Sharing video with Skype screen share feature

September 5, 2009 2:39 PM

Is there some way to share video over Skype with the screen share feature?

I'd like to use the screen share feature in Skype so that another person and I can watch the same video (which is on my computer) and talk about it. Is this even possible? I've tried opening videos in VLC and mplayer while screen sharing is on, but all the other person sees is black where the video should be. Any suggestions? I'm using XP, if that helps.

posted by flod logic to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

I know there is this issue where you can't take screenshots of videos playing in mplayer if you have certain settings (well, you could take them, but you'd only get a black box). This could be causing the same issue for you.

Open the Options of mplayer, and then under Playback->Output you could change some options. Try setting DirectShow Video to Overlay Mixer, if it isn't already set to that. If that doesn't work you could try one of the other options.
posted by bjrn at 3:31 PM on September 5, 2009

Hmm. Scratch that, the screenshot didn't actually work. But I know fiddling with those settings is what fixed it for me once.
posted by bjrn at 3:33 PM on September 5, 2009

Different situation, similar goal.
posted by misterbrandt at 4:32 PM on September 5, 2009

I've had a similar problem... I have a program that overlays data over another program. If you look at it via the skype screen sharing, you don't see the overlay data. I suspect that the overlaying is done by the video card and is somehow "skipping" the layer the skype is reading data from. Other screen sharing programs work for me (like vnc) but watching video over vnc borders on impossible, the frame rate is way too low.
posted by RustyBrooks at 8:34 PM on September 5, 2009