Tethered

Panasonic recently released its new LUMIX Webcam Software for Mac and Windows to replace the hacky workaround they initially announced back in June where you had to use some desktop capture software to fake a webcam. It also replaces the same hacky workaround for the Mac using LUMIX Streaming Beta.

The new LUMIX Webcam Software is also in beta, although this one actually makes your Panasonic camera visible to your Windows PC or Mac as an actual webcam device. Richard Wong took it for a spin and put together a video showing us how it all works.

Panasonic has announced that their LUMIX Streaming (Beta) software is now available for the Mac. Unfortunately, it’s the same hacky workaround as it is on Windows. But it seems that the modified LUMIX Tether software is merely a stop-gap solution to help get people up and running quickly while Panasonic works on the real deal.

Yes, that’s right, Panasonic has also announced that they’re soon coming up with an actual software driver so that your computer (Windows or Mac) will see your Panasonic camera as an actual USB capture device. And there’s a new minor firmware update on the way for a number of Panasonic’s Micro Four Thirds mirrorless cameras.

As seems to be the trend, Panasonic has jumped on the bandwagon of letting you use your mirrorless camera as a webcam over USB. Sort of. Whereas most manufacturers like Canon, Sigma and Fuji let your computer detect your camera as an actual USB webcam device, Panasonic’s solution… Well, it works, but it’s pretty clunky.

Instead of simply showing up as a capture device, like the others, Panasonic’s solution basically sends a live view stream to their desktop app (for Windows only). From here, you need to capture that app using something like OBS and then use an OBS plugin to fake a capture device that can be seen by Skype, Messenger, Zoom, etc.. Yeah, like I said, it’s pretty clunky.