14 DAY TRIAL // You can watch music videos on your laptop, watch an entire season of Lost on your desktop, even sports events are now online. The PC is taking over the TV in a big way, but for once the TV is going on the offensive and borrowing something from the computer. No, it's not Twitter, that has been done before , now TV viewers will have the option to chat with their friends and family with Skype from the comfort of their couch. It's teleconferencing for the living room, or at least that's what Skype and the manufacturers are claiming.
"We’re bringing Skype into the living room, so that you can share family moments – celebrating a birthday, organising a holiday or just having a chat with friends on a Sunday evening – all on the big screen," Skype's Peter Parkes wrote. "Thanks to our TV manufacturing partners LG and Panasonic, we’ve been able to embed Skype in the latest generation of internet-connected widescreen HDTVs."
The high-end TV sets from LG and Panasonic are hitting stores in a few months time, but will be unveiled at this week's CES. These are pretty top of the range Internet-enabled HDTV devices. There is no word on the pricing, but the Skype functionality will require an additional video camera which will sell separately for about $100 to $200.
Still, Skype on the TV, did anyone really need this? Apparently a lot of people did. "We’ve had numerous in-depth conversations with people all around the world about their communication needs... Many people we spoke to emphasised to us they want to speak to their friends and family from somewhere comfortable, and preferably make video calls on a big screen," Parkes added.
The customized Skype client will come embedded with the TV sets. The microphone that comes with the camera apparently works at "couch distance" meaning you'll be able to lean back and marvel at the 720p video coming from across the country, or across the street as the case may be. Of course, taking advantage of the 720p video capabilities is very dependent on the Internet connections and you'll need to have some pretty beefy broadband at both ends. But when everything works perfectly, it should make those holiday family chats a lot more enjoyable.