Electronics manufacturer Samsung has just brought the latest in LED TV technology to the South Korean market, with its new range of home entertainment displays offering built-in support for VoIP calling service Skype.
It was at CES 2010 that Samsung first unveiled its plans for Skype integration, but performance during demonstrations was unconvincing. However, Samsung has ironed out the issues and created the LED 7000 and 8000 TVs with Skype voice and video calling straight out of the box once you connect them to a broadband connection.
The new televisions offer support for Samsung’s Internet@TV services. Until now this has consisted of a few basic widgets for news and weather updates. However, you can now add a video camera peripheral to your TV set and make video calls to your nearest and dearest, provided your internet connection is up to scratch.
If you do not have a Skype account you will need to create one using the remote control, although this can be a little fiddly as you will be entering quite a bit of text in the initial setup. Once this is out the way the sign-in process should be smooth.
Skype offers free calling to other Skype users over the internet and with this functionality available in your living room there is even more reason to take advantage of VoIP technology. The new LED TVs from Samsung offering Skype compatibility will be arriving in the UK later in the year, so until then you will have to satisfy yourself with Skype on your PC or laptop.
