Skype to Add Video
Posted by Mark Nelson on 19th August 2005 | Permanent Link
Skype likes to brag about their zillion downloads, which doesn’t impress me that much. However, their phone service as actually pretty good, and I know some people who are big-time Skype users.
Anyway, the folks at Advanced Imaging Pro are floating the rumor that Skype is about to add video to the service.
Makes sense, it’s a natural addon, and with broadband upload caps steadily going up, it might be a decent service.
But what inquiring minds really want to know is what codecs will be used for the video transmission. Skype is notoriously fuzzy about their voice codecs, but adherence to standards has never been high on their talking points.
It would seem axiomatic that an advanced codec like H.264 is off the table. Skype can’t afford to pay a 50 cent royalty on every download, so they need something royalty free. My guess is that they’ll hook up with a proprietary vendor like On2 and get into a you-scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours deal.
Anyone want to to start a pool with wagering on what the final result will be?