Last night I got a chance to tinker with the $599 Cisco Umi—a set-top box and camera that plugs into your HDTV and allows you to make video calls over your Internet connection to other Umi owners and anyone on Google Talk.

If you think that's expensive, that's not all: Cisco also will require you to pay for monthly service, either monthly payments of $24.99 or annual payments of $274.99.

The Umi box itself is big; it's about the size of a Blu-ray player but twice as thick. The camera that clasps on to your HDTV is big too, much larger than any webcam: it's enclosed inside a dome. It looks like Cisco really took privacy into consideration when making the product. The camera has a gigantic shield that covers the lens; when its down, no one will be able to call you. It's a dead simple way to know if the system can actively make and take calls.

The live video calls I made were in 1080p at 30 frames per second. They looked incredible; the person on the other end looked sharp and the motion was fluid. However, the conditions were probably optimal, as the caller on the other looked too perfectly lit. The video from the camera looked great too, but not as perfectly lit as what was coming from the other caller. I didn't get to make calls to Google Talk users, but I don't expect much: the quality will probably only be as good as that user's webcam, and most webcams are standard-definition.

One feature that that I found really desirable was that the Umi's camera offers true optical zoom as well as panning and tilting. This is truly significant. No longer do you need to frame your shots or show closeups of faces without having to move closer to the camera. No one knew the focal length of the camera's lens, but I took a few shots of the camera zoomed all the way in and out so you can get a feel for how much optical zoom will be provided.

The Umi can also serve as a pass-through device for your cable box. That way, if you're watching TV and someone calls you, you'll be notified onscreen and can pause your TV recording to take the call without switching inputs. A cable box can be connected via HDMI input and the Umi connects to your HDTV via HDMI output (there's also an optical audio out). The camera connects to the Umi box via USB and HDMI, and the Umi has wired Ethernet and 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi.

The user interface seemed really simple to use. As you'll see from the slideshow, there weren't too many options, menus, or places to get lost because the product concentrates on only doing a handful of things (like making/taking calls or sending video messages).

The Cisco Umi is currently available for pre-order and will go on sale November 14.