Conferencing applications run a variety of devices, including portable devices, such as smart phones, laptop computers, and tablet computers. A source device may be taking a high-resolution video to provide the video as a conference portion of a conference being viewed by a number of devices. The number of devices displaying the conference may only be displaying the conference portion as a thumbnail image, or other low-data image, or not be currently displaying the conference portion at all. The number of devices viewing the conference may then signal back to the source device to downgrade/terminate the capturing and/or transmission of the video. The source device then provides the video or other conference portion in a data-thrifty format more closely matching the conference portion as it is being displayed on the number of devices.