is it possible to record incoming webcam images?
 

Sorry, if this has been already covered. I'm sure with computers, all things are possible, I'm just wondering if anyone knows how one would record webcam "movies" being sent from somewhere else (not webcam images originating from my own web cam).

Thanks in advance.

I don't know exactly what the program is used for, but I've heard of something called FRAPS before, and it sounds like this could be of use to you.

well, I was actually asking in regards to a friend... she was wondering if something she was doing on a webcam with someone else would be able to be saved by the other person... I told her that I thought the chances were pretty unlikely, but I have really no idea how true that statement is.

Although it would be nice to be able to do that, I'll check into your advice, thank you!

Oh my goodness yes. Of course it's possible. And video content can be islolated and captured, even by something as simple as screen scrapes. On the more complex side, there are streambox recording programs that will isolate a peice of the screen and record it is video.
Depending on the formate, it could be as simple as them choosing a record option in the program used.
Bottow line, anything digital can be saved, copied,etc.

The real question is, does the person she's video conferencing have any real computer know how to be aware of the programs?

yeah, i have used a piece of software before called bulent's screen recorder to record incoming webcam images
it's even free, so if she's getting naked or committing treason or whatever yeah it could be saved pretty easily

^^^^ hahaha, yep, she has committed "treason," all right. ;)

AFAIK, if one process has control of the webcam itself, for example, the Logitech software for QuickCams, nothing else can use the camera (locally). Try this yourself. Start using your webcam with any software and then try to open another program that uses the webcam. Only one will be able to connect.

If you are using the webcam over Yahoo! or MSN, then most definitely someone can take the image. This happens quite plainly because you cannot control what happens to the information once it is transmitted to the destination computer. If someone wants to write a piece of software that reads the information off of the Yahoo!/MSN communication (and it happens to be a webcam image) it is tough luck for you. The best you could do is not use it over the network or failing that, find webcam software that watermarks the image (ChillCam has this functionality).

FRAPS hooks into the DirectX API and at a very low level, the webcam API is part of that.