I recently had the pleasure of chatting with the CEO of Human Things, Eddie Tsai about the new Genki Shadowcast. As a fan of all interesting new technology, I had to learn more about this product. It looks about the size of a flash drive and is an HDMI converter. Through it, you can run and stream your consoles onto a laptop, a computer monitor, or a tablet! It’s fascinating, and I’m glad he took the time to tell us and you, the reader, why you need it. We recently talked about it here, and there is a review of the Genki Shadowcast forthcoming.

Jason: The Genki Shadowcast is a fascinating bit of hardware. What inspired its creation in the first place?

Eddie: We’ve always been fans of social play experiences which is why our first Kickstarter project was the first Bluetooth audio adapter that let you connect to two headphones simultaneously – so that if you’re on a plane ride you could enjoy some tabletop co-op. Our Covert Dock expanded on the idea making the idea of big screen multiplayer more portable wherever there’s a TV.  Finally, ShadowCast expands on that where you don’t even need a TV and you can quickly get a game in on your laptop with a friend without squinting.

Jason: Why should the Genki Shadowcast be on gamers’ radar? Who is it for?

Eddie: Originally we would’ve said anybody who wants to play on a bigger screen on the go but we’re finding our fans are finding new hacks and unexpected ways of using it – from archiving old vhs anime collections to digital, playing retro pi consoles on tablets, starting influencer game channels, and even playing the Nintendo Switch in an Oculus VR environment.

Jason: Human Things have created other projects in the Genki line in the past: Genki Bluetooth Audio, and Genki Covert Dock. Did the tech for either of those come in handy when designing the Genki Shadowcast?

Eddie: The tech itself not in particular – we always end up making things from scratch and it requires us to learn a lot about the tech. It’s challenging but allows us to look at a problem and approach it differently than more established industry players.

Jason: Were there any major challenges when creating the Shadowcast? Any difficulties when making such an interesting product?

Eddie: One of the things that was difficult for us in particular is software (where none of our previous projects have needed) – there are just so many system configurations and it’s difficult for our small team to really account for every fringe system setup. Luckily we’ve had a huge backer following who have been helping the community with specific configurations.

Jason: Are there any limitations on what laptops can use the Genki Shadowcast? Or is it for a more broad group of machines?

Eddie: One of the secrets of ShadowCast is that it disguises itself as a webcam – and so any system that would work with an external webcam would work. This makes ShadowCast system agnostic but we also built a Genki Arcade app to optimize simple play since you don’t always want to setup a webcam just to play. For Mac it’s pretty easy for us to draw the line based on the Mac OS being 10.12+. For Windows you’ll need a system that is at least running 7+.

Jason: I saw it can interact with devices that feature an HDMI port. Would that work as well for classic consoles (NES, SNES, Genesis) that are hooked up to an AV-to-HDMI converter?

Eddie: Absolutely – people are using it with their TV set boxes and digital SLR cameras as well. We have some classic console system resolution support in our secret advanced mode Easter egg (just enter the Konami code in the app and push enter).

Jason: Will this also work on PC monitors as an alternative to hooking up capture cards with longer HDMI cables?

Eddie: ShadowCast does work as a fully functioning capture card for desktops. As for directly connecting to external monitors, it wouldn’t work because it still does require software. What’s neat is the all-in-one systems like iMacs which could only be used to display MacOS can now act as an external monitor for any HDMI device.

Jason: Perhaps one of the biggest things is this: Is there any chance of the Genki Shadowcast being picked up as illegal hardware for a major console, resulting in a ban? Is there any kind of precaution a player can take as a result if so?

Eddie: From a console perspective, ShadowCast is identified as a typical 4K television indistinguishable from other TVs so there isn’t much of a concern of it being patched out of a console.

Jason: Will the Shadowcast work with all major capture software – OBS, Streamlabs, and so forth?

Eddie: Yep it already does, you can even use it with video chat apps if you want to broadcast to a private group of friends on zoom, FaceTime, Google meet, etc.

Jason: Are there any future projects you are considering, now that the Genki Shadowcast has successfully been developed?

Eddie: We have a couple experiments that we’re exploring but nothing we’re ready to reveal yet! Stay tuned and do follow our Instagram @genkithings.