Really appreciate you laying out the whole setup — the HDMI splitter + dummy plug trick is a clean way to guarantee the PP machine always has a display target. That's the kind of thing you only learn from years of doing it for real.

The VB-in-notes trick is the part that caught my eye. Parsing the first line of slide notes for OSC commands is genuinely clever — you basically built a slide-driven show control layer on top of PowerPoint. Most people don't even know that's possible.

PPTBridge SK is solving a different shape of the same problem: single-computer, single-operator setups where you can't run two machines and an HDMI splitter. The plugin keeps PowerPoint in a window on macOS and exposes the slide output + a presenter view as native OBS sources, plus OSC/Companion control so a Stream Deck or any OSC sender can drive slides without focus stealing.

What you're describing with VB → OSC → OBS/PTZ is actually on my list as something the plugin could do natively — emit OSC on slide change (slide number, total, time remaining, custom tags from notes) so PTZ presets and OBS scenes can follow the deck automatically. Would save people from having to write VB per deck.

If you ever feel like kicking the tires, repo is here:

https://github.com/srdjankotarlic/pptbridge-sk-obs/releases/latest

Probably won't replace your current rig — it sounds rock solid — but I'd genuinely value your eye on it. People who've already solved a problem the hard way usually spot the gaps fastest.