Once your webcam is in use, you can’t use your webcam on other application such as MSN or Yahoo chat. You’ll have to quit the application that is using your webcam first, then only you can use your webcam on other application. For example, your webcam is your home’s CCTV and you want to start a video chat with your friend on Windows Live Messenger. You have to shut down the CCTV software first then only you can start the video chat or else you will get an error message that says “You have invited USER to start viewing webcam. Please wait for a response or Cancel (Alt+Q) the pending invitation. Your conversation cannot begin because your camera is currently in use or not plugged in. Make sure your camera is available and try again. You have canceled your invitation to start viewing webcam.”

Your conversation cannot begin because your camera is currently in use or not plugged in. Make sure your camera is available and try again.

To solve this problem, I’ve written an article two years ago on how to use webcam or video capture source on several application simultaneously using SplitCam. Basically SplitCam installs a webcam driver which supports multiple application usage. Today I found an even better software which allows you to use your webcam with multiple applications at the same time and add cool graphics to your webcam video window.

ManyCam is able to split one video stream into several video streams. All you need to do is to choose ManyCam virtual Webcam as the video source in your webcam applications. You can also add some features to the video stream by using ManyCam (for example, funny animations, time and text). Right click the ManyCam icon in your bottom right tray to access these features.

Check out the video demo of ManyCam!

ManyCam features:

  • Use your webcam with multiple programs simultaneously.
  • Add text to your webcam video window with any application.
  • Add cool animations to your video window.
  • Show your local day and date in your video window.
  • Add live CGI graphics like fire and water effects. You can even make it appear as if it is snowing inside your house!

    • Unfortunately ManyCam doesn’t work right out of the box after installation. To share your webcam with a few applications, you’ll need to configure the application to use “ManyCam Virtual Webam”. An example on how to configure Windows Live Messenger is go to Tools > Audio and video setup..” At step three where you setup your webcam, click the drop down box and select ManyCam Virtual Webcam instead of the default webcam driver. You can refer to this help page for more configuration on other application.
    ManyCam Virtual Webcam

    Other than that, ManyCam is able to effects to your webcam. There are already a few built-in effects for you to play around with and if you find too little, you can go to the ManyCam’s effects page to download more than 3000 effects for free! One thing you should be careful during the installation is it will prompt you to install ALOT ManyCam Toolbar and uPlayMe Desktop Application. Both of these application will install by default and you’ll need to UNCHECK to avoid installing the toolbar and uPlayMe.

    [ Download ManyCam ]

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