. It manages to achieve biting satire and great song writing without devolving into simple parody.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KU01Rix_l2w - The lyrics of this album are very NSFW .. read the pitchfork review if you want to know what you're getting in to: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/alex-cameron-forced-wit...
Re: Show HN: ZoomerBackgrounds – community-sourced virtual video backgrounds
#49Re: Show HN: ZoomerBackgrounds – community-sourced virtual video backgrounds
#50How about improving FLOSS platforms instead?
Please don't do this. In addition to being tedious it's against the Show HN rules: https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html.