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What is
a Videophone?
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A videophone is a form
of remote communication which allows the user to transfer not only
a voice signal, but also a visual video signal. The concept has
been around since the 1960s, but has never caught on with the general
public to the extent phone that manufacturers expected it to. The
concept of a videophone is a vivid one in the public's mind, and
is represented in virtually every depiction of a technological future
-- from the Jetsons to modern science fiction movies. The idea of
the videophone seems reasonable enough; given that people like hearing
one another's voices while communicating, they would further enjoy
seeing whom they are speaking to in real time.
While true videophone technology
is meant to run through high-speed lines and offer excellent frame
rates, when the videophone first made its real introduction to the
general public, it was limited to existing phone lines and their
severely limited bandwidth. This limited a videophone to a frame
rate of 15 frames per second, which when coupled with jumps in picture
from line noise made speaking via videophone a highly unpleasant
experience.
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Better videophone technology
has also historically been just beyond the price most consumers were
willing to pay for a new, bug-ridden technology. A videophone could
easily cost five to ten times as much as a decent cordless telephone,
a price many people were unable to justify spending. In recent years,
the cost of a videophone has gone down substantially, but it appears
new technologies such as webcams may already be rendering the videophone
obsolete. One area in which the videophone has enjoyed a relatively
high amount of popularity is in the business world. Using high-speed
lines, many businesses use videophones as a matter of course to conduct
remote meetings. Many make use of conference call capabilities to allow
entire boards to meet without having to fly to the same location.
With the advent of high-speed Internet connections and extremely cheap
digital video cameras, also known as webcams, the concept of the videophone
is making a comeback, albeit in a slightly different form. Using many
voice over IP (VoIP) technologies, users can speak to friends or clients
while using their webcam. The idea is essentially the same as that of
a videophone, except that instead of being an integrated hardware package
running over existing phone networks, the technology interfaces with
an existing computer and Internet network.
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