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Kevin Stratvert

How to Use Phone as Webcam & Mic for PC

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Hi everyone, Kevin here. Today I want to show you how you could use your phone as a webcam and a microphone for your PC, and this is completely free. So why would you want to do that? Well, the camera on your phone is far better than your typical webcam. Let’s check this out. First, head to the following website on your PC. You can click on the card up above or the link down below in the description. Choose your operating system and then run through the installation process. We’re going to use OBS Studio to either just record the camera feed directly from your phone, or we could use OBS Studio to send the feed to other applications like Zoom or Microsoft Teams or any other app that lets you choose a webcam. Next, we need to get your camera’s feed from your phone to your PC, and to do that, we don’t have to install anything. We’re going to use a free web app called VDO.Ninja. You can click on the card up above or the link down below in the description. Once you land on the website, click on the button in the top right-hand corner that says create reusable invite. Here you’ll see several different settings that you can customize. I’ll check the box next to allow video effects to be used. I think these are fun. Once you’re all set, click on the button that says generate the invite link. This now generates an invite link and right here you’ll see a QR code. Take out your phone and open up the camera app and aim it at the QR code and then head to the associated website address. Here you’ll see the option to share your camera. Click on that and you’ll also likely have to click on allow. On this screen, you can choose which camera you want to use, your front camera, your back camera, and down below you could also choose a video effect. Now don’t worry, you can always go back and change these later. For now, I’ll click on start. Now that the phone is all set-up, we now need to receive the feed on our PC. Back within the browser window, let’s now copy the browser source link. Next, open up OBS and under sources let’s click on the plus icon. Here you can give this source a name. I’ll leave it set to the default. Next, paste in the URL that we just copied. For the dimensions, I’ll set them to 1280 by 720. Also, I want OBS to control the audio, so I’ll check this box. Next, click on apply, and check that out. We can now see our video from our phone directly in OBS. With the camera feed now showing up in OBS, here we can adjust the size of it. I’ll set it so it uses up my full screen real estate. I can also click on filters and here there are a variety of different filters that you can choose from. So how do we make use of this camera feed now? Well, in the bottom right-hand corner, you can stream with it, so you could send it to say Twitch or YouTube. You could also just record your camera feed, or over here, you can also start what’s called a virtual camera. Let’s click on this to see how it works. This will send the camera feed to different applications like Zoom or Microsoft Teams. Here in Zoom, I’m currently in settings where I can choose my camera, and here I’ll select the OBS virtual camera and look at that. I can now see my camera footage from OBS directly in Zoom, and I can apply any of the Zoom effects. This works the exact same way in any other application where you can choose a camera, just be sure to select the OBS virtual camera. With OBS you could record your phone audio just fine and that’s all already set-up, but if you also want to pass your audio with your virtual camera into say Zoom or Microsoft Teams, we’re going to need to install a virtual audio cable. You can get one by clicking on the card up above or by clicking on the link down below in the description. Choose your operating system and then run through the installation process. Within OBS, go up to the top left-hand corner and click on the file menu. Then go to settings. Then click on audio and then go down to the advanced section under monitoring. Click on the drop down and select cable input. Then click on OK. Back on the main screen under the audio mixer, click on the settings gear and then click on advanced audio properties. Next to the audio for your phone, click on this drop down and then select monitor and output. Then you can close this out. You can now open up an app like Zoom and select your microphone. Here you can select cable output and that’ll take the output from your phone and then play it in Zoom. Also, here in an application like Audacity, I can select the cable output as my microphone and now my phone serves as a microphone for Audacity. One of the great things about using OBS Studio together with VDO.Ninja is you can set this up for any number of cameras. You just have to go through the exact same flow that we walked through at the beginning. Here for example, I have a scene set-up for my iPhone, but here I can click into another scene that’s currently set-up for my iPad’s camera and when I click on that other scene that’s now being fed through to my virtual camera, and here I have yet another scene, and this one shows both of my cameras at the same time. OBS Studio can do so much. Here for instance, I can include an image overlay on top of my video feed, or I can include my video feed on top of my desktop and then I could explain some topic, and then I could record this, or I could send it out through my virtual camera. If you want a full walkthrough of how to take full advantage of OBS Studio, check out the beginner tutorial up above. All right, well, hopefully you learned how you can use your phone as a webcam and a microphone on your PC. You just got a two for one. To watch more videos like this one, please consider subscribing and I’ll see you next time.

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