[BobbyH]

I think this behavior comes from the webcam, and not Skype. I have actually seen this exact behavior with the Microsoft LifeCam, which often auto-changes the width of the video stream. The larger width will show "people on the sides," and the more narrow width does not.

I believe that the LifeCam looks for movement in the peripheral area. If there is no movement there, the LifeCam will truncate the sides of the image. I have sometimes been able to force the sides to appear by waving my arms off to the side.

When I first noticed this happening, I was surprised that many "people on the side" don't move or talk at all, thus triggering a truncation. But I started looking for this, and most "people on the side" barely move at all.

In my experience, Skype video quality tends to degrade by simply freezing the screen. I have also noticed this behavior when Skype was off entirely, when recording a video of myself. So I'm pretty sure it's the webcam itself auto-controlling the width, and not Skype.

[jloughry]

It is a Microsoft lifecam VX-1000. If there's enough room in that little thing for this kind of intelligence, I'm impressed.

[Kliment]

The intelligence is usually in the driver.

[jloughry]

I purposely did not install the drivers, but that's not saying much as the camera, OS, and Skype software are all Microsoft's, so there is no reason to believe Microsoft couldn't run any driver they wanted to in this situation.

[sbisker]

If it is indeed the webcam and not Skype, it'd be cool to update the description and/or title accordingly. After all, it's rare to see a MS product given high praise around here - and they certainly seem to deserve it here.

[arjie]

Microsoft owns Skype anyway.

[IgorPartola]

How does the webcam driver know how much bandwidth your socket has? The request to reduce quality in some fashion would have to come from Skype.

[supergirl]

It doesn't. That's the point.

[EpicEng]

I'm glad someone posted my immediate thought.