Panasonic & Samsung Roll Out Skype-compliant USB HD Webcams for HDTVs

Webcams have found a new home outside LCD monitors and notebooks. Panasonic and Samsung both have debuted other own USB HD webcam add-on that can be mounted atop of their respective high-end HDTVs. Since nearly all high-def flat panels sport USB interface for media playback, firmware, or WiFi, re-using the same port for adding a HD webcam is the logical path for these companies.

The Panasonic Y-CC10W web camera is designed exclusively for VIERA flat TV series of the same company. Panasonic likely makes sure it won't work on any Windows, Mac or competitors' TVs with custom firmware, which has a copy of the Skype software. The USB 2.0 webcam itself has a 1/4 CMOS sensor with a 56.8 degree coverage; it isn't surprising that there are four microphones to pick up all the different voices from around the living room. A built-in H.264 compressor handles all the video encoding but it can only feed video to the other party at 22fps.

The other Skype HD webcam comes from Samsung and like the aforementioned video camera, the FreeTalk TV is a USB add-on exclusively built for LED 7000 and 8000 series models of HDTVs. These two models both have access to USB 2.0 port that allows H.264 MKV and DivX HD playback and that also accepts external WiFi 802.11n installation. This model does support 30fps streaming at 720p, but oddly, the webcam does only manual focus. For $150, we would have expected something more in line with the current crop of HD webcams for PCs.