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Skype HD delivers 720p videocalling from PCs or HDTVs

By | January 5, 2010, 3:01am PST

Summary: CES 2010: Skype has announced that they will have support for high-definition video calls, via personal computers or HD webcams connected to HDTVs.

Skype has announced that now support for high-definition video calls, via personal computers or HD webcams connected to HDTVs.

The HD support comes in the beta version of Skype version 4.2, which can host 720p HD video at 30 fps. Apparently PC users might have already had it and not known it since they wanted to save the good news for CES this week. (There seems something wrong about that…) Also, no luck for Mac users. Yet.

But the big deal is that Skype users will be able to make HD calls from their living rooms - without their computers. LG and Panasonic have both already signed on to embed Skype into Internet-connected plasma and LCD HDTVs, which will be released some time later this year.

HD webcams are also in the works. Two of those webcams are the FV Touchcam N1 ($99, with microphone) and the FreeTalk HD Pro ($120) or HD Pro Plus ($140), set to sell starting in February and March, respectively.

Personally, I can’t live without Skype. It’s the only way I can affordably call home to the United States while I’m living abroad. It’s simple, easy and I can’t wait to see what else they can develop to make telecommunications easier.

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Topics

Webcam, PC, HDTV, Skype Technologies S.A., TVs, Tv & Home Theater, Personal Technology, Home Entertainment, Rachel King

Rachel King is a staff writer for ZDNet based in San Francisco.

Disclosure

Rachel King

Rachel King has no business relationships, affiliations, investments, or other potential conflicts of interest relating to the content posted in this blog.

Biography

Rachel King

Rachel King is a staff writer for CBS Interactive in San Francisco. Before serving as a contributing editor at ZDNet in New York City for two years, she previously worked for The Business Insider, FastCompany.com, CNN's San Francisco bureau and the U.S. Department of State. Rachel has also written for MainStreet.com, Irish America Magazine and the New York Daily News, among others. Rachel has a B.A. in Mass Communications and History from the University of California, Berkeley and a M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University, where she served as art director for the student magazine, Plated.

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RE: Skype HD delivers 720p videocalling from PCs or HDTVs
emiliosic 5th Jan 2010
This past weekend to be precise, I noticed my high-speed
cable-modem connection more sluggish than usual.
Since I happen to use an old PC running Linux as my NAT
firewall, out of curiosity I ran a tcpdump trace and I was
amazed to find out the amount of bandwidth Skype was
using while being idle. I'm using version 2.8.0.722 for Mac.
I hope Skype embedded on TVs would not magically use
unproportionate amounts of bandwidth to route calls.= that
are not mine
View in thread
0 Votes
+ -
why not on PS3?
ruwan.jayaweera@... 5th Jan 2010
Why dont they introduce a version for PS3?

http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=109454
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Skype HD delivers 720p videocalling from PCs or HDTVs
buck-rabbit@... 5th Jan 2010
I think of the possibilities of NO free holidays for Politicions and being able to SEE long lost friends and relatives that cannot think of what to say when writing a letter or sending a card. The mind boggles at the many pleasures of direct sight to be able to see who you are talking to.NO unidentified callers,or perv's on the phone.
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Skype HD delivers 720p videocalling from PCs or HDTVs
speer@... 5th Jan 2010
Does this change align Skype with any of the existing
standards (e.g. H.323)? And are there compact Skype
appliances utilizing the 720p (e.g. ASUS AiGuru)?
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Skype HD delivers 720p videocalling from PCs or HDTVs
S4F4M 5th Jan 2010
Confused...

How is this a good idea/business move as most people's broadband has really small upload limits (vs. DL)? Most people do now have FiOS.

I cannot see this being all too popular unless people install a T1 line. Even the fastest upload for most residential lines (cable) seems to be 2 mbps which yields pretty copy HD downloads at that speed.
0 Votes
+ -
True, but...
Stuka 5th Jan 2010
I would expect there to be massive compression. And just because its HD resolution, won't mean its broadcast quality HD. I would expect it to still be pretty low quality.
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Skype HD delivers 720p videocalling from PCs or HDTVs
ronangel 5th Jan 2010
as long as it does not cost any extra
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Skype HD delivers 720p videocalling from PCs or HDTVs
nfiertel 5th Jan 2010
With my throttled upload and uplink
capability of 300kps and download of
3.5mps I can still manage a
reasonable SKYPE video connexion
though duplex conversation is
sometimes ( well, often) problematic.
One is almost ready to go.."over" after
speaking as in shortwave radio days
but the compression of the video is
impressive in that only the delta
seems to be sent..ie. background
remains clear and the movement of
the person tends to pixellate or blur
when the movement is too gestural.
Considering, it is wonderful and the
price..ha ha..more than great.
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Skype HD delivers 720p videocalling from PCs or HDTVs
Shmuel 5th Jan 2010
It would be helpful to provide some technical details to this, such as the minimum up/down links speed needed to use such video resolution.
Further, in addition to this, it would be nice to know what is the bits 'consumption' (say, per minute of talk time) that would be logged by the service provider [some of which have a monthly cap {as an example, Comcast is at 250Gbytes/month of combined up/down bit stream usage...}].
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Skype HD delivers 720p videocalling from PCs or HDTVs
emiliosic 5th Jan 2010
This past weekend to be precise, I noticed my high-speed
cable-modem connection more sluggish than usual.
Since I happen to use an old PC running Linux as my NAT
firewall, out of curiosity I ran a tcpdump trace and I was
amazed to find out the amount of bandwidth Skype was
using while being idle. I'm using version 2.8.0.722 for Mac.
I hope Skype embedded on TVs would not magically use
unproportionate amounts of bandwidth to route calls.= that
are not mine

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