Software video routers
June 3, 2017 — September 7, 2021
I am sure there are many options to do this; here are some I have used.
1 Camtwist
Camtwist (macOS) applies live video effects to your webcam and creates virtual cameras from screen captures. I’ve used this one. It’s simple and handy, like OBS but does not crash as often.
2 OBS
OBS is a maximalist open-source screen broadcasting package that does everything, including running VST effects on your audio stream. It’s oriented to live use and is somewhat quirky. Windows/Mac/Linux. Linux support is reportedly restricted by choppy support in Wayland, the modern windowing system.
Additionally, check out OBS-virtualcam (Windows) / OBS-mac-virtualcam (Mac) / obs-v4l2sink (Linux), which turn OBS into a virtual camera input for your video conference.
3 Syphon
Syphon is an open source Mac OS X technology that allows applications to share frames — full frame rate video or stills — with one another in realtime. Now you can leverage the expressive power of a plethora of tools to mix, mash, edit, sample, texture-map, synthesize, and present your imagery using the best tool for each part of the job. Syphon gives you flexibility to break out of single-app solutions and mix creative applications to suit your needs.
4 Spout
Spout leverages your graphics card, enabling you to send realtime video between Windows applications with near-zero latency or overhead. It is provided free and open source thanks to support from its users.
Disclaimer: I know the author of Spout, and he’s bloody lovely.
5 Everything is virtual cameras now
A number of projects provide virtual cameras for connecting to other things, notably mmhmm from the video conferencing/editing world.