Super Streams on a Mac

Super Streams on a Mac

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4 min read

In this guide I'll go through how I set myself up for super streaming on a Mac.

Why Mac? Because streaming is harder on a Mac due to "security features" in the operating system and if you're a Windows user you've probably already figured it out. If you haven't, then feel free to keep reading.

What is super streaming?

Super streaming is when more than one streamer share their cam and game play on a single stream. In this context, I will be talking about the setup that basically involves the following scenario:

  • A single broadcaster on Twitch
  • All participants share their game play
  • All participants share their cam
  • The broadcaster crops the other participants in

Software needed

The software I will be using in this explanation is the following:

  • OBS
  • Discord

As the post title indicates, the software is running on macOS.

As the broadcaster

As the broadcaster, there is no additional complexity.

I recommend doing the following:

  1. Joining a voice channel in Discord. Choose the view optimized for this, e.g. hiding non-video participants, and making sure everyone's feed is the same size.
  2. Popping out that voice channel in a separate window and sizing it adequately to make sure that on hover the bottom controls are not on top of the video
  3. Creating a Window capture source in OBS where the source is the popped-out Discord window

By popping out the window and sizing it accordingly, you can navigate to other Discord channels and DM's without disrupting your stream, as well as ensuring that if you hover over the window accidentally (or on purpose), you do not show Discord controls on stream.

As a participant

This is where it gets complicated as a Mac user.

Option 1: Share game capture and camera feed separately

You can share each of these separately provided the following is true:

  • Your camera shows up as a camera source (this is usually always true unless something is wrong with your setup)
  • Game capture shows up as a screen share source (not a camera) โ€“ This is only true with some capture devices

Option 2: Pre-crop for the broadcaster in OBS and share a single feed

Part 1: Setting up the scene

If option 1 isn't possible, you can create a scene specifically for super streams where you crop your game play and cam for the broadcaster. For some games like Tetris 99, you only need a section of your game play and not the whole screen. Pre-cropping means you shouldn't need to jump into a game ahead of time for the broadcaster to trace your game play.

In the following screenshot, I crop my cam (bottom left) and my game play (to the right).

Super streams.png

Part 2: Sharing the scene

In order to share the OBS scene you've just set up, you will need to share your scene as a webcam so that it can be detected as a webcam source by third-party apps (in this case Discord). You can click the "Start Virtual Camera" option to do this.

Next, you would share your OBS Virtual Camera as a web cam source in Discord by choosing from the list of available webcams and selecting the OBS Virtual Camera.

This sounds like it will work but most likely when you check Discord, you will not be able to see the option there. This is due to "security features" on macOS that make it difficult for apps to communicate with each other.

To fix this, you will need to disable macOS code signature verification by running a command in Terminal that will disable this "security feature." To do this, perform the following:

  1. Open Terminal.app by looking for it by pressing Command + Spacebar then typing "terminal"
  2. Copy and paste the below code
codesign --remove-signature '/Applications/Discord.app/Contents/Frameworks/Discord Helper (Renderer).app/Contents/MacOS/Discord Helper (Renderer)'

Further reading about why this security impediment needs to be disabled:

Now, after restarting Discord, you should be able to see the OBS Virtual Camera as an option for your cameras, as shown in the screenshot below.

Super streams 2.png

Hopefully that helps! Let me know in the comments if I left something out.

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