A customer approached us to create a virtual camera subsystem for Windows tailored to their specific use case. Their application required a video feed from either a built-in or externally connected camera. Simultaneously, they wanted to make this camera accessible to other applications.
As previously mentioned https://lnkd.in/dYte5SQ5, this longstanding challenge had been addressed through specific development, with the open-source sample known as “VCam” serving as the starting point. Remarkably, VCam predates even Stack Overflow itself. Yet recently there have still been inquiries related to VCam, as evidenced by discussions on Stack Overflow: https://lnkd.in/dyu_Ypta.
However, with the advent of Windows 11, Microsoft finally provided a solution to the virtual camera conundrum as part of their #MediaFoundation API, codenamed “MFCreateVirtualCamera”. We successfully implemented this solution for our customer. In addition to the proof of concept https://lnkd.in/djy7Uq3w that we shared in 2022, this marked our first production use of this new technology.
In essence, we re-established a #realtime video feed with nearly zero latency, effectively treating it as an independent source of video signal.