Screen sharing & more with software cameras
Keep Posted doesn't natively support screen sharing. for now
That said, there are ways to share your screen, add fancy background effects, give slide shows, and more using a software camera instead of recording directly through your computer's camera.
Examples of software cameras that have been tested and are known to work with Keep Posted are:
- OBS Studio - (Help Docs)
- mmhmm - (Help Docs)
- Snap Camera - (Help Docs)
- ManyCam - (Help Docs)
A software camera is an application that captures audio and video input from your camera or another source (like screen recording), and modifys it in various ways before passing the output along to another application. As far as other applications are concerned, the software camera functions exactly the same as a hardware camera. They show up as another input option alongside your computer's webcam.
Different software camera applications can do different things. Here are some of the possibilities.
Screensharing is something that many software cameras can do, although they handle it in different ways. Screen sharing is useful when talking about something that can be shown on screen. For example, when reviewing a report that has detailed graphs, it's generally more helpful to see the graphs than the speaker's face.
With OBS Studio, you can configure several 'scenes' for different windows, and then switch between them as you stream. There are a lot of options and it can be really powerful, but potentially cumbersome if all you want to do is simple screen sharing.
Mmhmm takes a different approach and combines the input from your camera with screensharing, resulting in an effect that's similar to a newscast. Here is an example.
Software cameras can alter your background, either blurring it, or removing it altogether and replacing it with an image or video.
👉 To get high quality seperation between you and your background, record against a solid color background or use a green screen
For example, in mmhmm, backgrounds are called 'rooms' and can have a variety of effects.
Software cameras work with Keep Posted much like hardware cameras do. If you have not yet granted Keep Posted permission to access your camera, your browser may prompt you to select a camera when you try to start recording. In that case, you can select any available software camera instead of a hardware camera. Note: Different browsers handle this differently. Some may not prompt you to choose a camera, and instead will use a default.
You can also tell Keep Posted your camera preference in the settings section. Go to Settings > Recording and then look for the "Change your input preferences" button.
You can select any available input device as your default, and Keep Posted will attempt to connect to it when you record a clip. If it is not available, the browser default will be used instead. Note: The input preferences are strored in your browser. If you use multiple browsers or different computers, the preferences need to be set on each one.
[for now:] There are potential ways for Keep Posted to natively record screen sharing using the HTML5 Screen Capture API that are being investigated. ↩