Using Z-Cam E2 Cameras for Streaming or Conferencing

4 min readMay 7, 2021

Live streaming is becoming more and more common, the Z-Cam E2 series of cameras and some open-source software makes this easy to setup. We’ll walk through how to setup OBS to record locally, stream to Facebook. In the final step, we’ll setup NDI Virtual Input so that the output from OBS can be used as a webcam in other applications like Zoom or Microsoft Teams.

Hardware

Z-Cam E2 camera
Computer running MacOS or Windows
Ethernet connection between the Z-Cam and Computer

Software

OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) — free and open source software for video recording and live streaming. You have likely heard of this software package when you read about Twitch Streamers.
OBS SSP Plug in — This OBS plug-in provides the SSP Source which is how the Z-Cam and OBS connect.
NDI Virtual Input — This is a software package that creates a virtual camera input.
NDI Plug for OBS : obs-ndi — This allows the OBS software to send its output to NDI, the virtual camera.

Setup

First and foremost, you should have your computer up and running and able to connect to the Internet. Anytime you’re doing streaming over the Internet its better to be connected via Ethernet but this will require 2 Ethernet connections on you computer. If you only have 1 Ethernet connection, you’ll need to use that with the camera and stream over WiFi.

For my laptop setup, I have a MacBook Pro 2020 (16.4) with 8-core Intel Core i9 2.4 GHz with 64GB RAM. Connected via Thunderbolt/USB4 is a (1) docking station with an Ethernet port and (2) a USB/Ethernet adapter. The first docking station Ethernet connection is my primary Internet connection and the USB/Ethernet adapter is connected to the Ethernet port on the Z-Cam E2-F6.

For my E2-F6 setup, under Menu -> Connect -> Network -> ETH Mode is set to Direct.

Install the above 4 pieces of software.

Launch OBS, if this is your first time you’ll have to go through the Auto-Configuration wizard.

Next, configure the NDI plugin to send the OBS output as an NDI stream, in OBS go to Tools -> NDI Output Settings and select Main Output.

Note, when Main Output or Preview Output is checked many of the settings in OBS Preferences will be locked; if you need to edit or change settings, simply deselect both Main Output and Preview Output then make your settings change.

Next, keep OBS running and launch the NDI Virtual Input.. This application adds an icon to the tray. Click on the NDI Virtual Input icon and set it’s input to your computer name.

Back in OBS, define your Scenes. Scenes are a collection of sources. Click the “+” icon in the Scenes group and give your new scene a name. With your new scene selected, click “+” in the Sources group and add the SSP Source. Name the SSP Source something like “Z-Cam E2-F6” and click OK. This will present the SSP configuration:

Select the correct Source IP, in my setup I’m connected directly. I had to play around with some of these settings to get things working with the settings on my camera.

You can add other Scenes, for example I have setup the following Scenes:

Full Screen Z-Cam
Full Screen MBP Cam
Desktop & Z-Cam — This presents my primary desktop and includes the Z-Cam in PIP in the corner.
Desktop & MBP Cam
None — great for easily going to just a black screen.

Streaming

OBS is a great tool for live streaming and has a great list of services. In OBS, open Preferences, then select Stream from the left-hand list. From the Service list select the service you want to stream to and provide the required parameters.

To start streaming, click the Start Streaming button in the Controls section in the lower right of the main OBS window. I tend to have the service’s live streaming controls open as well.

Conferencing

To use OBS with Zoom or Microsoft Teams, this is where the NDI Virtual Input comes into play. Above we setup OBS to output to NDI, and the NDI Virtual Input to forward that stream as a new camera. In your conferencing application’s video settings, select the NDI Video.

Now in OBS you can control which Scene is presented to your conference attendees.

NOTE: If you’re a teacher, perhaps you share just your lesson plans or browser window and yourself in video another way. You can be split screen, pip, or whatever makes you happy! Your scenes can be as complex as you’d like and include lesson plans, links, resources, and more!

Summary

To review:

Z-Cam outputs over Ethernet to Computer as a SSP stream
OBS-SSP Plug-in brings the SSP video feed from Z-Cam into OBS
OBS is a compositor that can record and/or stream.
NDI Plugin for OSB makes the output of OBS available as a NDI stream
NDI Virtual Input tool makes the NDI stream available as NDI Video in other applications
In Zoom or Microsoft Teams, select NDI Video as the camera