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Comment by domano | Hacker News Reader

Maybe someone knows how to solve a common sharing issue, I didn't see it mentioned here:

I have a single ultra wide screen and would like to share a virtual area that has a normal size (16:9) with people via Google Meets, Slack, etc. Otherwise I have to share a window, stop, share another one etc.

Really bad, especially during some on call emergency session.

So far I couldn't make it work, only Zoom had this feature at some point but nobody uses Zoom where I have worked.

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I use Region To Share on Windows, and just drag windows on and off that virtual area as needed (works great with PowerToys FancyZones):

- https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9N4066W2R5Q4?hl=en-us&gl=U...

- https://github.com/tom-englert/RegionToShare

I haven't needed to do the same on a Mac yet, but if anyone knows of an app that does the same (i.e., define a "transparent" window that screen cap can then share in a call), do let me know (it's bound to be trickier on macOS due to window contexts, the compositor and privacy, but there might be an app out there for that)

Ah that's cleaner than my idea. Which was:

Install OBS, add a 'Scene', add a 'Window Capture' to the scene, then right click it (in sources) and transform / scale / crop the scene dimensions. Then optionally in the 'controls' panel you can start a virtual webcam, then go to Chrome/Brave settings, go to Site & Shield settings, set the default Camera to your virtual one.

Not sure if OBS would solve your Mac issue.

It wouldn’t really, since I don’t want to replace my camera feed—I just want sharing to share a region of the screen, like you do.

CueCam Presenter solves this quite elegantly: You can prepare a script with a card for each window you want to share. Then you can just select the card during the presentation and it will share just that window.

I also have a single large screen. So I put the CueCam window on the right, top to bottom. And the windows I want to share in the bottom left quadrant. There I can make them smaller, with the correct aspect ratio, so that participants with smaller screens can see all the detail they need.

That leaves the top left quadrant for my meeting window where I can see the meeting participants.

I'm also experimenting with the two companion apps: Shoot to use my iPhone camera and control zoom from CCP; and Video Pencil to draw on my video.

OBS can do this: It can capture a display (eg, the whole ultra-wide monitor), crop that capture to just the desired area, and [optionally] scale that cropped area to be sent at whatever resolution you wish as a virtual camera input to whatever conferencing system (Zoom, Slack, whatever).

Works fine. It's kind of a pain to configure, but it only needs done once and saved as a scene (which can then later be recalled with a keyboard macro or whatever, if one wishes).

(To receive bonus nachos, set the desktop background to include a 16:9 rectangle of the captured area for your own visual reference, and automate it so that this background is displayed when OBS is running. For fancy nachos, have more than one such area with one scene for each.)

One of the easiest ways to do this is to use a HDMI display emulator [0]. Set the resolution to 1920x1080, move the content or presentation you want to share to the 'ghost' monitor and then share the entire second screen in your meeting app [1].

[0] https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=display+emulator

[1] https://youtu.be/RA-XXvFHgEs

I honestly don't know if I want to be delighted or horrified by the need of a physical hack to trick your OS that there is a virtual monitor to share

Solution I mentioned above:

Can you put the stuff you need to share in a Virtual Machine? This, for me, has already solved pretty much everything this software offers.

My ultrawide display allows two display inputs, and has the option to put them borderless next to each other. I have a script that enables the second DisplayPort input using DCC. Now I can share half the screen of my ultrawide as “full screen”.

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