In addition to being a great gaming chat app, Discord also lets you share your video or screen with up to nine other people. It is slowly but surely becoming a Skype alternative aimed at gamers.
This is helped by the fact that you can now go from sharing video to sharing your screen with a single click. Stay with us to see how you can do this with your select few people.
Enabling your video
In order to share whatever your webcam is recording, you must first enable it. Here’s how you can do this:
- Go to user settings.
- Locate the “Voice & Video” tab on the left side of the screen.
- At the bottom of this menu is Video Settings. The “Test Video” button lets you see if the camera is working and if you look prepared and not breaking a sweat.
- Just below the Test Video button is the “Camera” drop-down menu. This is where you need to select your camera.
Note: If you’re using Discord from your web browser, make sure camera access is enabled there. The notification asking you to enable the camera will appear automatically as long as you haven’t prevented it from appearing before.
You should now have a working video setup. However, before you start a video call, you should create a group with the people you are calling, unless you already have one. After that, it’s about configuring the video call parameters.
How to split your screen
Now that you’ve verified that your equipment is working properly, it’s time to start streaming.
Start sharing
This is really simple to do:
- Open the channel you want to stream to on the server
- Click ‘Display’ in the bottom left corner.
- Select ‘Displays’ in the pop-up window that appears. This option allows you to show your full screen to other people on Discord. You can also choose to show only one app if you want.
- Click ‘Go Live’.
Your stream will appear in a small window while you still have access to most of your screen space. If you want to multitask without anyone knowing, all you need to do is choose the option to show only one app on your device.
If you’re using video and screen sharing, you can click the ‘Focus’ icon in the top right corner to change the layout of your Discord stream.
Open a popup window
Lastly, you can use the “Pop Out” icon in the bottom right corner to separate your Discord streaming screen.
This is perfect if you have multiple monitors because you can game or share on one screen and monitor your video on the next.
Video call settings
After starting a video call, you’ll notice that there are quite a few additional options that can improve the chat experience:
Share what you want
As mentioned above, you can choose whether you want to share your video or your screen by clicking a single button. At the bottom of the screen, there are two buttons: one with a monitor and an arrow inside, and another with a camera.
If you want to share your screen, which you can do by clicking the first one, but you have multiple screens, you’ll be able to select which screen you want to share. Additionally, if you prefer to simply share the screen of an open app, you can do that too.
Even if you want to switch to screen sharing from app sharing and vice versa, Discord has you covered. You can do this while sharing your screen by clicking its icon.
Some more options
Discord has even more options to help you use it to its full potential. Another thing you can do during a video call is expand the view down, or in other words, expand the chat so that it takes up as much Discord space as possible.
To focus on a specific person’s screen or video, you can click on their window. This will make the app focus on them and push everyone else to the side.
Speaking of focus, there are two arrows going in opposite directions in the bottom right corner. This is the full screen button. Click on it to expand the callout so that it fills the entire screen. To exit full screen view, press the Escape button.
After that, you can also mute your own audio or access settings in the middle of the call. You can find these options to the right of the “Leave Call” button.
Finally, Discord also allows you to view other chats while you’re in the middle of a call, moving the call to another window, allowing you to multitask easily.
Share audio
Discord has also introduced audio sharing, so you can share your audio when sharing your screen but not your webcam video. All you need to do is enable the “Sound” option when you start screen sharing. However, this feature does not always work as there are issues that prevent it from working. However, they can be solved, so here are some of the solutions:
- An antivirus may have flagged Discord by mistake, so check to see if that is the case for you. Otherwise, you can still try disabling the antivirus temporarily and see if that helps.
- Test your audio settings. In the “Voice & Video” tab of your user settings, find “Voice Settings.” There is a dropdown menu of input devices. See if you have chosen the correct device here.
- Another option within the same tab is “Push to talk.” Switching to or from “Voice Activity” might be what you’re looking for.
- Starting the program as administrator usually solves this problem. To do this, right-click on the icon you normally launch Discord from and choose “Run as administrator.” To avoid having to do this every time you start it, choose “Properties.” Go to the “Compatibility” tab and check the box that says “Run this program as administrator.” Don’t forget to click “OK” and confirm the changes.
- Another common error in Discord is related to full screen view. To see if this is the problem, avoid running your games and apps in full screen.
- Update or reinstall Discord. If all else fails, this is what you should do. However, it would be helpful to have tried most of the other less drastic options first.
- Contact discord. This site It will take you to the “Submit a Request” form, where you can report a problem or error.
Level up your chats
Discord has really become an instant messaging app to watch out for. Hopefully this helps you make it even more fun and customized to your own needs.
What do you think of Discord’s video chat capabilities? Have you ever had any problems with that? How did you overcome them? Share your gaming experiences with us in the comments below.
