Outputting Audio to the Built-In output device (Not the Default One) - macos

I need to do some system-wide audio processing in my app.
I have installed Soundflower and selected it as my default output device in order to get the system audio. I know that Soundflower merely copies the mix buffer to a ThruBuffer and passes it to the apps so they can get it in their AudioDeviceIOProc callback.
What I don't understand is how to route the audio back to the Built-In output device after I've done the audio processing. I have the Soundflower device as the default, and it produces silence as I try to route the audio to the default output unit. Maybe what I need is to create a Multi-Output device in my program but I'm not sure how to do that.

You can create a multi-output device on osx - they're called "aggregate devices". You can do it manually in Audio MIDI Setup app and use that device in your app, or do it programmatically in your app.
If you do do it in app, example code seems to be rare. I cribbed the info I needed from this blog post.
NB the post is very old, I had to go to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to find it.

Related

Microsoft SysVAD Virtual Audio Device Driver (SYSVAD) cannot work

This driver (https://github.com/Microsoft/Windows-driver-samples/tree/master/audio/sysvad) is provided by Microsoft. And in its README, the last part, it says:
Locate an MP3 or other audio file on the target computer and
double-click to play it. Then in the Sound dialog box, verify that
there is activity in the volume level indicator associated with the
SYSVAD (with APO Extensions) driver.
But in my target computer, the volume level indicator associated with the SYSVAD (with APO Extensions) driver does not change at all. And the target computer does not make any sound.
The same case to the mic, when set default mic to any of the sysvad mic array, the mic volume level will not change at all.
In my understanding, sysvad driver is virtual driver. So it will not really work. But why Microsoft README says: there is activity in the volume level indicator associated with the SYSVAD (with APO Extensions) driver.
The SYSVAD documentation leaves a lot to be desired. You won't see any activity in the volume level indicator, and you won't hear anything, since the only thing the rendering endpoints do is save a copy of the audio output to file (look for C:\STREAM_HOST_*.wav files).
The capture endpoints (including the "loopback" pins) generate constant sine-wave signals, which you can see if you use an app to record them, and then view them in a sound editor/viewer or play them back out to a real device.
I am working on SysVad too and sure it works, for Mic you can test with vlc player
Try to open the virtual mic from VLC and then you will hear sound, it's a sin wave generated by driver itself

Mac OS X video capture device hot plug driver support

I'm developing driver for USB video capture device. First of all, I've started with CoreMediaIO sample:
https://developer.apple.com/library/content/samplecode/CoreMediaIO/Introduction/Intro.html
The kernel extension is based on IOVideoSample. It gets data from the USB device and sends to the assistant. Kext has IOKitPersonalities based on the USB device. So the device is real and should support HotPlug. Kext main class loads when the device is plugged in and unloads when the device is plugged out.
SampleAssistant was changed only to detect my kext class. PlugIn has NoCMIOHardwarePluginLazyLoadingInfo property.
When all video capture apps are closed - hotplug works well. Terminate function is being called from kext and kext object is being unloaded without any problem.
Even if you start video capture app with the stream from the device, then close it and plug out device - hotplug also works.
It works well with QuickTime player. It can find a stream and show an image, but there is one problem.
When QuickTime (or any other video capture app) works and show stream from the device - hotplug doesn't work. If you try to plug out the device it will remain in the system and USB port won't work until you reboot Mac. According to logs - terminate function wasn't called at all. Seems that something retains a link to the device.
I've started digging into the problem.
First of all, I figured out that SampleAssistant doesn't support hotplug by default. It has notification only for device arriving (DeviceArrived). I've added "interest" notification and handle only "kIOMessageSeviceIsTerminated" message - executing DeviceRemoved function and force deleting device object, but it didn't help.
There is also a file CMIO_DPA_Sample_Server_Stream.cpp. If you go to Stream::Start function and delete "mIOSAStream.Open;" and "mIOSAStream.Start();" lines - hotplug works.
Can you please advise what can be done to solve this problem?

Hide USB Audio device on MAC OS X using custom kext

I am developing an application which does custom audio processing and sends the processed audio to the USB headset. My requirement is that the USB headset should not be visible to the user in the list of Audio output devices in System Preferences. Using "SampleUSBAudioOverrideDriver" code-less kext sample code from Apple, I'm able to change the interface name but I really need to hide it.
Is subclassing AppleUSBAudioDevice an option?
The recommended way to do pre-processing of a USB audio device's input and output streams in kernel space is to use the AppleUSBAudioPlugin API. This kext does not appear in the list of devices because it isn't an instance of IOAudioEngine, so there is no "hiding" involved.

capture video from screen for stream

i am looking for differnt solutions to capture video stream from monitor screen and send it to vidoestreaming server to broadcast in web. it must occuring in "live".
i'd not like to use external services like "procaster" for broad.
OS: Windows.
it will be great to know the ideas and expirience people have to accomplish that.
Thanks all.
Recently, I build a GoLang project called ScreenStreamer, is a tool to stream current active window or full screen (Linux's or Windows's) to other device, like phone or another PC, as MJPEG over http or FLV over rtmp, it's very realtime (delay < 100ms). It works on Windows and Linux.
After building it, you can run it as:
# enter the project root directory
cd ./src/ScreenStreamer
# run it
./mjpeg or .\mjpeg.exe
# use a web browser or other video player, open http://host:port/mjpeg
./rtmp or .\rtmp.exe
# use a video player, open rtmp://host:port/live/screen
Screenshot:
Windows SDK includes Push Source Filters Sample, which in turn contains CPushSourceDesktop filter/class.
CPushSourceDesktop: Copy of current desktop image (GDI only)
It captures desktop image and pushes it into DirectShow pipeline. From there on you can process it using video compression codec and stream it to remote location. A decent screen image compression codec is included with Windows Media subsystem, network streaming will have to be a custom or third party component. Alternatively, it is possible to make the capture class a virtual camera and have Windows Media Encoder broadcast it (or, it already has a simila feature built in).
Alternatively, you can check VNC (or one of the clones) source code and see how it hooks windows and captures image updates, then compresses them and makes it available for remote applications.
Note that you will have to specifically capture non-GDI images (such as coming from video/gaming applications, which use hardware acceleration and non-RGB surffaces).

Pre-Amplify Audio OS X

There are two apps for OS X that allow you to pre-amplify audio before it gets played by the hardware: Audio Hijack (pre-amplifies output from particular applications) and Boom (pre-amplifies all system audio). These apps work by applying equalization to pre-existing audio streams - with a high pre-amp setting - before they are sent to the sound card.
My question is: how to hijack the system audio stream and then send it along to the sound card. Is this somewhere in an API, or would it require altering a system library ?
1) Create a standard sound device that shows up in audio system preferences. This has to be in the form of a kernel extension (kext). Difficult to create by just reading apple docs - try looking at an app called Soundflower.
2) Once you've loaded the kext and have the new audio device available, select it in preferences as the default output device for system audio.
3) Now you need to alter the audio and pipe it to the real system output. This can be done in an accompanying application that adds callback "IOProc" functions to a) the new device and b) your computer's built-in output device. You can then copy audio buffers from one device to the other, to pipe the audio to your speakers. To increase the volume, multiply all the bytes in the buffer by some factor. See Soundflower's accompanying app.

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