CES: Panasonic shows off Skype calling from HDTV to HDTV

Today, Panasonic was showing off their no-set-box-needed Skype calling feature coming in Viera HDTVs. Panasonic has cooked in WiFi as well as cool apps such as Pandora, Netflix and yes, Skype. The result is interesting.

Requiring only a camera accessory (Panasonic uses one with 4 cameras so users can be farther away from the camera), Skype calling looks to be very simple, even for the non-techie folks. A simple selection of the Skype app from the Viera menu and a few clicks later and the call was made. On the receiving end, a Skype “s” logo bubble bounced around in the bottom right hand corner of the screen alerting viewers that an incoming call is available.

If you’ve used Skype, you know image quality and frame rate isn’t really impressive. Imagine that full-screen on an 42″ HDTV. The result was a little off-putting but overall for what it accomplishes, its amazing.

At CES a couple HDTV manufacturers were showing off on-board apps on the TV like Panasonic and Vizio. Pandora, Facebook and Netflix were the usual suspects but Twitter seemed to be gaining ground here as well. Bringing the net to the TV is a trend we’d like to see continue. If only they brought Flash 10 for sites like hulu.com, we’d have something big to talk about.

As is, the Panasonic Skype demo was decent. We wonder how many customers will take advantage of it though.

Company site: [Panasonic]