Multi-Party Video Chat?

Is multi-party video chat for Windows Live Messenger in development?

I'm often forced to switch to my friend's Mac and use Apple iChat, which can
routinely do this, with very good video quality, but it's obviously very
inconvenient. No free Windows software seems to be able to do this (WLM,
Skype, etc. only do 1 on 1 video).

Greetings,

If you use Messenger on the video side and Skype on the other you can get this on Windows.

What most people aren't aware of is that Messenger allows you to share your webcam (not video
chat) with multiple people. To do so, just open up a conversation window to someone, click
the Actions menu (or press Alt-A if the menu is hidden), then Video and then Show my webcam.
Each person can do that to multiple people and then use Skype or TeamSpeak or something
similar for audio.

Yes it's a hack, but it's possible.

To directly answer your question, it's been talked about for years and years but the actual
video and audio components of Messenger are made by a separate team, so until they produce a
solution it won't be in Messenger.

--
Jonathan Kay
Microsoft MVP - Windows Live Messenger/MSN Messenger/Windows Messenger
Associate Expert
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/
Messenger Resources - http://messenger.jonathankay.com
All posts unless otherwise specified are (c) 2006 Jonathan Kay.
You *must* contact me for redistribution rights.
--


"abakshi" <> wrote in message
news:8DDC0C8F-2450-423A-9628-...
> Is multi-party video chat for Windows Live Messenger in development?
>
> I'm often forced to switch to my friend's Mac and use Apple iChat, which can
> routinely do this, with very good video quality, but it's obviously very
> inconvenient. No free Windows software seems to be able to do this (WLM,
> Skype, etc. only do 1 on 1 video).