Get a Higher Resolution Virtual Camera in Zoom

[@CatMulvihill]

CORRECTION: 720 is Standard HD; when 3 or more people join a call, resolution drops below 720. To maintain 720 Standard HD, enable Group HD. For Business, Education or Enterprise accounts, Full HD 1080 can be requested.

[@_Darkaeluz]

Also, you can directly share the virtual camera to zoom, under advanced settings in the zoom share dialog (where you normally choose what screen to share) you can choose 2nd camera, and switch until you find your virtual camera, works like a charm! No need for a second monitor (although it has many other uses too)

[@jscottfoster]

@@_Darkaeluz I just tried that as I don't have a 2nd monitor and it works very well. I'm planning on getting a 2nd monitor anyways but that worked out well-thank you.

[@AnkitkumarChheda]

Saved me some money. I was planning to buy pro plan only for clear virtual cam. Now will divert that money to buy 3rd monitor. Thanx, god bless

[@CatMulvihill]

That's great news! I'm a big fan of saving from unnecessary spending-especially when it can go to something else that's useful!

[@zerobrain17]

This video gave me the answers and solutions for a problem that I’ve been struggling with for some time. Thanks, Cat!!

[@CatMulvihill]

You are so welcome!

[@okuradani]

Another great, practical, common-sensical video Cat! You're a fantastic educator!

[@CatMulvihill]

Wow, thank you!

[@BugBobsWildWorld]

Well done, Cat. Very clear use of Zoom with eCamm or OBS. Will give it a try. Thank you.

[@perlamunoz1712]

Hello Cat, I love all your videos. I hope you can help with a doubt. Can we use virtual background on OBS, when we have to share fullscreen for the video quality? Do you have a video where you share how you organize your windows when you are presenting with, slides, script, chats, etc.? Thank you for the tie you can give to answer this.

[@HomesickMac]

This is such valuable information Cat. I have now tested all these setups and I finally managed to accomplish a great looking shared Ecamm to ZOOM. I've created everything in Ecamm first, 3-4 main scenes, then Output.. and here's what's different in my setup (and might be in someone else's so that's why I'm writing in detail), I have an external LG monitor (34" curved) connected to my MacBook Pro, but in System Preferences/Display/Arrangement - the LG screen is the main one, and the laptop is to the right. Ecamm recognizes it as "Color LCD". Only when choosing this display I managed to get great quality in ZOOM. In ZOOM, it's the same as you've shown, I choose "ShareScreen/Desktop 2". This setup is a killer now and people are amazed. However, even if I do follow your advice and turn off my video view in ZOOM while sharing, the users on the other end still see my shared content _and_ the vertical strip of participants to the right. They need to go to the View menu and choose "Standard" so at least their thumbnails will end up above the shared content, which ensures better visibility. I have only one computer and I'll have to check next time I'm participating in a ZOOM call, I'll ask the participants if they can turn of the thumbnails while someone is sharing, and then this content could take up the whole ZOOM window. Now _that's_ Nirvana. Thanks for a great walkthrough!

[@CatMulvihill]

Thanks for sharing. That's helpful to know about the strip of participants! I'll have to test that out.

[@gwvander]

You're a gifted speaker and your videos are excellent. Keep it up! Regarding your latest video, thanks to the spotlight feature, it should never be necessary in Zoom to say, "Hey, put me on speaker view, I'm going to be sharing my slides." The spotlight feature allows the host to highlight his or her screen for everyone even if the host is using a virtual camera. After initiating the spotlight, all guests are in speaker view by default. The host can spotlight up to nine screens at the same time.

[@CatMulvihill]

Great point about the spotlight! I do still like sharing the screen so it's a higher quality image, but for larger graphics, that's definitely a great approach.

[@larsschreiber6308]

This was an extremly helpful video for me. Thank you so much.

[@Sadening]

Keep in mind that zoom may screen share the native resolution but throttles back the frames per second

[@CatMulvihill]

Thanks for sharing this info!

[@PatrickLyver]

It can also burden the GPU if you're pushing a lot of video through the screenshare

[@amandawahlig6597]

This is the problem that I have been experiencing. If I just use my OBS virtual cam as my camera, the video is smooth, even if the text on the shared slides are a little soft. The graphics crisp up (a little) when sharing the screen, but the video gets incredibly jerky and full of problems. So using the virtual camera as the Zoom camera (and spotlighting it for everyone) wound up as the best of not-perfect options.

[@philipcify]

Super helpful! I got stuck on the last step with the teleprompter screen share - what I have is just another monitor connected to my laptop that I then share from - the quality is indeed much better, but it streams the entire "ecamm" app instead of the presentation view without all the extra ecamm ui. How do I "Present" my ecamm on this second screen to then screen share into zoom?

[@billharper8248]

Thanks for this, Cat. Didn't realise it made such a difference.

[@CatMulvihill]

Glad it was helpful!

[@AdielSlarmie]

Great explanation. I’m about to use virtual cam for a Tricaster setup and noticed video degradation too. Had the screen share on a 2nd monitor idea in my head but great to see it actually does work. Will increase to 1080 on a business account and see how it goes. Just hope it doesn’t affect my viewers bandwidth too much

[@CatMulvihill]

The impact on your viewers should be similar to sharing a screen, since Zoom shows screen share at a higher resolution, too.

[@AdielSlarmie]

@@CatMulvihill spoke to a zoom tech and his recommendation was not to use screen share since the frame rate will be less than video. Also, he said the group HD toggle in settings doesn’t do anything. Not since pandemic anyways. You need to request 720 or 1080 from support. And 1080 only seems like an option for Business/Enterprise accounts. Just passing along info

[@IdreesRashid]

Great content... Love the channel. Keep up the great work. 👌

[@CatMulvihill]

Appreciate it!

[@jlmoped]

Great explanation. Good to know camera is at 720p and screen share is at 1080p. I am using a Blackmagic ATEM Mini to display the slides and camera because I don't like how Zoom screen share takes a second to activate and show a black screen during that time. Being familiar with video production, that uncontrollable delay/transition doesn't look professional. Another reason I don't use screen share as a camera is while a guest is speaking, they don't appear on the screen. This may be a good thing in presentation, but not good if it is an interactive session. So I just use the spotlight feature to show 1 or more people on screen quickly. Thanks for you informative videos!

[@CatMulvihill]

The spotlight is a great option. I agree that the screen share is better for a presentation vs an interactive session.

[@kmal5290]

Hi Cat, hi all... A bit late for my comment :D, but you can use a headless HDMI/DP dongle to pretend as if you have a second monitor and use as virtual output. Love your video's btw!

[@dr.ahmadtahlak]

Excellent. This was very helpful. Thanks Cat 👍🏻

[@CatMulvihill]

Glad it was helpful!

[@matthewwhitaker4849]

Hi. Question, you mentioned turning off your camera while using your virtual camera when doing the screen sharing. What do you mean by that? Thank you

[@iMaxN]

Thanks for this heads up! I wasn't aware that there's such a big difference between the sharing window and sharing a monitor. So I should do some testing for myself again... ;-)

[@CatMulvihill]

Always great to do a test call and see for yourself!

[@elainedempsey8]

Cat, Thank you for this information. This was really helpful.

[@CatMulvihill]

So glad it was helpful!

[@boomerangwebinarsolutions9286]

Thank god for helping me find this and thank you for creating this video. We spend so much efforts in creating good graphics but weak quality lets us down. Now we are all ready 😈

[@CatMulvihill]

Glad I could help!

[@cekguhaniff9174]

hi, thanks for this great information... is this the same case when we use google meet?

[@CatMulvihill]

Glad it was helpful. I can't say for sure since I haven't looked into Google Meet. I'm sure you could look up the resolution. I know Zoom is transparent about their resolutions and lists them on their site.

[@luisandrade5332]

wow!!! wonder woman !!! it looks a lot like.

[@Jeremyb2023]

I recently upgraded to windows 11 and had to reinstall all programs. My camera in OBS was clean and crisp, but in Zoom the OBS Camera was terribly blurry and appeared to be really low resolution. Your suggestions appear to be dealing with a similar but different problem, as my OBS camera output was definitely less than 720p. However, I was able to fix it and will share my fix below. First, I had to stop the virtual camera. Then go into OBS settings and click on the video tab. On this I noticed that the output was at a really low resolution (not sure why). I then bumped it up to a higher resolution and restarted the virtual camera and it was fixed. So... it appears that the OBS output (which I thought was only for streaming and recording) is also a bottleneck for the OBS virtual camera as well. So, I would encourage others who have this problem to check what their video output resolution is in the video settings.

[@keithalarcon8269]

Your Audio needs to be a little louder pls Thanks Great Video.

[@bravopupdogtraining9926]

Thank you for a great video. Would you suggest keeping original ratio on, and have both options (ratio and HD) checked? Or just HD?

[@CatMulvihill]

If you have a paid Zoom account and strong internet, I would recommend enabling Group HD in you Zoom settings (online).

[@bravopupdogtraining9926]

@@CatMulvihill i have a paid acct- but I only see HD (not group HD) under video settings. The choices given are: Original ratio, HD and Mirror my video. Am I looking in the wrong spot?

[@CatMulvihill]

@@bravopupdogtraining9926 You will want to log into your Zoom account online. Click on Settings > In Meeting (Advanced) > Group HD Video

[@SarahJonestoo]

Thanks Cat. This is a ver y helpful video!

[@CatMulvihill]

Glad it was helpful 😊

[@foongyeewong1951]

If I share my content from 2nd camera, and select optimize for video, my sharing is become blurry ; If not optimize, my sharing is laggy. How should I setting for this please?

[@Talentexpression]

Great video and it was nice to see what the audience see’s. How do you have you teleprompter set up so that it shows up as a second monitor?

[@CatMulvihill]

Thank you! You can see my teleprompter set up on this recent live stream I did: kzbin.info/www/bejne/iJnIYXRqprCar9U

[@srowley85]

Have you compared what you show to sharing the virtual camera as a screen share? This can be done under the advanced sharing options in Zoom. I’ve had good results with resolutions doing this, but I’ve had issues with annotation in the app I’m sharing (OneNote or Xournal). It seems as though Zoom has compatibility issues with other software that has the ability to annotate built in. I’m limited to one screen and use OBS as a virtual camera.

[@CatMulvihill]

I'm not sure I fully understand your question about comparing what I show. In this video I show the comparisons of what it looks like on the other end of the call (virtual camera on its own, sharing the Sharing Window, and sharing the monitor with the virtual camera output). Is there another comparison you are referring to?

[@srowley85]

@@CatMulvihill I'm wondering how using the virtual camera as a screen share looks compared to the things you demonstrated. I've had glitches with it because annotation in software other than Zoom (like OneNote or PowerPoint) seems to cause crashes.

[@CatMulvihill]

​@@srowley85 At around the 9:00 mark in this video, I show the screen share option and how it looks. This is Zoom > Screen Share > Monitor 2 (with Ecamm output to that monitor), which is the same signal being sent to the virtual camera. I have not tried non-Zoom annotation, so I can't comment on the issues you are describing.

[@thomasami05]

I'm confused by your explanation of Standard 720 vs HD 720. Isn't 720 considered HD by default? So doesn't that mean when you have three or more in a Zoom meeting without the Group HD setting, the resolution drops below 720? Or is Zoom dropping the quality of the 720 stream with three or more people instead? By the way, I enjoy your videos - very helpful and well done!

[@CatMulvihill]

Great catch about the definitions! I was using terminology from Zoom's support page, but probably didn't translate it as accurately as I could have. You are correct that 720 is Standard HD vs 1080 Full HD. Zoom's standard resolution for 3 or more is often lower than 720 (e.g. 480). The Group HD will keep it at 720 Standard HD.

[@mmediawebdev4984]

@@CatMulvihill "The Group HD will keep it at 720 Standard HD" is not entirely true. Zoom lowers the resolution to 360p as you can confirm by checking the Statistics in the "Video" tab of the Video Settings (access by clicking the (^) control on the Zoom Stop Video icon). There is practically no way to get this resolution up from 360p, even though Zoom documentation vaguely infers you can. For starters, there are a number of other conditions that supposedly have to be met such as bandwidth, CPU core count etc. Even then, as the user, you have no control. The Zoom client supposedly makes the decision for you and I have yet to see it up the resolution. I've used the latest i5 10th generation CPU with lots of memory, bandwidth and decent GPU... still no joy over 360p. So I believe your information in this particular post is inaccurate. By the way, the other workarounds you suggest ae only good for some situations, as for instance any screenshare solution will introduce more latency and limit flexibility for other features such as spotlighting. Thanks for the topic though.

[@IsaacFromHK]

hey I use eCamm too, but in Zoom, there is an option of "optimize for video clips", do you turn that on as well? Also when you use this method, is the audio and video still in sync? Thanks.

[@sphyg]

She isn’t using screen share. She is sharing her screen through a virtual camera that acts as her webcam

[@okuradani]

So just to clarify the method of sharing a second display, in your second monitor/display you are running the "main" Zoom application window in full screen mode (Apple=upper-left green button), right? (This is my guess from looking at your scren image)

[@CatMulvihill]

I broadcast my 'production' to the second monitor from Ecamm or OBS. In Ecamm, go to Output > Video Monitor to select the second monitor. In OBS, right click on the preview and select Fullscreen Preview to select the second monitor. Then in Zoom, select Share Screen and choose the 2nd monitor. The main monitor has the Zoom call and the streaming software.

[@csabytheone]

i have investigated a lot and you don't need to request for a 1080p stream. you can still have it. but however, your video inspired me to think to set my vc canvas to 4k nad see after pp if i can trick zoom to stream a 30/60 fps 1080 via vc.

[@franchezcadjannemagpayo3135]

Were you successful with the trick? I wanna know

[@csabytheone]

@@franchezcadjannemagpayo3135 yes. Share video without thick the "optimize video" you will stream at 1080/20-25 fps.

[@franchezcadjannemagpayo3135]

How did you use virtual cam? As video, or sharing screen?

[@csabytheone]

@@franchezcadjannemagpayo3135 i shared my second cam as virtual cam from OBS. And OBS was capturing my second monitor fullhd

[@franchezcadjannemagpayo3135]

Was is it sluggish? My content doesn't just contain videos and texts, but moving people too

[@mariom5307]

Dear Cat, thank you for your amazing videos. I have a question that seems not have to be answered yet: I hope to combine OBS virtual camera via Zoom with Zoom's option to use PPT slides as a background. But I`m afraid Zoom will identify whatever I show (images/lower thirds etc.) as native video background and filter it out. Do you think this would happen? And if: Do you see a way to combine slides in the background with Overlays from OBS wihout having them shredded? :-)

[@CatMulvihill]

Yes, you are correct that Zoom will not play nicely with overlays. I would choose one option: either use the Zoom slides background feature, or, create the same set-up with OBS. You can add slides into OBS behind you, and add overlays over your camera. If you want the cut-out effect, you will need a green screen. What I would do is bring in slides beside you, like the set-up I show in this video, so you don't have to worry about a green screen.

[@mariom5307]

@@CatMulvihill I do have a green screen but since my mac is in repair at the moment, I didn't get OBS yet; if OBS can also take slides in the backgroumd that should do everything I want it to :-) Also loved your introduction to magic move; looks like I might dodge PPT ^^ looking forward to your videos to come! Thank you!

[@uwewalter2416]

Thanks Cat.

[@iamop9211]

why don't you start a narrator channel , you will surely succeed in that field , your voice is op

[@CatMulvihill]

That's so kind of you to say 😊

[@chrisvvs6223]

All fixed in one click- share/second tab/share second screen.

[@MrChuckyducky1]

Way to confusing