Skype on a winner with higher quality video

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Wednesday, 31 October 2007 16:30

Opinion and Analysis

Now that Skype have upped the ante in the video quality arena, it will be interesting to see how quickly Windows Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and the others can bring on their own higher quality video features to their messaging programs.

If so, they'll either need to develop their own codecs to work with Logitech cameras, work with Creative or in Microsoft's case create their own high quality webcam videoconferencing experience, as Logitech are working exclusively with Skype for the software and Carl Zeiss for the optics.

That would place competitors several months behind, as they test their solutions with the right codecs, test their servers to handle a higher video load, test the updated software with customers and do deals with webcam manufacturers.

But it seems that for the Christmas holiday shopping season, Skype and Logitech are the only ones offering the highest quality web video consumers have been able to access yet, tearing down even further, but still not completely eliminating (short of the invention of teleportation) the issue that is the tyranny of distance.

As an aside, some interesting stats from Skype include the claim that 1 in 4 skype calls include video (a figure that will now surely grow thanks to the higher Skype video quality), Skype uses around 1 megabyte of data per day when idle, and between 8-20 kilobytes per second when making a voice call, 4.4% of all international voice calls are made through Skype, 30% of Skype users use Skype for business purposes and there are over 190 Skype Certified products.

I’ve been wondering when Skype or one of the other companies would release higher quality video - broadband is, relatively speaking, widely available across the developed world after all. Finally it’s here, and it seems destined to be very popular indeed, with Skype and Logitech set to be big beneficiaries as competitors are left working hard to catch up!