Community Effort: Get Zoom to Support Syphon / Spout

mark

Dear Community,

Maybe you'd like to join me in writing info@zoom.us to request Syphon/Spout support. I don't think you need to write as much as I did below. You can just say it's important to you. Let's see if some noise from our community can convince them. (Feel free to use social media to encourage your contacts to do the same.)

Best Wishes,
Mark

Dear Zoom Team,

I am the creator of a software called Isadora, a desktop application for Mac and Windows used by thousands of users worldwide that enables real-time manipulation of video and audio.

I am writing to advocate for the addition of the Syphon / Spout video sharing systems as an input source to Zoom. It would be great if you could share this with someone on your development team.

While the NDI Virtual camera is one solution, it has some notable limitations: it is CPU heavy and it introduces a very noticeable delay, on the order of at least half a second and usually more.

Because Syphon and Spout use texture sharing, they have no measurable latency, introduce a nearly zero performance hit, and – importantly – are offered as both an input and and output by nearly every media server application in existence. (See a list of notable applications at the bottom or peruse the long list you can see on the Syphon home page at http://syphon.v002.info)

Why is that important? Because theaters and galleries are going to remain closed for months because of the pandemic. Those who work in the performing arts are going to need tools that support remote performance. While NDI Virtual Input does allow input from some of these media server applications, Syphon and Spout without question a much better solution to move video from one application to another.

Both are open source and thus it is easy to prove they are secure by examining the code. Both have liberal open source licenses that would allow you to use them with commercial software. My experience implementing both for my software proved to me that – if Zoom can accept OpenGL or DirectX textures as an input – your development cycle will be quite short and thus inexpensive.

I hope that some of the points I’ve made above might cause someone on your development team to consider supporting Syphon and Spout as an input to Zoom. A huge community of users would be incredibly grateful.

Sincerely
Mark Coniglio

Some Notable Software Programs with Syphon and/or Spout Support:
Isadora - https://troikatronix.com
TouchDesigner - https://derivative.ca
Resolume - https://resolume.com
VDMX - https://vdmx.vidvox.net
QLab - https://qlab.app
MadMapper - https://madmapper.com

n.jones

@mark thank you for this .It would be an amazing, important and influential development for all of us ,if they could do this.

Woland

I sent a simpler email:

I was wondering if you plan to add syphon/spout support for Zoom. As a projection designer all of my work during the pandemic is remote performance and it's important to be able to pass a video feed between software on the same computer while minimizing the latency and performance hit as much as possible.

mark

@woland said:

I sent a simpler email:

Yes, simple ones are good too. It's all about the numbers.

Best Wishes,
Mark

jhoepffner

Dear Mark,

Very good initiative, I sended it to zoom and I am going to suggest it in the TD forum. "Le nombre fait la force"
Have a nice day,

Jacques

jfg

sent.

best

Jean-François

mark

@jhoepffner said:

"Le nombre fait la force"

Oui oui!!!!!

Michel

@mark

sent it as well.

DusX

Also, done :)

mark

Also, if you want to make some more noise with a bit more effort, join the zoom developer format and add your encouragement here:

https://devforum.zoom.us/t/syphon-server-client-support/4291/1

Best Wishes,
Mark

crystalhorizon

Sent it as well

tomthebom

Sent it to Zoom, too.

mark

@jhoepffner said:

I am going to suggest it in the TD forum

Did you do that? Is there any action on this topic there?

Best Wishes,
Mark

jhoepffner

@mark

Yes I done it yesterday, on the forum and on the Facebook group

https://forum.derivative.ca/t/...

all te best

RIL

Sent it !!

Best,

Maxi Wille

RIL

They answer this to me ! REQUEST CLOSED

Hi maximiliano,

As our world comes together to slow the spread of COVID-19 pandemic, the Zoom Support Center has continued to operate 24x7 globally to support our customers through this unprecedented period. Given increased usage from businesses small and large and exponentially growing demand from the education and healthcare sectors, we have experienced an unexpected surge in support requests.

To better serve you, we are providing additional online resources along with some temporary changes to our support processes for the months of May and June.

Unfortunately, we are unable to respond to your open tickets at this time. We encourage you to leverage our Online Resources. If you are a part of a corporate account, and need advanced technical support beyond our Online Resources, please contact your Zoom account administrators.

We understand that some of these changes are challenging, and we appreciate your patience as we scale up our support to meet the dramatic influx of customer demand. Together, we will help tackle one of the largest and most disruptive crises we have faced in our lifetime.

Thank you for choosing Zoom to stay connected and safe in these uncertain times.
Zoom Support Team

Videosmith

done:

"I was wondering if you plan to add syphon support for Zoom? I'm currently doing a lot of remote teaching of live video tools (Isadora, etc) - it would be so helpful for us to be able to patch our video projects back into Zoom without sharing the screen - likewise, taking a syphon output from Zoom would open up a range of creative possibilities."