[Tips & Tricks] Live Backgrounds

Hi,
My church has asked me to provide a twitter wall type background behind the projected song words.
I know how to have a video background, but what I really need is a live web-page background.
I guess I could also try and use an "active desktop" background on the PC and then have the song words transparent in some way.

Does anyone have any advice on how to do this, or indeed if it can be done.

Thanks (and be kind, I'm new here!)

A couple of weeks ago one of my AV assistants turned up at church with a new device he had purchased for capturing HDMI.
I plugged it into my VMix PC as another camera input and it worked perfectly - no drivers - just plug and play.
We plugged it into the EW PC and EW saw it and began projecting a live picture from it within seconds.
The Device is a driverless USB 3 capture that will capture VGA, DVI and HDMI at up to 1080 @ 60fpm. I have used it several times now and love it - it just works - plug and play!

The device is an Epiphan AV.io HD

https://www.epiphan.com/products/avio-hd/

Price will depend on where you buy it. They come in various types of inputs so you would need to determine the model for your local use. This model with these inputs can be used also to capture output from another PC or laptop as a live feed into EW.

All cameras I have used have a delay within the camera. Just wave your hand up and down in front of the camera and watch in its own display and you will see that delay. I have not detected any further delay when using this device.

I have Blackmagic Intensity Shuttles - both USB and Thunderbolt versions and have not found them too reliable. This device, as I said is just plug and play - and works perfect!
A suggestion ... try using a program called ManyCam (http://manycam.com) which seems to be free for educational/charity use. The free version of this program will pull together, and switch between, the feeds from two usb webcams, or an isp webcam, or the desktop. This feed can then be set to be the background to a song, scripture, or presentation in EW. You may find you have to pay for the full version to get exactly what you want, but it could be worth a look to see if it offers what you want.
There is a way this can happen but you would need extra software and hardware to do it.
VMix is video mixing software that runs on a PC. A feature is that it can desktop capture the screens from computers connected via Ethernet and running the desktop capture utility.
You could have EW running on the second laptop/PC, DT Captured into VMix which is using an internet page as it's background. Vmix will bring in and overlay live comments from social media. You would also need to chroma key out the background of the EW output screen - which would be best green!

I have done that for a live stream we did last year which can be seen from about 14:30sec to 17 min on the link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7_9UUF1wTQ

Of course you would need a second PC running VMix with appropriate video capture cards for any live video. You can have several laptops/PC though connected via an Ethernet hub to the VMix PC.

I am currently running a program series using EW,VMix and PowerPoint from a second laptop which is connected via the desktop capture of VMix. M laptop can service 4 screens simultaneously. One screen is running EW, the main screen is running VMix and a third output is running the projectors.
With this setup I can run items from EW as normal. I click on the LIVE button and the output from VMix takes over. I can then run live video from several cameras mixed with the PP from the captured laptop. When required. I click the EW LIGVE button and go seamlessly back to EW.

I would love it if EW developers decided to incorporate a desktop capture facility into EW.

Alvin
Good Question dixonc1.
The alpha channel is directly tied to the content that is played on the live screen. It acts as the mask behind the text to allow a video mixer to render our text with its shadows over live camera feeds. It cannot be used for a separate output.
Could I not use the Alpha channel function and have the webpage separate?
Hi!

There is not a way to use a webpage as a background in the EasyWorship program.