Panasonic brings Skype to your VIERA set with a $170 webcam

Matt Burns

Matt is a Senior Editor at TechCrunch. Matt Burns is a family man first and attempts to be a writer second. Born and raised in the heart of the automotive world, only cars eclipse his love of gadgets. He previously wrote for Engadget and EngadgetHD before moving into the party house that is TechCrunch. He learned the retail side of... → Learn More

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010


Panasonic and Skype have teamed up and some of Panny’s new fancy-pants HDTVs feature the VoIP service right in the set. All you need is the $170 wide-angle webcam to get the party started.

The function was just activated in the VIERA VT25, VT20, G25, and G20 sets, which require the Panasonic-branded webcam. It’s a tad pricey, but it does offer four unidirectional mics, 720p@22fps record, a wide-angle lens, along with audio processing to counter echo.

Just think, maybe sometime soon, we’ll be able to enjoy videoconferencing just like Marty Mcfly in Back to the Future 2. That’s been our dream all along.

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