Fidelity Wars: Microsoft strains video call resolution

From the Competition Is Good Department. Microsoft will sell its upgraded LifeCam webcam starting September 9. The "Cinema's" resolution is now 720p, 1280×720 pixels at 30 frames per second.

Your PC must convert all that video into streamable bits. The image encoding/decoding and compression take serious processor power, lots of memory, and real broadband bandwidth. Microsoft says this requires a dual core 1.6GHz processor, and recommends a 3GHz dual core processor and 2GB of memory. No news yet on which drivers and codecs they'll use, how much burden using the Cinema will put on your system (will you be able to run Outlook while calling?), nor how much bandwidth a HD video call will take.

This year Skype published the free SILK audio codec for wideband audio at the same bandwidth and Google announced it's buying On2, the maker of Skype's video engine. The race to fidelity hasn't been this hot since Skype promoted the GIPS audio codec suite in 2003, followed by Yahoo!, Google, AOL, and Microsoft.

LifeCam Cinema Features: 4x digital zoom, glass lens, auto focus, Microsoft "ClearFrame" frame-rate doubling technology, noise-cancelling microphone, Windows Live calling button, aluminum body. For Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. £70 or $80.

tags: cameras, webcams, microsoft, lifecam, cinema, skype, clearframe, codec, compression, HD

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