Using Your Fuze As a Webcam

You probably know by now that I have a thing for free solutions and tweaking. Well there are plenty of third party apps that will let you use a PDA as a webcam but that’s the easy way to do it so let’s not do that now;) Instead, I’m going to modify some instructions posted by pafke of XDA in order to use my Fuze as a webcam without any paid software. [The reason I need to modify them is because on our Fuzes (and the Touch Pro/Diamond line) if the camera is enabled the video does not pass through to the screen using MyMobiler so we need a different solution.] Anyway, here’s the solution

First you need to connect your Fuze to your PC using the tv out cables (which of course you can find in our store). I use a piece of freeware called DScaler in order to view the composite in video from my Fuze on my PC. DScaler can be downloaded from here. When loaded on your PC you will see your Fuze’s screen on your PC in real time.

Next download the freeware application VH Screen Capture from here. VH Screen Capture will set all or a portion of your PC screen to be recognized as a webcam feed. While your phone is plugged in to your PC start DScaler and then start VH Screen Capture and set VH Screen to focus on DScaler. This will set the DScaler feed stream as a webcam. if you need a video of setting up VH Screen Capture watch this video starting from around the 2 minute mark.

So far we have video but what’s video without audio? If you have a mic you’re set but if not all you need to do is take a regular wired headset with a mic and a 3.5mm jack and you’re set (I’m actually using the headset from the Touch HD but any headset that has a mic works). As an added benefit, I’m using the mic and earbuds from the headset so there’s no echo from my PCs speakers.

All you need to do now is go into the app that you want to use and make sure that you configure the webcam to be the right input and mic. Once the configuration is set up properly you won’t need to go through all of this each time. Oh and remember that you need to hold your Fuze in landscape mode:) The Fuze is actually a very nice webcam and the quality is above average. I tested this with MSN Messenger and it works as expected but there’s no reason you can’t use this to Skype, Google Message, or anything else. Oh and the camera times out after a few minutes so just tap on the screen every so often to keep it awake:)