StudioCast

StudioCast is intended to be an open-source Linux desktop application with a Broadcast-style UI for managing real-time audio and video effects (planned: NVIDIA Maxine on Linux + PipeWire + v4l2loopback). Open sourced equivalents for the Maxine SDK will be implemented in the future.

Status: Currently under development for initial POC/MVP. Current build is usable on Ubuntu 22.04+ with the Maxine SDK as a dependency.

Not affiliated with NVIDIA

StudioCast is independent and does not ship or redistribute NVIDIA Broadcast binaries.

Use cases

• Video calls / streaming with a virtual camera: run the daemon to keep a v4l2loopback camera available, then use OBS/Zoom/etc. as the consumer. When supported (and when optional Maxine components are present), enable effects like noise removal or virtual background.
• Headless / scripted control: run studiocastd as a background service and use studiocastctl to query status, apply effect JSON, and gather a debug report.

Build (Ubuntu 22.04 / 24.04)

StudioCast is known to build on Ubuntu 22.04 and 24.04.

For a one-shot prerequisites install (tuned for Ubuntu 22.04+, including 24.04):

./scripts/setup_ubuntu22.sh --deps --v4l2loopback --load-loopback --persist-loopback
./scripts/setup_ubuntu22.sh --build --build-type Debug

Manual build:

cmake -S . -B build -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug
cmake --build build --target studiocast
build/studiocast

Notes:

• CLion’s (the IDE I use) default build directory in this repo is cmake-build-debug/.
• If you hit a compiler/libstdc++ mismatch, explicitly pick a distro-matching compiler and re-configure (e.g. g++-12 on 22.04, g++-13 on 24.04).
• See docs/SETUP.md for the full quickstart, including v4l2loopback and optional Maxine setup.

Dev tooling

• Formatting: ./scripts/format.sh
• Version: build/studiocast --version
• Maxine install (SDK + features): see docs/maxine_install.md (or run build/studiocast-maxine install-hints for authoritative commands)
• Support bundle: build/studiocastctl debug-report --out studiocast-debug-report.txt

Effects model & availability (canonical)

• The canonical effect schema type is BroadcastCameraEffects (see src/core/video/effects/broadcast_effects.h). Stable effect IDs / parameter IDs / ranges for IPC + JSON live in src/core/video/effects/broadcast_effect_contract.h.
• Persistence + control plane use JSON:
  • build/studiocastctl effects get / GET_CONFIG returns the canonical effects JSON.
  • build/studiocastctl effects set --file ... sends a JSON patch (SET_VIDEO_EFFECTS_JSON) to update effects without shell-quoting issues.
• Effect availability is computed only by the daemon via MaxineManager and exposed in GET_STATUS.
  • The GUI must not try to “guess” availability client-side.
• Maxine/AI effects are GPU-only (no CPU fallback). If Maxine/GPU/driver/features are missing, those effects must be treated as unavailable.
• Simple transforms (e.g., mirror) may still run on CPU.

Daemon mode (studiocastd)

StudioCast includes a background daemon (studiocastd) that keeps the virtual camera available and only starts heavy video processing when a consumer opens the v4l2loopback device (OBS/Zoom/etc.).

During development you can run it manually:

build/studiocastd
build/studiocastctl status

The GUI (studiocast) acts as a thin controller by talking to the daemon over a Unix socket in $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/studiocast/studiocastd.sock.

There is also a systemd user service template in packaging/systemd/user/studiocastd.service (installation/packaging step).

Next steps

• Add Maxine SDK probing tooling (no redistribution of proprietary SDK assets)
• Expand daemon control plane to audio (PipeWire-Pulse) and add more CPU/GPU effects