Webcam in Yahoo! Messenger

Messenger has two ways to share video. A video call (Actions > Video Call) is live picture and sound in both directions. The webcam (Messenger > My Webcam) sends pictures from your camera, without sound, to the friends you let watch.

Sharing your webcam

1. Open Messenger > My Webcam. The first time, Messenger asks you to accept the webcam service.
2. When someone asks to watch, Messenger asks you. Only the people you allow see your pictures, and you can send anyone away from the viewers list at any time.
3. To invite a friend, use Invite to View My Webcam. Messenger first offers a video call; decline it to use the webcam instead.

Watching a friend's webcam

Choose View Webcam on a friend. They're asked whether you may watch, and the pictures start once they agree.

Super Webcam

In the original service, Super Webcam connected two computers directly when a webcam had a single viewer, to send larger pictures more often than Yahoo's servers allowed. Here every picture goes through our server, at the highest rate and size Messenger supports, for every viewer. That is why the webcam window says Super Webcam mode is unavailable: you aren't missing anything, and nobody learns your computer's address.

If it doesn't work

• My Webcam needs a camera that Windows sees. Help > Set up Video and Voice shows its picture.
• Start Messenger from its own shortcut, which also starts the connection it uses for the webcam.