What is a Facebook Portal TV? Let's Unbox it too!

 Portal Tv Facebook

today I'm talking to you about the portal TV from Facebook yeah Facebook I'm making hardware and this is looking quite interesting so Facebook basically invited me down to an event last week to have a look at portal TV and also some new oculus stuff I'm gonna do a few videos about it but this is the first one because I want to get this out and play with it and show you how it all works so this is an unboxing video I'm not really a fan of unboxing videos because you know it's just someone getting something out of a box but people on YouTube love them and who am I to argue with that so a quick thing of portal TV if you're wondering what it is essentially it's kind of like a webcam cross with a Kinect that kind of sits on top of your telly and it allows you to do video calls through facebook Messenger and what's that so what is portal TV basically it's a very fancy webcam that allows you to do video calls on your TV screen and you can contact anyone on facebook Messenger or whatsapp and do video calls with them now is a complete unit there's just this little camera inside the box with a remote control there's no other boxes or anything like that required it just plugs into the HDMI socket of your TV and it's got all the software on there that allows you to do the video calls and honestly it is insane I've seen it in action and it is so so good it's blowing me away and the clever thing is it's got face tracking so when you move around the room it follows you and I don't mean a creepy way it's like if your kids are video calling their grandparents and the kids are sort of running around look at this look at this look at this which they do then it follows them around and also adjusts the sound so this sound follows them as well so it mimic it removes the background audio and focuses the audio on where the person is very clever and it does it all seamlessly and it looks great so I'm I'm already quite a big fan of this and also it's got a lexer built in as well I'm surprised I didn't wake her up by saying that I'm glad I didn't so yeah I've got my overhead camera with me here and I have got this so why don't we unbox it see what's inside and then maybe once I've done that we will do another video showing it being set up so yeah let's go on with it so now I'm on the overhead camera and it's a bit weird because I've got the box in front of me and I've got the screen in front of me so I can see what I do but because the screens connected over Wi-Fi there is a slight delay so this all could go horribly wrong so anyway this is the portal TV from Facebook in its box I'm not even taking out the cellophane yet this is genuinely me unboxing it for the first time so let's do this I do apologize if you hear a little dougie in the background he's scampering around so yeah there we go let's slide it out so here's their camera we'll take the wrapping off that in a moment just put that to the side there see what else is in the box then we've got the remote control which you use to well control it with and then let's lift up the tab here so we've got a getting started guide we've got a power cable so it's got like a proprietary connector on the end so it's not like USB powered or anything like that so you can just power it from the usb on your TV and because we're in the UK it's got UK plug and what else is out here yeah I think is it so there's no HDMI cable which seems a little mean but um let's crack it open have a look inside there we go no going back now that is unboxed so this is the unit this is the camera take the lens protector off hello so it does have a slide so you can actually open and close the camera and there's also a button here at the top which helps you the button here on the top that mutes the microphone so it switches all the electronics the microphone off so they're trying to sort of ensure that no one's concerned about privacy and people being listened to and watched when they don't want to be so that is their little way around that and obviously yeah and that's once that's shut you can't see a thing so it's it's quite smart people like a physical thing because even even when they have the software go and yet the cameras off they still go well is it is it really a Facebook watching me do they want to see me in my pants so yeah I think it's good to have that reassurance or something physical nice movement as well very solid so on the back what do we have we've obviously got the power connector we've got an HDMI connector to plug it into your TV or audio-visual amplifier / receiver which is what I will be doing and we've got a USBC socket which I think you can get an optional Ethernet adapter because it does use Wi-Fi and it connects by your Wi-Fi but if you have flaky Wi-Fi or you want an absolutely solid signal you can connect it to your network via ethernet through an adapter there that sold separately I don't know how much that costs I've not actually looked but I think I might get one because I like a bit of old-school Ethernet so the portal TV has a stand underneath it that folds out like that and then underneath here there's another clip and basically you can use those and adjust those so it sits on top of your TV and portal told me at the launch that they have tried thousands of TVs and it's pretty much compatible with all of them that have an HDMI socket and yeah that's quite smart it's really firm so it's not it's not at all flimsy it is the bit of a struggle to do it with one hand so there we go that is the portal TV in all its glory yeah I'm a bit annoyed that there's no HDMI cable in it is a rant I think is 150 160 pounds Facebook gifted me this to me so I don't I haven't paid for it myself but I thought for that kind of money they could have chucked in a an HDMI cable I'm probably going to look and there's probably a section under the Box where there is one but there is it seems to be glued in so let's go back to the main camera and we'll wrap this up well we're back on the main camera now and the portal TV is all unboxed it's very weighty you could probably do some damage with this not that you should because you know you wouldn't want to break this now if you just here's the unboxing then thank you for watching that you can like and subscribe I do tech stuff occasionally I like doing it so come back for more if you want to see the portal TV in action then I'm going to do a quick setup video and have a play with it and see what it's like I'm not going to read any bits and bobs about it or look at any videos I'm just gonna set it are blind and see what happens see how it works so once that video is up I'll add a link to it up there but yeah for this video I will say thank you for watching don't forget to Like and subscribe and I'll be back soon for some more flogging fun see ya you