Skype has discontinued support for smart TVs. This was an extremely useful feature as I could talk to my parents in the UK while having my family in the shot, and importantly, without needing to pass a laptop or mobile phone around so that toddlers could speak to their grandparents. Is there an alternative that will allow us to video call using our TV?
Putting Skype into smart TV sets was a boon to families, especially for elderly, disabled or non-technical users who found a TV remote much easier to handle than a PC, tablet or smartphone.
Skype disabled this feature on smart TVs about a year ago, and there were lots of complaints on its online forum. These disappeared after the forum moved from community.skype.com to answers.microsoft.com. All your efforts – more than 50 pages – were binned at the end of June, along with “all the work-arounds for a Skype on TV app [that] were discussed in great detail,” according to a Microsoft forum moderator.
Although many of us grew up with a science-fiction vision of families video-chatting via their TV sets – what could be more obvious? – it hasn’t worked out that way. TV sets are consumer goods and they are intended to last for many years, if not decades. Smartphones, smartphone operating systems, apps and even video codecs are relatively ephemeral. Google can’t keep most Android phones up to date, so what chance have TV sets?
What makes things worse is that smart TV sets running Android TV OS can’t even support a simple USB webcam. Companies such as Logitech tried producing dedicated “TV cams” for Skype calls, some having built-in H.264 video compression. However, TV cams were an extra cost and created even more confusion.
Hi. I’m Designer of Blog Magic. I’m CEO/Founder of ThemeXpose. I’m Creative Art Director, Web Designer, UI/UX Designer, Interaction Designer, Industrial Designer, Web Developer, Business Enthusiast, StartUp Enthusiast, Speaker, Writer and Photographer. Inspired to make things looks better.
0 comments:
Post a Comment