UltraStudio Mini > GH4 > No Signal When Online

Thank you all very much.

I have a GH4 connected to the UltraStudio Mini Recorder. I've called and talked with Blackmagic and we've tested and verified an audio and video signal via Media Express. I am also able to see audio and video signal in OBS - HOWEVER, I'm unable to see any signal with Skype, Hangouts, Zoom, StreamYard, FB Live, YouTube ... all those those, give me a black screen.

I disabled all of my firewalls.
I've "allowed/given authorization" to all the browsers multiple times.
I've installed previous versions of the browsers thinking this may help.
I've tried sending a Frequency of 50Hz (Pal) and at 1080 50i
I've tried sending a Frequency of 24Hz and 1080.
All of those are resulting in a signal in Media Express and OBS but not within anything else with a direct connection into the internet.

When I send a broadcast up from OBS to FB Live, it shows the signal of the camera. My problem is that I need the ability to interact within Skype, Zoom, StreamYard, FB for communication with other people when I join their calls.

Please for suggestion on what I maybe overlooking.

Yes, this is mostly the expected behavior.

Most of the applications you mentioned (Skype, Hangouts, etc.) expect a webcam or other USB Video Class (UVC) device as the video input source. These types of devices have built-in driver support on all major operating systems and have a standard way to access them, so they are well supported across a wide range of apps.

In contrast, the UltraStudio (and DeckLink) products require access through Blackmagic-specific drivers (the Desktop Video SDK). As a result UltraStudio/DeckLink devices generally only work well in apps that have direct support for the DeckLink SDK, such as OBS Studio or Blackmagic's own Media Express. If you search for DeckLink + Skype in the forum, for example, you will find lots of other people that have encountered this.

One option is to use a USB Video Class capture device like the Blackmagic Web Presenter or ATEM Mini. These are both directly supported in most of the apps looking for a webcam input.

A second possibility would be to try using the OBS VirtualCam plugin to output a video signal from OBS as a virtual webcam feed:
https://obsproject.com/forum/resources/ ... alcam.539/

An alternative is Wirecast, which also has a a Virtual Camera Out feature. This is the standard way to integrate Wirecast with Zoom, for instance, passing video and audio to and from Zoom.

Are you using a laptop with discrete graphics?

If so you need to force certain apps to use the correct graphics card - usually either the Intel iGPU or the Nvidia depending on what you want to do in the app.

Here's the OBS troubleshooter guide but you can apply similar logic to Skype etc.

https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/la ... irst.5965/

Hopefully that's helpful.

An alternative is Wirecast, which also has a a Virtual Camera Out feature. This is the standard way to integrate Wirecast with Zoom, for instance, passing video and audio to and from Zoom.

Thank you. Would this be the same as the NDI setup? That would be my next phase would be to try the NDI which works with OBS and StreamLabs OBS.

Thank you!

One option is to use a USB Video Class capture device like the Blackmagic Web Presenter or ATEM Mini. These are both directly supported in most of the apps looking for a webcam input.

Thank you very much. Dave, would the Blackmagic Web presenter or ATEM Mini allow for 1080 streaming with a GH4 (or another such type camera) into the laptop? I did lots of research before puchasing the UltraStudio Mini Recorder and was left with the impression that a USB wouldn't be fast enough?

Thanks!!

Are you using a laptop with discrete graphics?

If so you need to force certain apps to use the correct graphics card - usually either the Intel iGPU or the Nvidia depending on what you want to do in the app.

Here's the OBS troubleshooter guide but you can apply similar logic to Skype etc.

https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/la ... irst.5965/

Hopefully that's helpful.

Excellent, I will try this! Thank you. Yes this laptop has both, as you described - Intel on board integrated iGPU as well as a powerful Nvidia. I'll give this a whirl and report back!

Thank you!

Dave, would the Blackmagic Web presenter or ATEM Mini allow for 1080 streaming with a GH4 (or another such type camera) into the laptop? I did lots of research before puchasing the UltraStudio Mini Recorder and was left with the impression that a USB wouldn't be fast enough?

The Blackmagic Web Presenter is limited to 720p output over USB into the computer. The ATEM Mini can do up to 1080p60 output over USB.

There are also some USB video capture devices from other manufacturers that are USB Video Class (UVC) compliant and can handle up to 1080p60 video. For example, the AJA U-Tap, Magewell USB Capture, and Epiphan AV.io lines. All of these products are more expensive than the UltraStudio Mini Recorder though.

In terms of the USB bandwidth issue, uncompressed 1080p60 video is about 3 Gbps in bandwidth which fits within the 5 Gbps bandwidth of the USB 3.0 bus (allowing for some overhead). For older USB 2.0 ports (480 Mbps bandwidth) then you could have issues, but all of these 1080p capture products are USB 3.0 devices.

The Web Presenter and ATEM Mini output is webcam-like and highly compressed so those would not be using the full bandwidth of an uncompressed signal. The Mini Recorder has an uncompressed signal to maintain the full quality of the incoming signal so that would be.