Watching a movie together, over chat

October 15, 2023 10:01 PM

Streaming a window's video and audio with another computer over the internet, add a layer of audio between the two computers.

What is the current state of "watching a video together over the internet" and what are the ways to do it?

Most circumstances would be one computer playing the video and the other computer receiving the video+audio plus the overlayer of crosstalk.

posted by porpoise to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

https://w2g.tv/en/
posted by kschang at 10:18 PM on October 15, 2023

Best answer: I do this with Discord and it works quite well. On any video call, you can share your screen, or one window on it. When I've done it, the audio has required no troubleshooting.
posted by 4th number at 10:31 PM on October 15, 2023 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I've been using Kosmi for this since the pandemic started, and it's worked well for 2-5 people watching a movie simultaneously while talking with each other.

A lot of the services you'll find require all participants to have access to whatever is streaming, but Kosmi does not; only the "host" needs access to the film.
posted by kingoftonga86 at 5:01 AM on October 16, 2023

Sharing a stream is always going to be rougher than sharing a video playing from a local file. I feel no moral qualms about downloading such files via whatever means to media I have already paid for access to.
posted by rikschell at 6:35 AM on October 16, 2023

I use the Teleparty browser extension (which I can use to view on my tv) and Discord. Now I want to check this Kosmi thing!
posted by canine epigram at 7:15 PM on October 22, 2023