The Skype video chat feature is already really great because you get excellent picture quality but as with most other software, it’s possible to make it just a little bit better with a bit of tweaking here and there. With the recent release of Skype Beta 3.6, I thought I would share this tweak which I recently found online. I’m sure Skype will get round to officially including this in future releases but for those of you too impatient to wait for that, here’s a DIY method to turn your webcam window into a big 640 x 480 screen with better picture and sound quality.

But first a disclaimer – do NOT do this if you are not comfortable changing settings on your computer. MakeUseOf is not liable if you mess up your Skype application. Only proceed if you know what you are doing!

OK, go into your Skype folder (under “Documents and Settings”) and find a file called “config.xml”. Open that up and find the video section. It will start with <video>. ;-)

When you have found it, enter the following lines under <video> :

<CaptureHeight>480</CaptureHeight>
<CaptureWidth>640</CaptureWidth>
<Device>enter the name of your webcam device here!</Device>
<Fps>25</Fps>

Once entered, save the document and close.

Next, install a program called ffdshow-tryout. The set-up is a little complicated but the main thing is to ensure that “Raw video” is set to “all supported”, and that the “Deinterlacing” checkbox is checked.

Now re-start Skype and call someone with a webcam. If you’ve done everything correctly, the screen should now be bigger and the quality much better!