Unable to use webcam from multiple programs, how to fix programmatically?

[NeonX]

Hey guys,

I've been working on a personal project of mine and I've hit a massive block. One of the main features of my project involves the use of a webcam, however after spending quite sometime writing out the code and purchasing infrastructure I've discovered that the use of the webcam is mutually exclusive in windows!

I know it's a small chance but has anyone found a way to fix this issue or have any ideas how to go about fixing it?


Thank you

[Perryn]

You mean (I assume) showing the feed from a webcam in several applications at once?

If so, I am pretty sure there are applications written for this, I seem to recall having a somewhat similar need once and did some research on it. Basically what you'll end up with is an application that fetches the feed from the cam and distributes it to the other applications as if the feed came straight from the cam. This was a quite brief thing though and a long time ago so I'm afraid I don't recall the name of the application I used though, sorry =/

[NeonX]

You mean (I assume) showing the feed from a webcam in several applications at once?

If so, I am pretty sure there are applications written for this, I seem to recall having a somewhat similar need once and did some research on it. Basically what you'll end up with is an application that fetches the feed from the cam and distributes it to the other applications as if the feed came straight from the cam. This was a quite brief thing though and a long time ago so I'm afraid I don't recall the name of the application I used though, sorry =/

Thank you very much for replying, that is exactly what I meant.

Now knowing that you're able to gain access to the video feed I can hopefully do a bit more research and find a solution.

Unfortunately I'm not sure how viable it would be for me to have a 3rd-party program as a prerequisite for client versions of my program but I could possibly make it work but I don't imagine it working out too well.

[Deleted]

Thank you very much for replying, that is exactly what I meant.

Now knowing that you're able to gain access to the video feed I can hopefully do a bit more research and find a solution.

Unfortunately I'm not sure how viable it would be for me to have a 3rd-party program as a prerequisite for client versions of my program but I could possibly make it work but I don't imagine it working out too well.

do you need to display the same feed multiple times, or slightly different feeds separately? if it's the first, you might be able to make 1 main program read the feed, and the others read from that program. you might have to design the main program yourself, but I think it should be doable.

[NeonX]

do you need to display the same feed multiple times, or slightly different feeds separately? if it's the first, you might be able to make 1 main program read the feed, and the others read from that program. you might have to design the main program yourself, but I think it should be doable.

Cheers for the reply, like you said firstly I need to share the same feed my webcam is using and that is a great idea but my I think an issue with that is that I then deny other 3rd party programs which would cause problems for users I think.

[Yohassakura]

One option would be to have a video server (could be the broadcasters machine, but that's not recommended due to them requiring a high upload speed for multiple clients connecting to that one stream) which distributes the video being broadcast to the clients. - Not sure on what that "infrastructure" that you purchased is...

[glo]

I don't think Windows is going to let you do this on a software level. For example, multiple apps can access sound devices due to the built in sound server which sits between apps and your sound hardware. There is unfortunately no such server for video.

[Deleted]

Manycam (free version too) - http://www.manycam.com/

So, I assume it is definitely programmatically possible.

[NeonX]

One option would be to have a video server (could be the broadcasters machine, but that's not recommended due to them requiring a high upload speed for multiple clients connecting to that one stream) which distributes the video being broadcast to the clients. - Not sure on what that "infrastructure" that you purchased is...

Thank you very much, I will certainly look into it.

Also I apologise, by infrastructure all I meant was that I bought my own physical server and built a separate machine for testing.

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Manycam (free version too) - http://www.manycam.com/

So, I assume it is definitely programmatically possible.

Aw thank you so much for that, it has given me so much hope that this can be done programmatically

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I don't think Windows is going to let you do this on a software level. For example, multiple apps can access sound devices due to the built in sound server which sits between apps and your sound hardware. There is unfortunately no such server for video.

Aw that would be such a shame if that were the case, I'm hoping that I will be somehow be able to find out how some of these other programs that do something similar. Not getting my hopes up though haha.