History Main / VideoPhone

Compare: CommLinks, for another Sci-Fi phone equivalent. See also PayPhone for more contemporary uses. For a breakdown on how such devices tend to operate in fiction, see HollywoodWebCam. For embarrassing snafus related with this technology, see VideoCallFail.

* ''{{Series/Thunderbirds}}'': The most prominent use was the family portraits in the lounge area, which could switch from a static image that appeared to be a photograph to a live video feed ([[FridgeLogic how Brains solved the problem of screen burn-in is a mystery for the ages]]), but occasionally commercial units about the size of a PayPhone showed up. The reboot, ''Film/ThunderbirdsAreGo'', upgraded to holographic displays.

* ''Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex''. Aramaki is talking via wallscreen to a contact. Although the screen shows the man in military uniform, he's actually in a bathrobe cutting his toenails. Everyone in Section 9 is apparently capable of doing this without even needing a phone or video screen, thanks to their cyberbrains allowing them to send and receive wireless signals, but usually it's just limited to showing the head of the person they're talking to in their AugmentedReality vision.

* One episode of ''Manga/{{Doraemon}}'' features one of these using the house's television. The video feed was also (obviously) one-way.

* In ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'' 1973 story ''ComicBook/LetMyPeopleGrow'', Superman communicates with the Kandorians via videoconference, using devices which are bulky and clunky by 21st century Earth standards, even though Kryptonian technology is supposed to be clearly superior.
* ''Franchise/WonderWoman'' [[ComicBook/WonderWoman1942 Vol 1]]: While the way the Amazons' Mental Radio worked was inconsistent, the lunchbox-sized, phone-like device always included a small screen and was fairly transportable.

* One episode of ''{{Manga/Doraemon}}'' features one of these using the house's television. The video feed was also (obviously) one-way.

[[folder:Comics]]

-->'''Gabriel''': Hi, Miguel, it's me.
-->'''Miguel''': I ''know'' it's you, Gabe. Holo-phone, remember?
* A ComicBook/DonaldDuck comic book story had Donald and Daisy in the late 20th century trying out a video phone invented by Gyro Gearloose. One of the things Donald discovered while using the phone was that [[CovertPervert he could spy on Daisy putting on her makeup and doing her morning exercises without her knowing about it]]. That, and the expense of using such a phone, were among the reasons that Donald and Daisy gave up on using it.

[[folder:Magazines and Newspaper Comics]]
* ComicStrip/DickTracy has a "2-Way Wrist TV" that carries the same function and used to communicate with police headquarters.
* One ''ComicStrip/{{Dilbert}}'' strip involves Dilbert being the first person in the city to own a videophone. He then sits next to the phone, waiting for someone else to buy one so he can call them.
* ''Magazine/{{Mad}}'' once did an article showing pulldown backdrops - a glamorous resort one at a fleabag motel to con clients, a sickroom backdrop at the ballpark for calling your boss, an office one at the bar for calling your wife, and so on...
[[/folder]]

Compare: CommLinks, for another Sci-Fi phone equivalent. See also PayPhone for more contemporary uses. For a breakdown on how such devices tend to operate in fiction, see HollywoodWebCam.

* In the ''Fanfic/EmpathTheLuckiestSmurf'' story "Smurfette's Evil Mirror", Smurfette's MagicMirror compact (see ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs'' entry in Western Animation below) becomes the basis for Handy developing the portable telesmurf for his fellow Smurfs, allowing them to communicate with each other via a magical video phone.

* ''Film/{{Barbarella}}''. After the famous TitleSequence involving the heroine doing a zero-G striptease, the President of Earth calls on the SubspaceAnsible and Barbarella answers the call [[ShamelessFanserviceGirl while still naked]]. She offers to put something on but he tells her not to bother as he has an urgent matter of state to discuss. Yeah, [[CovertPervert right.]]

* ''Film/ThisIslandEarth''. The protagonists get sent the components of an "interocitor" which they assemble as a [[OnlySmartPeopleMayPass secret test of their intelligence]]. On being assembled the interocitor turns out to be this trope when Exeter speaks to them live. As they are in TheFifties this is regarded as incredible (and [[AliensAmongUs otherworldly]], as it turns out) technology.

* The interocitor in ''Film/ThisIslandEarth'' counts.

* ''StarWars'' have holographic technology that transmit a full body image of who's talking.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs'' episodes "The Smurfette" and "Smurfette Unmade", Smurfette and Gargamel use {{Magic Mirror}}s in this particular fashion when Smurfette was an "un-Smurf". Smurfette had hers [[ShoePhone hidden in a compact]], making it look like a flip-top cell phone.

* In the ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel'' games, the characters use their [=ARCUS=] units, which let them cast MagicFromTechnology, as phones. ''Cold Steel III'' introduces the "Round of Seven" app, which lets the members of the old Class VII communicate with each other, complete with video phone.

* ''Fanfic/RocketshipVoyager''. {{The blank}} metal faceplate of an android converts to a photophone so [[ObstructiveBureaucrat Overlooker Zet]] can talk Voyager's crew. Making it an [[HistoricalInJoke android phone.]]

->''"It was a perennial technology of the future... But then out of nowhere the videophone was suddenly just here."''

* One episode of ''{{Anime/Doraemon}}'' features one of these using the house's television. The video feed was also (obviously) one-way.

Compare: CommLinks, for another Sci-Fi phone equivalent. See Also: PayPhone and PhoneBooth for more contemporary uses. For a breakdown on how such devices tend to operate in fiction, see HollywoodWebCam.

The [[UsefulNotes/CoronavirusDisease2019Pandemic coronavirus pandemic of 2020]] made use of this technology much more widespread, because it suddenly became a necessity for business, education, entertainment, and [[CabinFever maintaining social contact]].

* Cisco Systems has produced several telecommunication devices which make long-distance face-to-face conversations possible that the company has notably been showcasing in an advertisement campaign with Creator/EllenPage.

** ''Literature/GalleySlave'': Ninheimer was called by Speidell, who was displayed on a "visiplate" (shortened as "'plate"), when first he has heard of EZ-27's corrections.

** "Literature/GalleySlave": Ninheimer claims that the first he has heard of EZ-27's corrections was when he was called by Speidell, who is displayed on the 'plate, a word which is intended to be a shortened form of "visiplate".
--->But Speidell had flashed off with a force that had the 'plate glowing with after-images for fifteen seconds.

It wasn't until the late [=2000s=] that video-conferencing eventually found its market niche in business communications, thanks in part to the rise of tele-commuting which made managers develop a need to see their telecommuting subordinates face to face, and in part because even the most expensive multi-thousand-dollar videoconferencing hardware is cheaper for global megacorporations than extracting their executives from all over the world and flying them into a single place, with lots of newcoming companies such as Zoom, Bluejeans or Ringcentral as well as products from existing companies like Cisco Webex, Microsoft Skype for Business or IBM Sametime offering this form of communication. The [[UsefulNotes/CoronavirusDisease2019Pandemic coronavirus pandemic of 2020]] made use of this technology much more widespread, because it suddenly became a necessity for business, education, entertainment, and [[CabinFever getting any kind of social contact]].

It wasn't until the late [=2000s=] that video-conferencing eventually found its market niche in business communications, thanks in part to the rise of tele-commuting which made managers develop a need to see their telecommuting subordinates face to face, and in part because even the most expensive multi-thousand-dollar videoconferencing hardware is cheaper for global megacorporations than extracting their executives from all over the world and flying them into a single place, with lots of newcoming companies such as Zoom, Bluejeans or Ringcentral as well as products from existing companies like Cisco Webex, Microsoft Skype for Business or IBM Sametime offering this form of communication. The [[UsefulNotes/CoronavirusDisease2019Pandemic coronavirus pandemic of 2020]] made this form of communication a necessity for business, education, entertainment, and [[CabinFever getting any kind of social contact]].

It wasn't until the late [=2000s=] that video-conferencing eventually found its market niche in business communications, thanks in part to the rise of tele-commuting which made managers develop a need to see their telecommuting subordinates face to face, and in part because even the most expensive multi-thousand-dollar videoconferencing hardware is cheaper for global megacorporations than extracting their executives from all over the world and flying them into a single place, with lots of newcoming companies such as Zoom, Bluejeans or Ringcentral as well as products from existing companies like Cisco Webex, Microsoft Skype for Business or IBM Sametime offering this form of communication. The [[CoronavirusDisease2019Pandemic coronavirus pandemic of 2020]] made this form of communication a necessity for business, education, entertainment, and [[CabinFever getting any kind of social contact]].

It wasn't until the late [=2000s=] that video-conferencing eventually found its market niche in business communications, thanks in part to the rise of tele-commuting which made managers develop a need to see their telecommuting subordinates face to face, and in part because even the most expensive multi-thousand-dollar videoconferencing hardware is cheaper for global megacorporations than extracting their executives from all over the world and flying them into a single place, with lots of newcoming companies such as Zoom, Bluejeans or Ringcentral as well as products from existing companies like Cisco Webex, Microsoft Skype for Business or IBM Sametime offering this form of communication.

* [[ComicBook/ArchieComics Veronica]] of the future once got one installed, only to switch back to normal phones because her friends called while she was doing face masks or when she'd just gotten up.