Discord is testing video chatting with a subset of users

Voip program Discord has started testing video calling with five percent of current registered users. Screen sharing is also tested. Video calling may be available to all users in a month.

According to Discord, video calling testing is limited to five percent of existing already registered users, because otherwise it would require too much bandwidth. Due to the significant additional bandwidth required for video calling, the option may also be disabled during the test.

The selected users who are allowed to participate in the test can also start a video chat with non-testers. Up to ten people can join a video chat at the same time. Discord says video calling may become available to everyone in a month, but it may also take longer.

Discord is a free voip program mainly used by gamers. The chat program has quickly become popular since its release in May 2015; there are already more than 45 million registered users. Compared to competitors like TeamSpeak or Ventrilo, Discord is easier to use, partly because it doesn’t require a host server and no client to download. Discord uses the HTML5 standard WebRTC, a protocol that enables plug-in-less audio and video communication in browsers.