Support for new OBS Linux Version (Flatpak)

The latest Linux version of OBS Studio was officially released as Flatpak. Presumably this will become the default version going forward. Using Blackmagic capture devices is not possible with that out of the box however.

Threre's an unofficial solution which seems to be rather outdated and didn't work for me.

Is it planned to officially support the capture devices with this new version of OBS? It would be greatly appreciated.

Is there any information or news on this?

I would also like to get some attention on this, because as of now no Flatpak apps have access to Blackmagic hardware, not only OBS.

The problem is that the flatpak apps, being sandboxed, don't have access to the system's library files, so they try to find the DeckLink API library file that is installed with Desktop Video and they can't find it.

The outdated solution that pavola mentions has been to manually download Desktop Video, copy the library, and repackage the flatpak app with the added dependency, which as far as I understand is just a single file. All app developers could automate this, except they can't because of the way that Blackmagic makes available the download links for Desktop Video (there is not a single static link to reference). Obviously they also cannot host or distribute the files themselves.

The ideal approach would be for Blackmagic to release the library as an official Flatpak extension, that the other developers can add as a dependency and reference. That way, Blackmagic would mantain complete control on what version of the library is released and in use.

This solution would require very little work: A json file describing the extension, and uploading the library itself. It would mostly just require the interest of Blackmagic to do it.

Some additional information on the approach that OBS in particular tried to take, can be found in this link: https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/issues/6004

Yes, PLEASE Blackmagic! If someone is buying one of your capture cards, they're most likely, buying it to use with OBS these days. And the only official Linux installer for OBS is now Flatpak.

I just got off the phone with BMD support and I told them that I installed my Decklink Quad HDMI 4K and Media Express sees it fine but OBS can't use it at all. They essentially just said they can't help me since Media Express sees it.

Not asking for you to Open Source anything or really do any crazy extra work. Just create an official way to get Decklink capture into OBS on Linux.

Here it is running fine with the official OBS PPA installed version on Pop!_OS.

OBS First Run With Decklink.jpg (500.24 KiB) Viewed 351 times

It is unfortunate that Magewell's quad HDMI works out of the box with Linux and even has open source drivers and is a standard V4L2 video device. I really want to give our company's money to a US based corp, but the lack of Linux support at a low level is a no-go. It is truly sad because we will need 60 quad HDMI capture cards in the next couple years. I'm guessing that $32,000 is just a drop in the bucket for BMD, so it's doubtful there will be any traction on just a simple V4L2 interface....unless there already is and the library is just wrapping calls to it?