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

Wow!

[tcd004]

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

won't work

[tps12]

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.

Re:won't work

[geekoid]

I can sum up why it will in one word:
Porn

Did gwizah even read the reviews?

[GuyMannDude]

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

The Good The Bad And the UGLY

[visionsofmcskill]

This product IS at last very close to being consumer friendly.

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... :-D