[Bee]

Hi Mike and all, 

I'm not sure of the correct terminology for the problem I'm having and there are two parts to my question, one regarding ManyCam and one regarding Zoom. I teach some of my piano lessons online, using Zoom video conferencing, on my Surface Pro 6. I use ManyCam webcam splitting software and have two webcams set up to show different views of the piano and I have MSP running as well. In the course of the lesson I occasionally need to swap to screen share to show the student the score we are working on, so that s/he can see where I'm adding fingerings or other annotations and can make any appropriate markings on their own music score.

Here's the Zoom part of the question: 
When I select 'share screen' in Zoom, all of the apps/windows I have open are supposed to appear for me to select the one I want to share. Even though MSP is open, it doesn't appear as an option for me to click on to share. I can work around this by choosing the main screen, and then using alt-tab to switch to MSP, but it comes with a couple of other minor inconveniences which waste time in the lesson.
Here's a screen shot showing the apps I have open, minus MSP, which is definitely open on my Surface.  
   

I have the same sort of issue with ManyCam. 
I should be able to add any app I have open as a 'source' instead of a webcam. What I would love to do is have a split screen in ManyCam (which would then appear in Zoom) and have one source showing my piano keyboard at the bottom of the screen and the top half of the screen showing MSP. As I annotate the MSP file, my student will be able to see what I write, and I can easily demonstrate on the keyboard, without wasting time switching to screen share and back again. 

Here are the instructions from the ManyCam help files:
With the App Window option, you can simply capture the desired application window.
The selected app will be captured and used as a video source in ManyCam. Other apps will not be captured when they appear in the foreground of the selected app.

When I click on the App Window option, every other app I have open is listed, but not MSP. The dialogue boxes don't show up in a screen shot, so I've taken a photo on my phone, which I've attached. I hope you can read it. 
   

I also make short teaching videos for teaching theory; at the moment I have to make two recordings - one of my demonstration on the keyboard and the other of the screen recording of my writing theory examples on a blank manuscript MSP file, and then I edit them together in a video editing program. This is hugely time consuming. To be able to capture the MSP app and the keyboard at the same time would take less than a quarter of the time I currently need. I've attached a screen shot of one of these theory videos. 
   

I'm not sure whether I've been clear enough, so please feel free to ask me to explain more :-)

Thanks for any suggestions you might have. 
Bee

[Zubersoft]

Hello Bee,

If you install another Microsoft Store/Metro app (one that is a native UWP application such as Excel Mobile), do you encounter the same issues. I'm trying to determine if this is a compatibility issue with the way UWP store applications work. If that is the case, the only solution might be for me to produce a non-store version of MobileSheets, such as one written in WPF. I have been considering this for a little while, as it opens up support for earlier Windows versions but also allows me to use MIDI libraries other than Microsoft's (which doesn't seem to work well with all devices). 

One thing you can try is running those applications in adminstrator mode to see if it's a permissions issue. I'd be curious to know if that has any impact. If you hit F11 and take MobileSheets out of Fullscreen mode, does that make any difference?

Thanks,
Mike

[Bee]

Hello Mike, 

Thanks for your prompt response. 

I've just been experimenting with your suggestions and it seems that Zoom is fine if MSP is not in fullscreen mode. It shows up in the share screen options, and I still have full functionality for Zoom when I choose MSP, so that is an easy fix for using Zoom in my teaching. 

ManyCam is a different story. MSP shows up in the app list if MSP is not in full screen mode, but when I select MSP, just a black screen shows. 

I experimented in both Zoom and ManyCam with Excel, and the same issues occur - it is fine in Zoom, but not in ManyCam. I don't appear to have an option to run MSP as an administrator. I ran Excel as admin, but still couldn't make it appear properly in ManyCam. 

So it suggests that ManyCam has some issue preventing app share from working properly, and it is not exclusively a problem with MSP. I will email the ManyCam help desk and see what I can find out. 

I have discovered a partial workaround for ManyCam: if I choose the whole desktop as a 'source,' I can then switch to MSP and use it, and the video recording will show my work on the MSP score in the appropriate window on the video. It means that it won't exclusively record MSP in the video - it will record whatever app I am working with - so when I switch to ManyCam to press the record button etc, that also all appears in the video. (Screen shot attached - the piano keyboard should be showing in the grey filed, but I don't have that camera plugged in at the moment.)
   
So I will still need to do a little bit of video editing, but it will be much quicker and easier - trimming is much quicker than having to make two videos and then edit them together, as I have been doing. 

Many thanks
Bee

[Zubersoft]

I'm glad you at least have some options now that will speed up your workflow.

Mike

[Bee]

Hi Mike, 

I've finally had a response from ManyCam. They have asked whether MobileSheets is a UWP app. (I know you mentioned UWP apps in your earlier response, but I'm not clear about whether MobileSheets is UWP.)

Here's the rest of their response:
For Google Chrome, please refer to this guide:
https://help.manycam.com/knowledge-base/...re-chrome/


For other cases:
- due to some changes in Windows 10, some apps made specifically for Windows 10 (Universal Windows Apps, formerly Metro apps) cannot be captured by ManyCam App Window capture. At the moment the only solution is to use App Area capture. 


The App Area capture seems to be exactly the same as the full screen capture I was already using as a work around. 

Thanks
Bee

[Zubersoft]

MobileSheets is a UWP application, so I guess your only option is the App Area capture. If I ever decide to try to make a WPF version, then you would be able to handle that normally.

Mike