Are Video Phones Back From The Dead?

gwizah writes: "A company by the name of Vialta is peddling a new product all you future loving geek's can enjoy, A VideoPhone! Yes, Im sure you can all remember the many attempts to bring video-phonecall technology into the home or office, but unlike the flying car, you can pick up a pair at Fry's today! According to some reviews at USA Today and the WSJ, the product works as advertised. A new way to call Grandma? Or just another silly little toy to collect dust in that hall closet."

Comments

THIS is considered "working?"

[dpbsmith]

"The product works as advertised?"

The WSJ article says

"based on my tests, Beamer sometimes worked and sometimes didn't...when it did, the pixilated video could be as jittery as Jell-O... on none of my Beamer calls were the voice and the movement of the other party's lips in sync..."

"If both people press the button before a connection is made, the video may fail. [If you get it right] there's an uncomfortable silence for between 15 and 45 seconds.... the audio resumes when the person at the other end shows up on screen... If the person does show up, that is. My initial efforts to connect with my father-in-law repeatedly failed, until Vialta replaced the unit I had sent him."

Have our standards for "computerish" devices fallen so low that Slashdot considers THAT to be "working as advertised?"

I personally used a Picturephone at the World's Fair in 1964. To the best of my recollection, the picture was black-and-white, and small (perhaps 5" wide by 7" high--it was in portrait orientation). But it was razor sharp, had a good grayscale, and looked pretty much like good live television--I'm sure it was a 30 fps rate or close to it.

Oh, and the audio on the 1964 Picturephone was perfectly lip-synced. OF COURSE. I didn't even think about it at the time, I took it for granted.

Until I read the article, it had never even crossed my mind that there could BE a videophone that WASN'T lip-synced.

To work, a videophone has got to give you a closer emotional experience than voice alone. A jittery non-lip-synced picture is going to be a distraction and, I would think, would INCREASE your perception of emotional distance.

It's not enough for these new gadgets to be affordable and easily self-installed on a phone line. If they can't match the "user experience" of a 1964 Picturephone I'd say they're dead in the water.

Remember the scene in "2001: A Space Odyssey" where Dr. Floyd is talking to his daughter on, IIRC an "AT&T Picturephone?" It's 2002 now, why don't we have them yet?