Partial screen streaming

[denniseffing]

Hi!

The new beta of v1.1.0 supports a full screen stream of a display to another display. Would it be possible to only stream a part of your screen as well?

With this feature we could work around a limitation of Microsoft Teams. The software only supports sharing an application window or the entire screen.
With partial screen streaming, you could stream a part of your actual screen to a dummy display and then share that dummy display using MS Teams. This is especially useful for ultra wide screen users. If they stream their entire desktop, other meeting participants without an ultra wide screen can not view it comfortably.

[waydabber]

Does Teams support sharing of a screen or only all screens combined? If it supports sharing of a single screen, why not create a dummy and share that? You can also look at the conents of the dummy by creating a PIP window of that dummy on your non shared-screen.

[waydabber]

Technically it is possible to stream only a part of the display to a custom sized dummy (it would need some tinkering to set this up though without some intuitive UI).

I added an enhancement for it. I am not yet sure about the roadmap but eventually we'll get there hopefully! :) #390

[denniseffing]

Thank you so much! Looking forward to it. 🙂

[waydabber]

btw, just looked into it, it is possible to this quite efficiently, will add to a future version.

[axrs]

I would love this feature soo much. I've just recently upgraded my setup to include a 5120x1440 monitor. Unfortunately, many screen sharing softwares struggle when sharing the screen. Microsoft Teams is the biggest problem as I can't share part of the screen.

My work around currently is to use VLC to stream part of my screen in a full screen window on the dummy display. While this works, it's less than ideal.

This feature however would be useful in so many situations.

[waydabber]

Yes, sorry this thing was somewhat neglected even though I already figured out how to do it. Will try to get back to it! #390 is not forgotten!

[schlomo]

MacOS 15.x and later can share single or multiple windows via AirPla or to a TV. But that doesn't work for regular external screens connected via HDMI.

Is there a way to add single app or single window mirroring to any screen with the help of BetterDisplay? @waydabber WDYT?

[waydabber]

macOS should provide this option if the connection is detected as a TV. You can try changing the display's role to "Television" in the app under configuration editing. Make sure you configure the "When connected to TV" appropriately in System Settings.

[schlomo]

Yes, the problem is that regular projectors or external screens are not "recognized as TV". If you can "fix" that, maybe via EDID patch, that would be even better.

[waydabber]

Ok, but if you force the display's role to be a TV, doesn't it work? Like this.

[schlomo]

Ah, super cool. Will try out. Is there a way to make this apply to all new displays and exclude certain known ones? That way I could treat my external screen at home like a computer screen and everything else as a TV, which would cover my road warrior use case of connecting to screens / projectors at places I visit to give a talk or show something.

[schlomo]

@waydabber it works!! Even without rebooting!

[schlomo]

Next question: How can I adjust the resolution of the external display in selective mirror mode? With the external screen set to "TV", it doesn't appear neither in the MacOS display settings nor in the BetterDisplay settings.

That includes also the question of how to disable the TV designation if the screen doesn't show up?

Disconnecting and plugging the external display in again doesn't help :-(

[schlomo]

I figured it out: In the "choose to do something" mode the screen doesn't show up. But in mirror or extend more it does show up and can be configured.

I can also confirm that setting the resolution (physical & default) in extended mode then also applies to single app mirroring.

[schlomo]

Thanks a lot @waydabber, that was excellent help!

The only remaining question at the moment is how to make the TV designation to be default for new external displays.

[waydabber]

I don't think you can do that - if it's a TV connected via HDMI, macOS should detect it as a TV, but sometimes it might fail to do so - then you need to manually configure the role as TV with BetterDisplay and apply the setting.