Remove Video Background Without a Green Screen in OBS Studio

Learn how to remove video background without a green screen in OBS Studio while recording or broadcasting. I assume basic familiarity with OBS.

Software Used

OBS Studio — 27.0.1
OBS Background Removal Plugin — v0.3.0-beta

Download appropriate version based on your operating system.

Open plugin zip and copy above selected files.

Paste to OBS Studio.

Add Camera Filter in OBS Studio.

Add ‘Audio/Video’ Filter. Select Background Removal. You may need to restart OBS studio if it was open at the time of copying plugin files.

Tweak Parameters. Change background color from Black to Green.

Experiment with Segmentation Model.

Add background Media Source. (Image / Video)

Using locally downloaded file.

Background changed.

Reorder media source. Reposition & resize camera video as needed.

Right click on camera and select filters.

From ‘Effect Filters’, select ‘Chroma Key’

Tweak settings if needed. Defaults work fine in most of the cases.

Background replaced without Green Screen.

It’s really an amazing feature.

How to Check an MD5 Checksum of torrent file on desktop/laptop (PC/MAC) in 2023

 MD5 verification of downloaded media or files.

Description:

When downloading files for patching or drivers you may need to verify the file is complete.  This can be done by verifying the MD5 checksum from the steps below on your PC or Mac workstation.

Solution:

Windows

1. Open the Windows command line.
   Press Windows + R, type cmd and press Enter.
   Alternative: You can also open command prompt or Windows PowerShell from the Start menu, of course.

2. Go to the folder that contains the file whose MD5 checksum you want to check and verify.

   Command: Type cd followed by the path to the folder.
   Tip: You can drag and drop a folder from Windows Explorer to insert the path.

3. Type the command below

   certutil -hashfile <file> MD5

   Replace <file> with the filename.
   
   Tip: You can use the Tab key to have Windows complete the file name.
   Example to get the MD5 hash for the file Example.txt:

   certutil -hashfile Example.txt MD5

4. Press Enter.
   Compare the resulting checksum to what you expect:
   

​​​​​Mac

1. Open Terminal.
2. Navigate to the folder that contains the file whose MD5 checksum you want to verify.
3. You can open Terminal right at a folder from Finder.
4. Type md5 followed by the filename:

   md5 <file>

   Dragging and dropping: You can also type md5, then drag and drop the file you want to check onto the Terminal window.

5. Press Enter.

Windows 10 - Why is my usable RAM only half of my Installed RAM?

Why is Only Half My RAM Usable?

It can be frustrating to see that the PC you spent a lot of money on only uses half the RAM you put on it. There are numerous factors that can cause this issue and, fortunately, they do have fixes.

If you have been experiencing the issue that only half of your RAM is usable, the first fix below might do it for you already.

So, if you’re asking why only half of your RAM is usable, these are the most common causes and the fixes to unleash your RAM to full capacity.

Only Half of RAM is Usable: Causes & Fixes

Windows installation

We’ll start by trying to determine why only half of your RAM is usable on Windows 10.

If you remember how you installed your Windows operating system on your PC, you should know if you have installed the 64-bit or the 32-bit version. To double-check, you can open the systems information application and check your PC’s specifications.

On your Window search bar, type systems information and open it. Once you open it, go to the systems summary tab and you will be able to see a ton of information about your computer. Look for “System Type” and you will see if you are currently running a 32-bit or a 64-bit Windows.

Another way to check is by opening “Dxdiag” from your computer. You can search it on the Windows tab or run the keyword on the Command Prompt. When you open Dxdiag, look for your operating system and it should say something like “Windows 10 Pro 64-bit”.

The reason you are checking this is that if you are running a 32-bit system, your computer can only access 4GB of RAM. The difference between a 32-bit and 64-bit system is immense.

At this point, if you see yourself running a 32-bit system, you have identified the problem right away and the only way to fix it is by reinstalling your operating system (Windows) to a 64-bit installation.

Memory Limitation

Another possible issue would be your computer having a set limitation for the usable memory available on your computer. It has to be manually applied but it does happen that this might be the cause of the problem.

To fix the issue, go to your search bar and open “run”. Type “msconfig” to bring up the system’s configuration settings.

You can also just search system configuration on the Windows search bar and open the application. On system configuration, go to the boot tab and click advanced options.

You will see “Maximum memory” with a check box. Make sure to untick the check box so that your PC can freely use all the memory your PC has at the moment.

Check if your RAM is connected properly

Before you blame your PC for only using half the RAM available, check your RAM physically if it is connected properly on your motherboard’s DIMM slots. Use a trial-and-error if you see that it is properly connected.

This is to check if the RAM is faulty or not. Attach one RAM at a time and boot the PC up.

Open the task manager and check your memory usage. Just open the performance tab and check the memory capacity and usage if it aligns with the RAM you just connected to your PC. Do this for each of your RAM sticks by turning off the computer and reconnecting the other RAM stick after booting.

Generally, you might want to do this option last since you might be able to fix your memory with the other methods especially if you are unfamiliar with building PCs.

Registry Editor

Export your Registry Editor first so you can restore it to the original settings if you do something wrong. This is important because if you make mistakes in deleting or editing other files here, things can go wrong when you use your PC.

Once you open the Registry Editor, look to the left table and find the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE folder. Under that, find Systems and then CurrentControlSet (1 word). Find Control under the CurrentControlSet and then Session Manager. Under Session Manager, find the Memory Management folder. This should be the last folder out of this long list of steps.

To sum it up – HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > Systems > CurrentControlSet > Control > Session Manager > Memory Management

Inside the Memory Management folder, switch to the right table and find “ClearPageFileAtShutdown”. Once you open it, you will see the value name, value data, and base. Just change the value data from 0 to 1. If it was already set to 1, it is already fine.

Conclusion

It is best to go in order when you follow these steps in fixing your usable RAM.

It can be risky to break open your PC or tweaking the registry. If you have no choice, it is better to take precautions on how to carefully open your PC to check your RAM because all the parts are fragile.

If you absolutely have no idea how to open your PC, it is best to just bring it to a computer store and have it checked for a fee. Most likely, they will be fixing everything for you.

If you have a broken RAM, you can check how many RAM slots you have and also see how to check your RAM type for your current PC build. Both can be done through the task manager and researching your motherboard’s specifications. This is for adding new RAM sticks for your PC build if you really need more memory.

Fix: Windows Update Error Code 0x800f0922

This article will help you to fix Windows Update error code 0x800f0922 received after failure of update installation in Windows 10.

It is often recommended that you install latest available updates in your Windows 10. However, sometimes you may not be able to finish installing updates due to an error code. 0x800f0922 is one of such error code which you may receive with Windows Updates. In this article, we will see why this error code appears and how you can fix Windows Update error code 0x800f0922.

You can see in the above screenshot, the error code 0x800f0922 appeared while installation of a cumulative update is failed. You can receive this error code on any of the Windows edition. In Windows, technically the error code 0x800f0922 interpreted as CBS_E_INSTALLERS_FAILED. When you’re getting this, it means processing advanced installers and generic commands failed. This error code is not specific to Windows Update, as it a general error code. It can be often spotted while installing .NET Framework.

The error code 0x800f0922 can appear due to following reason. PerfCounterInstaller, the installer Windows Update is using, may have its counter database corrupted. You can easily fix it using Command Prompt.

Here’s how to fix Windows Update error code 0x800f0922.

Fix: Windows Update Error Code 0x800f0922

FIX 1 – Using Command Prompt

1. Right click Start Button or press W8K + X keys and select Command Prompt (Admin) to open Command Prompt as administrator.

2. In the Command Prompt window, type following command and press Enter key. It will simply fix the counter database.

lodctr /R

If the command execution is successful, you would receive ‘Info: Successfully rebuilt performance counter setting from system backup store’ message.

3. Next, execute the following command to make the counter consistent and resync them with Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI).

winmgmt.exe /RESYNCPERF

 

 Once these command executed successfully, you can try installing the updates again. You’ll no longer receive the error code 0x800f0922 now.

FIX 2 – Using DISM Restore Command

If FIX 1 doesn’t solve this issue for you, try running DISM restore command.

In the Command Prompt window, you can execute following command:

Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

 

Windows 8 / Windows 8.1 100% Disk Usage – Possible Fixes

If, like me, you’ve used Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 then you’ll know that once you get used to it, it’s quite good. Yes, there are some bad parts, some annoying parts and some parts that seem pointless. But then, doesn’t every operating system? Anyway, to the point.

If you are facing similar problem on windows 10, here is fix

Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 for some people, has a very annoying and disruptive problem that Microsoft don’t seem willing to fix, and no matter how many forums you look on, nothing is conclusive. I’d like to be able to issue a sweeping fix that resolves it on your computer, but I can’t. Instead, here’s a few “fixes” or, “workarounds” if you like, that have solved it on some machines I’ve come across.

None of these are ideal, and in my own machine, I re-installed Windows 8.1 and fingers crossed it’s behaved since.

Disable Superfetch and Windows Search Services

1. Press Windows Key + R
2. Type in “services.msc” without the quotes, press enter
3. Find Superfetch in the list, double click it
4. Press “Stop”
5. Then change the startup type to “Disabled”
6. Go to the Recovery tab, and choose all three options to be “Take no action”
7. Repeat steps 3 – 6 for Windows Search
8. Close and restart
9. Cross fingers, hope it solves it

Disable BITS (Background Intelligent Transfer Service)

1. Press Windows Key + R
2. Type in “services.msc” without the quotes, press enter
3. Find Background (BITS)… in the list, double click it
4. Press “Stop”
5. Then change the startup type to “Disabled”
6. Go to the Recovery tab, and choose all three options to be “Take no action”
7. Repeat steps 3 – 6 for Windows Search
8. Close and restart
9. Cross fingers, hope it solves it

Change Pagefile Settings

1. Open up Control Panel (I always set Control Panel to View By Small Icons)
2. Go to System
3. Click on Advanced System Settings
4. Under Performance, click Settings
5. Go to advanced, click on “Change”
6. Take the tick out of “Automatically manage paging file size for all drives”
7. Then set it manually
8. Click set,
9. Click Ok, then restart
10. Cross fingers, hope it solves it

Turn Off System Restore

Again, not an ideal workaround, but this has worked.

1. Open up Control Panel
2. Go to System
3. Click on “System Protection”
4. Click on the Local Disk – typically the C Drive
5. Then click on Configure
6. Put the spot in the “Disable system protection”
7. Ok that, close it all, and restart
8. Cross fingers, hope it solves it

Uninstall Google Chrome

Not one of my favourite workarounds, as Google Chrome is my browser of choice, but uninstalling it on one machine after doing all the others listed here did fix it, so it’s worth a go.

1. Open Control Panel
2. Go to Programs and Features
3. Uninstall Google Chrome

Re-Install Windows

Obviously not a fix, or a workaround really, but it’s worth noting that if you are having issues, and don’t have too much installed that requires detailed configurations, an operating system reinstall may be your best bet.

In Summary

So those are the methods that have so far worked for me in some combination or another. I have to say, turning off System Restore, and disabling Superfetch and Windows Search are the most effective fixes so far. I’ll be updating this list with more fixes as and when I find them. But who knows, Microsoft may release a fix for it soon …