saphid--frame-control/docs/obs-headset-source.md

Headset view in OBS

Frame Control can send SteamVR's headset mirror and the Frame's output audio to OBS on a Linux or macOS computer. The helper uses the same /dev/video99 video source and default-output monitor as Capture & Live → Record. It sends a local MPEG-TS stream; no port is opened to the LAN or internet.

1. Connect to the Frame and start SteamVR. OBS runs on the computer; the Frame already has ffmpeg.
2. In the Linux or macOS Frame Control app, open Capture & Live and click Start OBS source. Keep Frame Control open; Stop OBS source, switching headsets, or quitting the app closes its SSH stream. It uses the selected headset and the app's bundled helper.
3. In OBS, add a Media Source, clear Local File, set Input to udp://127.0.0.1:15099, and set Input Format to mpegts. The source carries video and AAC audio. Use OBS's audio mixer to choose monitoring and recording levels.

From a source checkout, you can instead install python3 on the computer and run:

python3 scripts/obs-headset-source.py

Ctrl+C stops the checkout helper. The app's Start/Stop control currently supports Linux and macOS; Windows users can run the checkout helper with Python 3 and OpenSSH from a terminal, but this path has not been verified on a Windows PC.

--height 1080 --fps 60 increases quality and Frame CPU use. The default is 720p30. --port 15100 selects another loopback port; use the same port in OBS. If the Frame's PulseAudio monitor cannot be read, the helper exits with an error. Use --no-audio only when a silent view is useful. To inspect the stream without OBS, run ffprobe -v error -show_streams udp://127.0.0.1:15099 in a second terminal while the helper is running.

This is the composited, undistorted one-eye SteamVR mirror, not a raw passthrough camera feed. The mirror may be blank when the headset is idle or unworn. Whether active passthrough pixels appear in it is still unverified. The helper does not send a microphone. It is designed for one local OBS receiver. Verified 2026-10-24: against a real Frame running SteamOS 0.5.6, build 20261022.6153909, the receiver saved a 4.021-second MPEG-TS sample on the Linux PC; ffprobe found H.264 video and AAC audio. The temporary sample was removed. The headset was unworn, so visible content and audible sound were not checked. OBS itself was not installed on that PC; its Media Source setup, monitoring and sync are still unverified.