Slashdot Mirror
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."
Just curious - whenever some thing comes along with a "novel" method of communication - people have to immediately try to push it on my grandma.
"Have the kids call Grandma this"
"Grandma can see the kids that"
I mean, I cant even get my grandma to look at a computer - and she is mostly deaf, where email would really help her.
but she hates technology - just write a letter she says.
we all know that it will be the young technophiles that will be early adopters, so you should say things like:
"get a new girlfriend with this nifty whiz bang video phone that shows your technical prowess"
Only $499.99 for a pair!
They're gonna need more $ than that when Apple Sues them for using Aqua buttons on their site.
Visit LostBrain
tcd004
David Foster Wallace described, in Infinite Jest, why video phones are unlikely to ever catch on, and I don't think he was the first. The great thing about the telephone is that one needn't give the person on the other end of the line one's complete attention.
On the telephone, you can look through a magazine, clip your toenails, read you email, or make a sandwich, all without the other person suspecting that you are not hanging on his or her every word. Meanwhile, you are free to maintain the illusion that the other person is giving you their undivided attention.
With video phones, it would immediately become clear that we busy 21st century people don't have the time or patience to be attentive throughout an electronic conversation. It also would make answering the phone in one's underwear riskier, and might make people feel like they needed to be made up and dressed well when in their own homes.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
According to some reviews at USA Today and the WSJ, the product works as advertised.
Gees, Louise! I'm used to slashdotters not reading the articles before submitting comments. But I don't even think the submitter read them this time!
From USAToday's review: But based on my tests, Beamer sometimes worked and sometimes didn't. And when it did, the pixilated video could be as jittery as Jell-O.
From WSJ review: That's much better than the 1992 AT&T phone did, but it's a far cry from normal, full-motion video. In our tests, if either of us moved too much, the video resembled that old, jerky footage of astronauts on the moon. And, when the connection quality deteriorated, or was poor to begin with, the video froze up momentarily. Also, there were times when our words didn't match up with our lips -- kind of like a badly dubbed movie.
This is works as advertised? I don't think so...
GMD
watch this
"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?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
This product IS at last very close to being consumer friendly.
:-D
A: Invisible... Needs no extra software/hardware other than a standards compliant video phone on the other end...
B: Backwards compatible.... Works with standard phones... even rotary..
C: Non-complex... Requires no additional parts... nor includes unecasary parts.... such as including a phone as part of the unit would stop home users from being able to use their own phones easily...
D: WYSIWYG.... the device is straight forward and involves no special instructions beyond press button after phone is answered.
On the bad side
A: device reuires you to press buton and confirm if the other person has a video phone before hand... "hey you got video?", "yea, but i dont wanna link"... etc.... The phones should detect if the other has video and have a simple alert on the LCD saying "video link possible, start video?". This eliminates a user anoyance that will slow Sales...
b: the device is not high enough quality for user satisfaction.... plain and simply 15fps in best conditions is not good enough... in NY city the phone lines here are so bad i get a 28.8 connect at home... even with a 56k modem... The makers need to find a very very very high video compression algorithm... anything less just isnt gonna satisfy the user.... plus... if a better algorithm is devised in the future how compatible will these phones be?
c: the last issue is that 30 second delay when commence video... plain and simply this is the largest hurdle... and is probably technicaly required in such a manner that it may never be fixed without a major change in our phone lines. sadly this is the one that will most likely kill this best iteration.
for those saying... "why not just use my webcam"..
Web cams suck... are inconsistent as a consumer whole.. require special software and a computer, are far less mobile being tehered to a computer, are complex to set up (comparitivly), are as bad as this product in 90% of homes without the high speed bandwidth... are greatly less likely to be set-up in remote areas... etc.... The bottom line... web cams are not invisible.. and require technical maintenece/know-how....
lastly... Cell phones will probably be the way this video phoning actualy enter consumer hands... everyone buys cell phones... the advent of web services on them has introduced color and pictures to them... and the next step is simply to put small video cameras in them... like in japan...
--Idiots, Every single one of YOU, A flaming mass of conglomerated morons, hey wait a second, isnt that how RAID works?