Will Video Calls Finally Take Off?

Ever wonder why video calls haven’t taken off? It might.

That’s the considered opinion of FOX News’s John R. Quain, who pronounces himself “enamored with video calling - or videoconferencing, as the business folks know it - for nearly two decades.”

With everything so cumbersome and expensive twenty years ago he says, “okay, I can understand why it wasn’t happening then,” but today, with smartphones and broadband Internet, services like Skype thrive, so could this be video’s time to shine?

Asus has just upgraded its standalone Skype videophone, Quain says, noting that, “the Asus Videophone Touch AiGuru SV1T, which looks like a little television, has a 7-inch touchscreen, a built-in microphone and speaker, and connects to the Internet via Wi-Fi or an Ethernet cable. Expected to cost about $300, it makes video calls nearly as easy as making a phone call.”

Much of the optimism is, in fact, depending on Skype's vast user base, Quain says. “Samsung's UN46C7000, for example, is a $2,000 46-inch LCD set that's ready for Skype out of the box. It works only with a special $240 camera, however, the FreeTalk Skype Camera. Panasonic has also Skype-enabled several of its latest HDTVs, including the 50-inch Panasonic TCP50VT25, a $2,360 plasma set. But it too needs a special $170 video camera to make a video call.”

How do these work? In some preliminary tests, with similar television systems, “I found the effect interesting -- but also chilling,” Quain admits. “The picture can be a bit blurry at times, but the idea of seeing distant relatives sitting in their dens in another country on a big-screen TV was appealing.

On the other hand, it was also unnerving to realize that people who were gazing into my living room could see how messy my home is -- and what toys my daughter was playing with (shouldn't she be doing her homework?).”

This, of course, is precisely the reason there hasn’t really been much of a concerted cry for video: We usually don’t want the other person to see us, what we’re wearing -- or not wearing.

Still, Cisco “isn't worried about the privacy aspect,” Quain says: “The company is poised to introduce its own video-calling device for the home this week, according to The Wall Street Journal.”