How to Use Countdown Timers in Microsoft Teams

 

Microsoft Teams is a great video communication tool that can be enhanced with all kinds of video elements by using OBS. OBS stands for Open Broadcaster Software, and it is a video production software that supports a virtual webcam output. By using OBS with its virtual webcam output feature in Teams, you can overlay graphics and countdown timers in Teams. This is a great way to show meeting countdown timers, lower thirds graphics and much more. 

Here are the various ways you can display countdown timers in your Teams Meetings:

1. Share a video with the share feature of a countdown timer. These videos will be available in the download below.
2. Use OBS with a countdown timer video file. These can be overlaid on top of a webcam source and used with a chroma key in order to display transparent over video.
3. Use a countdown timer plugin script for OBS to manage countdown timers text files inside of OBS. These are then of course, sent via the virtual webcam output into Teams.

Note: Other software such as vMix, Wirecast and xSplit also support virtual webcam output functionality. 

The easy way to add a meeting countdown timer

The easiest way is to use the share feature. This way, you don’t even need OBS. You can simply play the meeting countdown video file and share it with your attendees as everyone joins the meeting. You can download a variety of free video countdown timers files in the form below. The next more advanced steps include using OBS. 

How to use OBS with countdown timers with Microsoft Teams

In this way, you can power Microsoft Teams with OBS’s virtual webcam. You can choose to either use one of our free meeting countdown timer video files, OR use a countdown timer plugin with OBS. If you choose to use the video files, we have created them with green or blue backgrounds which are easy to use with a chroma key filter. Once you bring the video files into OBS you can use the color key filter option to remove the background color. This will allow you to overlay the video countdown timer on top of your other video sources. 

The next way, which is more flexible, involves an OBS script. The OBS Lua Advanced Timer 5.0, available here, is a great way to manage countdown timers. This script does require OBS 26 or great in order to work. Once you download this script you can put it into the scripts folder in your OBS installation. It will then show up inside of OBS under the Tools dropdown menu. From here you can select “Scripts” and operate the countdown timer manager. Essentially, you are able to create and transform any text file inside of OBS to be your countdown timer. So create a text file if you have not already. Then, you can select that text file inside of OBS to be your countdown timer. 

Conclusion

Meeting countdown or count-up timers are a great way to keep meetings organized. Understanding how to connect OBS with Teams is a great way to start increasing your meetings production value. You can even increase meeting productivity by displaying countdown timers to keep everyone on time and on the same page. This becomes even more important the more people that are attending your meetings. 

 

You can download the OBS and Teams Guide along with the video files mentioned above here.

 

 

Check out our other articles about Open Broadcaster Software below:

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• What's new with OBS 26, here.
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