Macos – Webcam emulator for mac os

Well, it seems that the answer is that there is no such app, because - sadly enough - Apple did not implement the complete UVC protocol.

Here is a webpage where some people describe their findings, and try to implement the UVC protocol. It did not work with my own cam (Microsoft HD 5000), but it might work with others...

http://www.phoboslab.org/log/2009/07/uvc-camera-control-for-mac-os-x

You can install v4l2loopback. It is a kernel module that simulates a webcam. Load it with:

modprobe v4l2loopback

Then you need to send the video stream to the device /dev/video0 using a program like ffmpeg. In order to capture the desktop and forward it to /dev/video0 with ffmpeg, you can use the following command line:

ffmpeg -f x11grab -r 15 -s 1280x720 -i :0.0+0,0 -vcodec rawvideo -pix_fmt yuv420p -threads 0 -f v4l2 /dev/video0

Change the value of -r from 15 to something else if you want a different frame rate. The resolution is chosen in the -s parameter. If you want to specify an offset from the upper-left corner of the screen, pass it in the -i parameter in the form "-i :0.0+x,y", where x and y are the horizontal and vertical offset respectively.