When Star Trek debuted in 1966, it portrayed the future as fantastical—but not unfeasible. Despite the outrageous promise of interstellar travel and transporter arrays, there were still more modest predictions with the potential to come true. Take, for example, the tiny handheld devices used to communicate among the crew, cited by inventor Dr. Martin Cooper as his inspiration for the cellphone. As it turned out, the lifestyle of Captain Kirk and crew wasn't all that far off.

Meanwhile, it was hardly uncommon to see the Enterprise communicate via video link with nearby ships, and in some cases, Federation bureaucracy millions of light years away. The quality was crystal clear (cases of plot-driven interference and malfunction aside) and appeared to be the primary form of communication throughout this forward-thinking future.

But unlike that of the humble communicator, Star Trek's vision of pervasive video calling hasn't entirely come true. Surely, it's not for lack of trying—the technology, after all, is most definitely available. But it's neither cheap nor accessible, which means a ubiquitous, high-quality, dedicated video replacement for the telephone remains nowhere to be found. You can easily do video chats between PCs and, more recently, mobile phones and tablets via any number of services, but it's kind of remarkable that, here in 2011, we haven't widely replaced the plain old telephone with a standalone, TV-centric, HD video alternative.

All of this isn't to say that the modern consumer doesn't have at least a handful of viable videoconferencing options—but that's all he or she has, a handful. In this article, we'll take a brief look at the state of the home videophone in 2011, starting with a promising product that, sadly, looks to be on its way out.

You, me, and Umi

Cisco's Umi has been perhaps the closest that the market has come to a candidate for pervasive, high-quality consumer video calling thus far. The device connects to an HDTV, and offers 1080p quality conferencing from the comfort of your couch. In our experience with some of the demo models available at CES, calls are crisp, clear, and nearly free of compression artifacts, and it's easy to mistake the feed for a pre-recorded video. There's even cross-platform compatibility via Google video chat support, and the release of free Umi software clients for Mac and PC. But all of that visual wizardry comes at a cost. Literally.

At launch last October, the set-top console and HD camera cost a whopping $599, with a $24.99 monthly service charge (now $99 yearly). While that price has since been reduced to $499—and a $399, 720p unit introduced—it's still absurdly expensive when compared to the video calling alternatives. Amazon and Best Buy have tried to entice consumers with two-for-one deals, but again, units haven't exactly been flying off the shelves.

And then there's the issue of bandwidth. The original 1080p unit suggests downstream and upstream speeds of 3.5Mbps, well exceeding most available consumer connections. The 720p unit does offer reduced bandwidth requirements of 1.5Mbps in both directions, but it's clear why Cisco worked so hard to bring Umi bundles to Verizon's FiOS customers—that's the type of connection that's obviously preferred.

Despite our repeated requests, Cisco was unwilling to give us a pair of Umi units to test. However, our time with the 1080p unit at CES 2011 was impressive, and reaffirms our opinion that this is not, in fact, a bad product. It's simply positioned poorly for consumer use, and at a price that prevents it from achieving ubiquity. From a technical perspective, it's fine to boast crystal clear audio and HD video that rivals a decent Blu-ray film, but ultimately, most users would likely prefer to see a pixelated version of their loved ones on the cheap than pay hundreds for a box that offers a marginal quality boost.

In fact, that might be a conclusion Cisco itself has finally reached. When the company announced it was folding its Flip video division in mid-April, it also revealed Umi would be incorporated into its enterprise videoconferencing services as well. Units would no longer be sold to consumers via retail, but through corporate channels and Internet service providers such as Verizon. That doesn't exactly bode well for Umi's future, and all signs point to a product on its way out.

This also doesn't bode well for the whole idea of a dedicated, standalone, HD video replacement for the telephone. If the mighty Cisco simply couldn't make this work, who will?

Enter Skype and all its flavors

Umi's launch was met with plenty of doubt in some quarters. In a blog post from last October, Skype's General Manager of the Platform Business Unit Jonathan Christensen remarked that a $599 device "can be subject to obsoletism at the hands of mass-market options that sell for half, then a quarter, and eventually a tenth of the price." In Christensen's opinion, you hardly had to pay that much for decent quality video conferencing—which is exactly what you could get with Skype instead.

For example, video chats are largely conducted using the VP7 codec, with the company's in-house SILK codec for audio. As Skype's Chief Technology Officer Jonathan Rosenberg explained to Ars in an interview in late May, both are highly scalable in such a way that both mobile and desktop clients can use the same codecs. In fact, the only time that transcoding occurs is when video calls are conducted with Skype's H.264 clients—for the most part, HDTVs with the service baked in.

As for quality, Skype can transmit video at QQVGA resolution (160x120 pixels), QVGA (320x240), and VGA (640x480), and scale all the way to 720p when used with supported HD webcams. However, bandwidth doesn't come cheap here either. Similar to Cisco's Umi, Skype recommends symmetrical upstream and downstream bandwidth of at least 1.2Mbps or higher for an optimal video experience.

Curious, we asked Rosenberg about the viability of a 1080p streaming option. "You can decode 1080p, but no one's computer is encoding 1080p," he stated. "And the bandwidth gets really large too. You have to be in a very nice environment to even hit 720p—and 1080p just won't happen."

This is especially obvious when you take Skype's aforementioned HDTV clients into account. Their reliance on H.264, as opposed to the higher-quality VP7 codec, is a simple matter of available processing power. What's more, while making and receiving HD calls is possible with Skype's HDTV compatible cameras, 720p feeds are limited to just 22 frames per second. This framerate limitation is painfully obvious, too, especially when moving from the hyper-smooth, motion-interpolated content modern TVs are all-too-eager to flaunt. Considering the camera hardware ranges from a mere $130 to $170—dramatically lower than Cisco's offering—it's a necessary tradeoff to make calls look just okay without breaking the bank.

What's welcome, however, is that Skype is one of the few options that actually allows video calls to fill the entire screen (more on that later). There's no small, constrained window or overbearing UI; the only focus is on you and your partner, which is really the way consumer video chat should work, and something Skype clearly understands.

Without a doubt, Skype is the most ubiquitous of the services we've examined in this piece, but it still has some ways to go before it can replace our trusty telephones completely. The company's HDTV products show promise, but aren't exactly what we're looking for just yet. And as far as that crystal-clear future is concerned, it seems we'll be waiting for our bandwidth and connection speeds to catch up.

The PlayStation Eye

Much has been written about this topic, but it's important to acknowledge the subtle transformation of gaming consoles over the past decade from simple entertainment machines to multimedia portals and communication devices. Sony and Microsoft have both played this angle heavily, and through accessories, the have managed to extend the lifespans of their aging consoles well beyond what many of us would have previously imagined.

One of those life-extending accessories is the PlayStation Eye. Sony's console webcam is the oldest of the bunch, but surprisingly, it's not all that outdated. While some will scoff at the relatively low resolution—maxing out at 640x460 pixels—it's important to note that the PlayStation Eye does so at a smooth 60fps. Lower the resolution to 320x240 pixels, and the frame rate doubles to 120fps. Of course, this all means very little in video conferencing scenarios, but it's nice to know the underlying hardware is, at least, capable.

In fact, the Eye is designed in such a way that it performs competently in low-light situations, especially when compared to most other webcams. The lens has an equivalent aperture of 2.1/f, which allows a greater amount of light to hit the sensor before software is required to artificially boost brightness and exposure levels. What's more, the lens can be rotated to two separate fields of view—one at 56°, and a closer variant at 75°, depending on available space.

Meanwhile, the PlayStation Eye contains four microphones that work together to provide "multidirectional voice location tracking, enhanced echo cancelling and background noise suppression"—all of which are particularly important in noisy home theatre or console gaming setups. While Microsoft's Kinect would later integrate a similar feature, you have to hand it to Sony for having some degree of foresight here.