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Television Media Technology

Are Videophones Ready for Prime Time? 49

Posted by Cliff from the talking-at-12-frames-per-second dept.
Amigan asks: "Looking for a gift for my parents who live 1500+ miles away, I came across the Vialta Beamer TV. This device, with its claimed ease of use, would be helpful for my parents to see my son via the phone, but I'm wondering if the glowing WSJ review or Tech TV review are for real. Is 4-15 fps viable for conversation?"
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Are Videophones Ready for Prime Time? More

Are Videophones Ready for Prime Time?

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  • What's the point? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by floamy ( 608691 ) <(floam) (at) (sh.nu)> on Saturday December 06, 2003 @12:25AM (#7645488)
    Why not just buy a webcam and do it online? With two good connections you're probably looking at a bettter framerate.
    • I think the key word here must be parents. parents having a highspeed internet line and getting a webcam software to work sounds like a nightmare, if not for getting it to work the for all the support afterwards.

      • Re:What's the point? (Score:2, Interesting)

        by cabingirl ( 671963 )
        My mom (no technophile) was able to use the webcam that came with her computer to have a video call with my brother last Xmas - no broadband involved. Sure, video quality was not the greatest, but she was really happy with how it turned out.

        However, she already had the hardware, and was willing to try setting it up.

        My dad, on the other hand, won't touch a computer. If the parents in question are like him, then a videophone is probably a better option.

    • yeah, the main problem is syncing and the fact that it doesn't have a really quick responce time, like POTS does, nor does any alternative except for most portable phones.

  • 30fps would probably be better (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sakusha ( 441986 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @12:25AM (#7645489)
    I read an interesting report (SF Chron I think) that said deaf users discovered that Apple's iChat has a sufficiently high frame rate and resolution to use sign language over video, and no other products had a high enough frame rate to do the job adequately. But then, AFAIK iChat and the iSight does 30fps. I suspect this doesn't directly apply to you, but I though you might find it interesting as some sort of benchmark.
    • You should also mention that iChatAV only functions over broadband.
      • No it doesn't, iChatAV works fine over dialup modems too. Sure you won't get the same frame rates, but consider that these sign-language users can set a very low bandwidth for the audio, they don't need it at all. They can use more of the available bandwidth for video.

  • Yes, but (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by jptechnical ( 644454 )
    Only on the WB and not until 2005 [findarticles.com] you have to have something to follow up that crazy Bernie Mac!

    WAH!
    No personally I love gadgets but I wouldnt want to subject any of my friends and family to my pasty white face. If I ever have a dire need I can use a webcam but I think it is too 'gimmiky'.

  • Polycom ViaVideo II (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Compuser ( 14899 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @12:28AM (#7645496)
    It is ~30 fps on LAN and it is useable, as in voice and video are coherent, picture is abit shaky but not painful. You can't move fast though
    or else it'll be a blur.
    However we use it to talk coast-to-coast. On
    university-to-university network you get ~20 fps
    and the quality degradation is notable. Now you
    get a picture that is a bit retarded and when
    someone moves (even medium speed) it results in
    unhappiness.
    Put the sucker on cable modem and you get 10 fps.
    Now it is virtually unusable in the sense that you
    are not getting much more than voice and what you
    do get is painfully choppy and often artefacted.
    IMHO, anything below 15 fps is not even worth
    consideration.

  • iChat (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Stigmata669 ( 517894 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @12:29AM (#7645502)
    I can't say i know anything about the product you list, but I have used Apple's iChat voice and video conferencing over broadband internet(east coast to west coast) and it works very well. The audio is very clean and well synched, and the video looks pretty good too. Mac only of course so if you have a speedy inexpensive computer rather than my pos ibook you're out of luck (or are very lucky depending on how you spin it).

  • Add me to the iChat chorus (Score:3, Informative)

    by tm2b ( 42473 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @12:41AM (#7645555) Journal
    I've used iChat [apple.com] with an iSight [apple.com] a bit over a cable modem to somebody at a university. It's worked pretty well. That's 30 fps.

    You do, of course, need a Mac though.

    [Additional agreement is not redundant, damn it!]

  • video is a hassle (Score:4, Funny)

    by oskillator ( 670034 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @01:55AM (#7645880)
    Personally, I like being able to answer the phone without shaving, getting dressed, and combing my hair first.

  • Is 4-15 fps viable? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Babbster ( 107076 ) <aaronbabb&gmail,com> on Saturday December 06, 2003 @02:47AM (#7646043) Homepage
    It depends on what you and your family are looking for. If it's just a case of your mom wanting to see your face while you're talking, then it's probably fine (just don't move around too much). If you actually want to have a reasonably smooth conversation more closely approximating face-to-face contact, I think a consistent frame rate of 20-25 would be the bare minimum.

    For a quick, kind of dirty solution the Beamer product looks to be adequate but, again, it's not going to feel like face to face.

    If you're looking for something with higher quality, there are standalone units that work over IP. The obvious advantage is broadband speed allowing much nicer frame rates (as several people have described with the Mac iChat system) and they don't require a PC (though some ISPs require PCs to set up broadband service). The disadvantages are setup (might be tough to talk a non-techie through it) and broadband cost (of course, this is cancelled out with frequent use because of long-distance savings).

    D-Link has two TV-connecting IP videophone models, both wireless [dlink.com] and wireful [dlink.com] (the latter goes for $149.95 after $50 mail-in rebate at Amazon).

  • In Belgium (Score:2, Interesting)

    by RiverTonic ( 668897 )
    FYI: The biggest telecomoperator from Belgium recently started to make publicity for this system. [belgacom.be]
    It looks to be very easy in use.

  • Wireless Video Phones (Score:2, Interesting)

    by orulz ( 98036 )
    In Japan, DoCoMo offers video phone service over their 3G wireless network. I don't have DoCoMo myself (I use AU, I chose cost over features) but last night I actually had a chance to try out the videophone on a friend's mobile. Although the screen was small, the framerate seemed decent. In my opinion, the worst part was the sound, since you can't hold the earpiece up to your face while you're talking on the videophone, the phone relied on its external speakerphone mode, which definitely made the audio much
  • A major US cell company has a big sponsorship deal with the pro football this season.

    They feature a mini-ad where the commentators in the booths show off their phones on air during the slow times on the field.

    So far, they haven't been able to get them to work, the best they could do was call the other person, while on the air.

    This says volumes about these phones, and the average user. I would guess that the majority of the advanced features go unused, and it is used just as a phone.

  • 14 fps. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @12:06PM (#7647722) Homepage Journal
    Consider this:

    Movies are 24 FPS.

    TV is 30 FPS (NTSC) or 25 FPS (PAL). (frames per second, not fields per second).

    The "killer app" for video phones is not business conferencing - it is "Look at Grandma! Wave to Grandma!".

    And we USED to use postcards (1 frame per WEEK) for that.

  • 15 fps adequate for some things (Score:5, Interesting)

    by michael_cain ( 66650 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @01:50PM (#7648392) Journal

    Several years ago I helped run some informal studies of people using small-frame video over IP for real-time communications. IIRC, some of the useful things that we learned were:

    • People who watch 15 fps video on a regular basis rate it higher than people who hardly ever watch low-frame-rate video. 15 fps is clearly not as smooth as 24 or 30 fps, but people do get used to it.

    • At 15 fps, body language and hand gestures are easily understood. For desktop conferencing, people tended to use the video as a body-language signaling channel -- I'm bored, I'm excited, I need to say something now.

    • At 15 fps, you can tell whether the audio and video are properly synced by watching people's mouths -- at 10-12 fps the motion is too jerky to tell.

    • At 15 fps, out-of-sync audio and video will drive you crazy -- many people have to look away so they can't see the video in order to continue the conversation.

    • A black-and-white option can be useful. A black-and-white frame typically requires only about half as many bits as a color frame, so you can trade off color for fps. Some people preferred black-and-white at higher frame rates, some people preferred color at lower rates.
    • about the hand gestures being understood at 15 fps, does that include motion blur?

      • about the hand gestures being understood at 15 fps, does that include motion blur?

        If I understand the question correctly, the answer is no. If someone waves their hand rapidly -- little Johnny to Grandma, for example -- at 15 fps Grandma will clearly see and understand the wave, but there's no visible blurring. I'm not sure what frame rate is needed to get visible blurring -- higher than we could generate with the hardware, software, and network arrangements we were testing at the time.

        It might be w

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • I do beleive that the blur is from the cam taking a long picture, not the speed or frame rate being transfered.

          Camera blur certainly occurs, but with modern sensors and under reasonable lighting conditions, is much less common than it used to be. For example, the frame-by-frame slow-motion shown during sporting events (from regular video, not from the "super slo-mo" high-frame-rate cameras that are sometimes used) is much sharper than it was in the past. OTOH, if you hold your hand palm-out at arm's l

  • You could make video phones work with 1280x1024 with 100 frames per second, but it still won't change the fact that people don't really like to be on camera. Tell me that you dont't feel slightly unsettled when walking into a bank and being faced with a camera pointing right at you. There is a reason why cameras are hidden under domes etc. People just do not like it.

    Right now, people take it for granted that they have some privacy when answering the phone. You don't need to check what you look like, whe
    • If people wanted to do video phones, we'd be doing it already. And the people who do want to do it are using webcams, online chat, etc. The technology is already there. And it has been there for quite a while in one form or another. It seems to be the kind of thing that researches well in user concept research but then fails gain adoption by a wide user-base. It was tried in the 70's, 80's 90's (and now/soon, depending on what country you live in, via cell phone technology). This is a classic case of th
  • A friend of mine bought several of those. He has one at his house, one at his sister's, one at his brother's, and one at his mother's house. He loves that.
    Before he went out and set it up for his mother and sister, we tried it at work. We connected Beamer units to phone lines in our offices, as far as I can tell, it works very nicely. At least he is very happy about that. I don't ever remember him complaining about the frame rate.
    We looked at D-Link units as well, but where his mother lives, there is no

  • Closed vs open standards (Score:3, Insightful)

    by JUSTONEMORELATTE ( 584508 ) on Monday December 08, 2003 @01:20PM (#7660500) Homepage
    Well, you could buy a pre-packaged setup like the Beamer, which would let you video-conf with any other Beamer users.
    Or you could use a webcam and open standards, and be able to chat with any other PC/Mac users with a webcam

    Reminds me of the first Soviet company to get a FAX machine. They were quite proud of themselves, until they realized they didn't have anyone else to call.

    --
  • iChat does support one-way video chat. So if your parents feel awkward about being on camera. Fine! They don't need to be. You can have a camera on your Mac and initiate a one-way chat. That way they can see and hear their grandson and you can talk to them. iChat will also work with most FireWire equipped camcorders.
    • iChat does support one-way video chat. So if your parents feel awkward about being on camera. Fine! They don't need to be. You can have a camera on your Mac and initiate a one-way chat. That way they can see and hear their grandson and you can talk to them. iChat will also work with most FireWire equipped camcorders.

      I have found most webcams support one way video chat:
      Put something solid in front of the camera.
  • Sure, videophone has been ready for prime time. Has been for what, 30 years? Unfortunately, prime time isn't ready for the videophone, and probably never will be.

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