Every few years there are a number of announcements about the launch of new video phones. For decades the public have been told that this revolution is just around the corner.
For most of those years the means of transferring the speech and video information has been via a telephone line, initially a PSTN, then in the ’80’s, ISDN. Due to the limitation of the amount of bandwidth, using them was a pretty unsatisfactory experience with the video being ‘choppy’.
As broadband became more available, the bandwidth that video requires started to be come more widely installed in peoples homes and other places.
For quite a while this has been available to the technically savvy using software solutions available on desktops and laptops. By simply plugging in a cheap USB camera and installing some (often free) software, people have been able to chat and watch each other.
One instance sticks in my mind. When I was organising the Digital Lifestyles conference theme day at IBC 2003, one of the speakers, Stuart Cheshire, Ethernet Guru at Apple recounted his connecting to home. He had his hotel broadband connection, connected up his Apple iBook, slotted in an Apple iSight and, for the equivalent cost of a long distance call from Amsterdam to the US, he was able to chat to his family for as long as he wanted, with the added benefit that both he and his family where able to see each other, seeing the facial cue so important in a face-to-face conversation.
Now that broadband is an established fact for a large number of western households, there is a new wave of broadband, consumer-friendly devices that don’t require PC’s to function – and that’s going to make them usable by a range of generations.
Viseon used CES to launch it VisiFone, labelling it the Digital Home Telephone. They claim by keeping the communications digital from end-to-end, the free standing unit provides CD-quality audio and TV-quality video.
They claim one of the secrets to their success is their use of the latest chips from Texas Instruments (TI) specifically; TI’s newest IP phone system-on-a-chip, the TNETV1050, which provides enhanced digital voice quality and conferencing; and the DSP-based TMS320DM64x digital media processor, offering high quality, multi-channel video.
Viseon’s business approach is to sell the unit via broadband service providers. The first they have announced is a deal with well known VoIP provider, Vonage, who run services in the US, Mexico and of last week, the UK.
Another offering at CES was Ojo from Motorola, which they label the Personal Video Phone. It works on a similar principle of a screen and embedded camera on a stand. The Ojo’s large colour screen is 5.6-inch, 9 x 16 format, which they say frames the face better.
It uses an advanced MPEG-4 coding standard (H.264), which enables transmission of 30 frames-per-second video with synchronized audio at data rates as low as 110 Kbps.
Ojo differs from VisiFone in that it can also handle phone calls over ‘normal’ phone lines using its cordless handset.
Ojo should be available in the US from Spring 2005 at $799, plus an as-yet-undisclosed monthly service charge.
How long it will be before we have Video phones on the street, a la Blade Runner is unclear, but finally things appear to moving in the world on consumer-friendly videophone.
Samsung is showing a 102-inch Plasma Display Panel (PDP) TV at CES. Currently standing as the worlds largest TV, they’re upping the ante of their own 80-inch screen they announced back in January last year.
Designed as a replacement for Epson’s P-1000, the imaginatively named P-2000 has higher capacity storage, a faster interface, two memory card slots and the ability to view, store and playback photos, videos and music. If you are still nostalgic about the black and white photos taken in the back garden with the Brownie camera, just think of the multi-sensorial memories your kids will have.
With all the competition from the "red button" and "iPod favourites" radio needs an electronic programme guide – an EPG. At IBC, Unique Interactive together with two receiver manufacturers – 
They know the broadcast network is ideally suited to mass distribution of media rich content. The economics of sending 3 minutes of video to 100,000 people make 3G a very expensive way of getting content broadcast, especially in a crisis. Nokia know that, but have chosen partners such as NTL and HP to work on a competing method of content distribution, DVB-H. Both are really in the physics experiment stage – no-one has developed stimulating content for these platforms yet – and it is not going to be ringtones that save the day 
Philips has a system called Streamium, which is more of a Wi-Fi enabled hi-fi/boombox. A clever piece of kit, but Philips haven’t a clue on how to promote it to the public. A Cambridge based research company called 
Sony HD-CAM, the HDR-FX1, which will offer entry-level hi-definition video for the prosumer market for around €3,500 (~$4,314, ~£2,390). It also seems crazy that many of the best video editors can be downloaded for a couple of hundred bucks for personal use and yet some audio editors have made it impossible for the freelance community to buy cheap personal copies of the software. They forget what power of persuasion these people have in getting technology adopted within many broadcasting stations.
Hyundai, well known Korean makers of displays (and much else), has released a 17″ LCD TFT screen aimed specifically at video game players.