Windows 11 Virtual Video Camera

Just a quick hookup of my test Media Foundation media source into new Windows 11 MFCreateVirtualCamera API.

Software video source is presented by Windows 11 as a video capture device. Finally, there is a nice way to create virtual cameras, even though Windows 11 (Windows Build 22000) is a minimal requirement.

Application produced video stream is accepted by both Media Foundation and DirectShow APIs:

Media Foundation API based Windows Camera application showing virtual camera
DirectShow API based GraphStudioNext application showing virtual camera

The new API works throough earlier introduced Frame Server subsystem: the new API pulls video frames from provided Media Foundation media sources and distributes data among the connected applications, the same way things happen with regular driver backed video sources.

  1. Download MediaFoundationVirtualCamera.7z and extract the contents
  2. Run “regsvr32 MediaFoundationVirtualCameraMediaSource.dll” from elevated command line prompt
  3. Run MediaFoundationVirtualCamera.exe
  4. While MediaFoundationVirtualCamera.exe is running, a new camera is registered with the system and is available for the applications

Vivek’s VCam is finally to be phased out, but it will still take some time.

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