Another day, another media player.  Is it me or what?  Now micca has a new entry in the plethora of players available, the EP600 Premium Full-HD media player. This networked player is supposed to play all your media files on your HD TV from connected storage devices and streams from devices on your LAN.  We’ll give it a test drive and see what it really can do.

The hardware specs are fairly impressive:

• Hardware – Realtek 1185DD 500MHz Decoder/Processor – 256MB DDR2 Memory – 256MB NAND Flash
• AV Output – HDMI 1.3 (up to 1080p 60Hz) – Component Video (YPbPr) – Composite A/V – Coaxial Digital SPDIF Audio – Optical Digital SPDIF Audio
• Storage Supported – External SATA Drive Connector – 2 x USB 2.0 Host Port – SD/SDHC Flash Memory Card Reader
• Network – 1000 Mbps Gigabit Ethernet LAN – Optional 802.11n WiFi

Most importantly for a media player are the files types supported.  Here we also have a very comprehensive list of types:

•  Video Files – BDMV, BD-ISO, MKV, MOV, WMV, TS, M2TS, MTS, FLV, AVI, DVD-ISO, VOB, M2P, MP4, MPG, DAT, ASF, TP TRP, SWF
•  Video Codecs – H.264/AVC, MPEG1/2/4, DivX/Xvid, VC-1, and RMVB
•  Audio Formats – DTS/DTS-HD MA, Dolby AC3/True-HD, LPCM, ADPCM, FLAC, APE, LC-AAC, HE-AAC, MP3, OGG, WAM, WAV
•  Image Formats – JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP, and TIF

Here’s what you get in the box.  The cable at the top of the photo is for a SATA drive.  The cable below that is a special component video cable unique to the micca.  It has a mini plug branching out to 3 RCA plugs for the 3 component video inputs on your HD TV.  Be aware there is no HDMI cable or audio cable.  You’ll have to supply your own.

The front of the unit only has a power button which illuminates blue when power is on and red when off.

On the rear there are the connections for digital audio, composite and component video, a LAN port, HDMI connection and power input.  The small jack between the red RCA connector and the LAN port is where the special component cable pugs in.  Click on the image to get a better view.

On the left side are the connection for the SATA cable and memory cards.  There is a rubber piece that covers the SATA slot, but it fell off after the first time I put it back on and it’s disappeared.

The USB connections are on the right side of the EP600.

The device itself is solidly built, the case being made from aluminium.  With the exception of the SATA cover, all sockets held the cables with no problems.

To test the player out, I dug up an unused SATA hard drive plus a USB drive and plugged them in.  Theoretically, the EP600 will work with a BD-rom through the SATA port, but I didn’t have one.  I’ll just trust that it works.   With the player hooked to my tv using my HDMI cable and connected to my LAN using a Cat5 cable supplied by me, I fired it up.  The device will also connect via WiFi, but a dongle was not provided.  Because the SATA connection is on the side, there is no elegant way to position the hard drive.

Here’s the home screen.  As you move between the icons using the remote, a title pops up and the icon enlarges.  The first three are for the media libraries.  A feature of the EP600 is that it indexes all the drives connected to the device.  It looks for movie, audio and photo files.  This makes it easy to find a media file regardless of where it is.

For example, these movie files are split between the SATA and USB drive, but show up in one library.  There are duplicates in the list because I have the same movies on 2 devices.  To play the movie, simply hit the OK button on the remote and playback begins,  as long as the .ts file is in the folder with the movie.  You can also get to the media library via the buttons on the remote.

The second and third icon give the same results.  When the media library is created, it is just as easy to play a track or display photos from all the storage devices connected to the player.  The media library function will display the cover art for a file, if it is in the correct format.  I’ll be working on that in the future.

The file manager function allows browsing of media files on the USB, CARD, HDD and network.

Here my configuration has one SATA drive and is connected to the network.  From this screen you can also access UPnP servers and any NFS shares.  I was disappointed in the results using the UPnP option.  While it did recognize the Playon server on my PC, it would not play the streams.  This may be a function of Playon, but it would have made this device more useful if it worked.

My LAN has several computers and NAS devices.  These are accessible via the file manager function.  This allows me to display/play media files from these devices on my flatscreen TV.  You can access and copy files between micca and other LAN devices.

Another neat feature is that the device is DLNA compliant.   If you have a windows 7 system on the LAN, you can right-click on a media file and select the micca as a destination and your file will play on your HD TV.  I found this rather useful.

Also, by downloading an app to your smartphone you can push media files from these devices to the EP600 which will display on your HD TV.  I used iMediaSHare for my iPod Touch.  It has several channels, most of which I found useless, but hopefully they’ll be something more interesting in the future.

After selecting a channel, I was presented with the above display.   This allowed me to direct the media to a DLNA device for playing.

There’s also an Internet Media Service function giving access to network applications.

The web browser function, which brings up the Google page on the player, interested me the most, however, it was a big disappointment.  To use it, you’ll have to connect a mouse and keyboard to the two USB ports.  Unfortunately, the keyboard did not work in the Google search bar.  It only brings up an on-screen keyboard into which you can type commands.  When I did get a  selected page to display, it was cut off.  I gave up trying to make it work after a while.

Which brings me to my feelings about this device.  It seems to me that the micca EP600 is a work in progress.  I imagine that it was  put together from left over parts at a contract manufacturer.  The 12 page “manual” is short on any detail.   The device also exhibited many idiosyncracies, such as needing to be restarted after an update of the media libraries.  Sometimes it would not output a signal to the TV and I had to power cycle to get it to work.  And do NOT play with the TV mode function on the remote.  I toggled it and got a display mode incompatible with my TV and lost picture.  I kept toggling hoping it would come back, but I finally had to connect the player to the TV using a composite video cable.  This allowed me to see enough to switch the output to a compatible mode.

That being said, I actually like this device.  The best feature for me is the ability to play ripped DVDs by clicking the folder.  No need to fool around with .vobs and .ts files.  The media library function makes it very easy to access your media from on-screen.  There’s no need to know where the file is.  So, if you have some patience and $99, this is not a bad choice.

Filed in categories: Audio, Video, TV Gear, Home Tech, Reviews

Tagged: A/V, Audio/video gear

micca EP600 Network Digital Media Player Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on January 8, 2012 at 1:00 pm.

Powerline Ethernet may be the least understood and used technology for networking.  It’s a shame because it’s so easy to use and is more reliable than WiFi.  The good news is that there are more vendors offering products in the space, Intellinet being the latest.  Their Powerline AV500 Ethernet Adapter  provides a true plug and play implementation.  If you stream video or transfer files on your LAN and want to save the cost and hassle of running cables, Powerline is the way to go.

Here’s what the product says it will do:

• Network computers through existing AC power lines
• Up to 500 Mbps network data rates and data security through 128-bit encryption
• Enables high-quality video streaming, VoIP and gaming over a home network
• Provides network access for computers, HD media players and gaming consoles
• Plug and Play (no drivers required)
• Software-free security configuration with a simple push of a button
• HomePlug AV compliant
• Compatible with Intellinet Powerline AV/HD200 Ethernet Adapters
• Can co-exist with HomePlug 1.0

For your first Powerline installation, you’ll need a starter kit.  It consists of two adapters and hopefully ethernet cables to connect your devices.  The Intellinet starter kit had everything needed.

On the bottom is the Ethernet connector, a button for changing the password and a hole for inserting a paperclip to reset the device.

The backside has the mains connector, which is not polarized.  This allows it to be plugged in different orientations.

And here it is plugged into the wall socket.  The indicator lights show connection to the LAN, relative throughput and link status.

This isn’t my first Powerline review, and I’ve had the technology running successfully for several years.  Before this review I had 4 nodes connected: 1 for my Ooma VOIP; 1 for a Cirago media server; 1 adapter with a 4 port switch for a Roku, media extender, and another Cirago media server; and then of course, the main adapter that connects to the router.  The current adapters are AV200 devices and are HomePlug AV compliant.

To test out the AV500′s HomePlug compliance and to check how idiot proof these devices can be, I didn’t read the installation instructions and just plugged both adapters into a couple of power sockets.

Within seconds the two Intellinet adapters were recognized on the LAN.  The above screenshot is from the firmware inside the Plaster Networks adapter connected to my router.  The last 2 entries are the AV500 devices.  The Plaster Networks firmware only works if their adapter is connected to the router and unfortunately it is no longer supported because they appear to have gone out of business.  To get the maximum throughput between the AV500 adapters, I later had to reconfigure so that one of the AV500′s was connected directly to the router.  The maximum throughput on the LAN is the lesser of the ratings between two nodes and in the above case that would be 200 Mbps.

OK, so now I determined that the AV500 really is conforming to HomePlug specs, I rummaged through my closet to find some devices I could hang on the adapters for some stress testing.  I pulled out an unused PogoPlug device and connected a disk to it.  I then connected it via an adapter.  I also moved my OB100 from the a router port to a Powerline adapter.  This gave me 6 Powerline adapters of different brands: 2 Netgear, 2 PlasterNetworks and 2 Av500.  I also installed the included Power Packet Utility to monitor what was going on.  Installation of this software is optional and probably most users won’t bother.

In the above screen shot my local device or the one plugged into the router, is Plaster Networks.  It is rated at 200Mbps which makes that the fastest throughput between it and the other nodes.  Here devices 3 and 6 are the Intellinet AV500′s.  You’ll notice that device 3 shows a throughput of 194 Mbps and device 6 shows only 100 Mbps.  Be aware that the throughput will vary depending upon the distance between devices and the condition of your home power wiring.  I’d be surprised if anyone got the stated speed and my experience has been anywhere from 70% to 25% of rated throughput.  You can move the adapters to different circuits looking for better throughput and monitor the results using the Power Packet Utility.

To see if I could get near 500 Mbps, I replaced the Local adapter with one of the AV500 devices.  Illustrated above, you can see that device 3, the other AV500 is now screaming along at near 500 Mbps, but that’s partly because it’s plugged into the same AC circuit as the local adapter.  It’s less than 15 feet away.  I wouldn’t recommend buying Powerline equipment for 15ft when you could run a cable more cheaply.  You’ll also notice that Device 2, which is connected to my Ooma box, is running very slow.  That’s because there’s something amiss with the line on that breaker.  I haven’t figured it out yet, but the speed is sufficient for VOIP.  Another downside of Powerline is its susceptibility to electrical noise.  In my house, I have some under cabinet LED lights that when turned on cause so much electrical noise that my Mbps drops by 50% on all my circuits.

The Powerline adapters come configured with a common password for the 128 bit encryption.  This could cause a problem if you’re thinking of using them in a multi-unit building.  It would be possible for a user on the same electrical panel as you to be connected to your LAN.  This is taken care of in two ways.  By pressing a button on the adapter hooked to your router and then, within a certain time, pressing the buttons on the other adapters, a random password is generated  for those devices.  The password can also be changed by using the utility. For those of us living in a detached home, we can just use the devices right out of the box with the default password or one could use the utility to segment the LAN by assigning different passwords to devices.  This way an adapter could only communicate to devices with the same password.

I make good use of Powerline in my home.  I stream HD video from my PC, connect my VOIP boxes where I want them and attach my Roku to the Internet without having to run cables or settle for the vagaries of WiFi.  I also have a Laptop running Ubuntu connected via an adapter.  For my uses a 200 Mbps device is sufficient.  Even when the quality of the signal is low, I’ve had no problems streaming data over the LAN.  For those who need higher throughput, the Intellinet AV500 would be an excellent choice.  It’s a no-brainer to install and there’s no maintenance.  It’s truly Plug and Play.

Filed in categories: Audio, Video, TV Gear, Reviews, Wireless

Tagged: A/V, Networking

Intellinet AV500 Powerline Ethernet Adapter Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on November 17, 2011 at 11:00 am.

Several years ago Avid Technology bought Pinnacle Systems, in their attempt to grab some of the consumer level video market.  Avid is known the world over for their professional level products for video editing, so I was excited at the chance to review their latest product, Avid Studio.  Almost a year ago on this website, I reviewed Pinnacle Studio 14 MovieBox Ultimate, and it was generally a good review.  Pinnacle has always had solid performance at a good price for consumer level editors.  But for a little bit more cash, would I be willing to jump up to Avid Studio?  Let’s find out!

Having been a long-time Pinnacle user, it didn’t take me long to get used to the Avid Studio interface.  While not exactly the same, there are some similarities in the location of buttons and general layout of the screen.  My reaction when I opened the program for the first time was ‘wow, there is a lot going on here.’  But compared to Adobe Premier Pro, this program is way easier to get up and running.  But maybe that isn’t a fair comparison to make because it seems to me that Avid Studio sits between the likes of Pinnacle Studio and Adobe Premier Pro.  In pricing that is certainly true, and I think in terms of features and power that is also true. Because of that, I believe I am safe to say that Avid Studio is a prosumer package.

There are tabs across the top that allow you to quickly flip back and forth between importing, the library, editing your movie, editing your DVD menus, and exporting.  The layout of the program (seen in the first screenshot above) while you are editing your movie is similar to other programs.  The video preview area is in the upper right, your collection of media for your project is in the upper left (which is a mini-view of your library), and the timeline is across the bottom.

The import tab is easy to understand and use. You can scan your computer to automatically grab media from all over your harddrive, you can import from your DVD/Blueray drive in your pc, you can capture video and stills from your webcam, connect a digital camera or import converter box, and of course you can individually grab files from the harddrive, although you can do that in the library so I don’t really see the point of having that option in the import screen.  Something neat is that you can capture a stop-frame animation using your webcam, at either 8 or 12 fps. This was pretty cool because it leaves a halo-effect on the screen to help you line up your still frames. Here is a screenshot:

I will go on the record to say that the Library tab (screenshot below)  is awesome! I am a very organized person in just about every aspect of my life, and the Library tab is a dream come true for me. Just about every video editor has a small area/panel on the screen to organize your photos, videos, music, etc, and Avid Studio has that as I mentioned (the mini-library).  But the Library tab is a full screen way to view all your media in your project.  It’s just fantastic.  You can even set ‘watch’ folders for the library and any new content that is added to the ‘watch’ folder on your harddrive will automatically be added to your library.

You can preview media in the library by clicking the triangle play button at the bottom of the media item.  Very nice touch!  One of the things I do on a daily basis is graphics editing, so I have been a Photoshop user for over a decade.  But I must admit that providing you a way to quickly edit any media in your Library is pretty darn neat.  For example, if you want to adjust the brightness of a picture, change the contrast, remove the yellow hue, fix the red eye, etc, you can do that right there in the Library without having to hop over to Photoshop to do it. Very nice.  I will be honest and say that occasionally I experienced some lag in editing the photos.  A time or two I had to wonder if the program had locked up, but after 5 seconds or so everything was fine.  I am willing to overlook that for the benefit of having the tool there, but it did annoy me just a little.

The timeline has unlimited tracks available to you, and you can place any type of media on any of the tracks.  So you can have titles, audio clips, video clips, and images all on the same track if you want.  You simply layer your timeline tracks based on the type of effect you want.  As expected, you can lock the tracks to prevent any changes happening to them, and adding a new track is as simple as right-clicking.  Audio editing tools are available for each track by clicking the audio mixer button above the timeline which slides out an audio panel beside each track.

If you don’t want to spend hours of your time editing a movie, then you can let the program do it for you by using the SmartSlide and SmartMovie features in the Library.  Just tell it which pictures, video and music you want to use, and it creates the whole project for you.  You can also edit the movie afterwards if you don’t like what Avid created for you.  For example, I used SmartSlide and it told me the optimum number of pictures that I needed to use based on the music that I chose.  My pride tells me that I could have done a better job at it, but the end result wasn’t bad. To access either of these, go to your library and the buttons are in the middle at the bottom.

The start-up speed of the program was not bad compared to Adobe Premier Elements and Pinnacle Studio, which I have used for years.  Also, the help files and video tutorials on Avid’s website are also superior to what is available for Pinnacle and Premier Elements.  I must also mention a feature that I have not seen in any other video editor that I can recall.  I was looking at the bottom of the timeline for a scroll-bar to scroll my timeline.  It wasn’t there.  At the very bottom of the program window is what I am going to call the Zoom Slider/Timeline Navigator.  Here is a screenshot:

It allows you to zoom in and out of the timeline by dragging the ends of that orange box, as well as navigate along the timeline by dragging it left and right, instead of having a scroll-bar to deal with.  I guess you have to just use it to understand, but all I can say is that I like it, alot. And it is especially useful when working with a large project that is quite long.  Double-click it and it zooms your timeline to fit the window.  If you are a Pinnacle user then you will find that you can still zoom the timeline like you have always done… use your mouse to grab the ruler above the timeline and drag it left and right.

When I first starting using Avid Studio, I wasn’t too keen on the way that transitions are implemented.  In most other video programs when you drop a transition between clips, it puts highlights on portions of each clip to visually show you that a transition is in place.  The screenshot below is from Pinnacle to show you what I mean.

In Avid Studio you basically grab the top corner of a clip and pull it down, sort of like grabbing the page of a book and folding down the corner to ‘dog ear’ it, so to speak.  This drove me crazy because I simply wasn’t used to it.  But after using it for awhile now, I can say that it makes alot of sense.  Visually, it makes it much easier looking at the timeline and seeing all your transitions.  Well done Avid.  I haven’t seen this implemented like this before.  Here is a screenshot of the transitions in Avid Studio:

I was successful exporting in various formats.  You can see from the screenshot below that there are a large number of choices for output formats, as you would expect in a product of this level.  I was also able to successfully burn a DVD and use some of the built-in menus and montage themes.  I will say that the time it took to burn the DVD seemed a little slow to me, and I would even go so far as to say that it might have even been slower than Adobe Premier Elements, which to me is slow.  I was also able to upload directly to Youtube without any hiccups.  I don’t own a Blueray player or drive, so I couldn’t test that.

Lest I be accused of drinking the Avid Koolaid, let me say it wasn’t all a bowl of cherries.  It’s great that there is a Youtube upload in the Export tab, but why is there no Facebook upload?  Even Pinnacle Studio has Youtube and Yahoo Video upload.  Avid Studio only has Youtube upload.  Very disappointing.  Not even a Vimeo upload.  This must be fixed.  Also, I found that this program could be a bit overwhelming for a novice video creator.  It isn’t nearly as simple to use as iMovie, and it is even a bit more complicated than Pinnacle.

For example, adjusting the audio properties of clips can be confusing at first.  The ‘rubber band’ audio line on each clip is similar to Pinnacle and Premier Elements, so if you have seen that then you know how to use it.  But using the pop-out audio mixer tool on the timeline wasn’t intuitive to me.  It is just more complicated than editing audio in other programs I have used.  You could argue that with a more complex program comes more complexity, and you would be right.  And creating a title threw me for a loop at first. I think it is a little too complex for a novice to figure it out.  Opening up the title editing panel exposes you to a unbelievably powerful title editor, complete with its own timeline, layers, motion effects, and more. Just trying to figure out how to change features of the text in your title is too complicated in my view. Everything seems to be hidden under drop-downs and plus symbols. Again, too complicated I think for the novice. Now that I have figured it out, I can see the power you have at your fingertips, but the novice is gonna freak out just trying to add a simple title.

To wrap-up, let me mention in a bulleted fashion some of the little pleasant surprises that I discovered while using this program:

• In the mini view of the library while editing your movie you can use a zoom slider to change the size of the thumbnails to see smaller or larger thumbnails.
• You can customize the mini library with tabs for whatever items you want to see… newly imported media, sound effects, transitions, custom collections, etc. I like customization.
• In the capture window you can set a specified time that you want to capture and then walk away. It will stop capturing when it has captured the specified amount of time.
• When you delete a piece of media from the library you can decide to just delete it from the library or actually from the harddrive.
• If you start a project in 4:3 aspect ratio and then realize at some point that your footage is actually in widescreen format, you better hope you aren’t using Adobe Premier Elements because you’ll have to create your project from scrach and start over.  However, with Avid there is a button above the timeline that allows you to change those settings with a few clicks. Very nice!

So did Avid win me over despite the higher price?  Yep, it did.

To me, the icing on the cake boils down to 2 things.  First, the sound & video effects and transitions (Hollywood FX, Creative Pack, Red Giant Plugins, etc) that come with Avid Studio are great.  And those things can turn a so-so video into a great video and make the author look good with little effort.  When I first started looking through all the effects, transitions, sound effects, etc, that came with the program it took me forever because there were so many.  I wasn’t expecting that, so it truly was a nice surprise. Having options like this is great because you don’t want to get in the rut of using the same transitions/effects over and over.

Secondly, the Library with its organization and editing features is the best I’ve seen.  I can’t emphasize that enough.  If you love to be organized, you are gonna love this. You can tag your media items to make them easy to find and then use the Library search feature so you can search your pictures, videos, transitions, effects, etc.

Right now, even at the premium price and despite some of the complaints I had, I like Avid Studio better than Pinnacle Studio or Adobe Premier Elements and highly recommend it.  If you are a novice video editor would Avid Studio be the best program for you?  I tend to think the answer to that is no.  I have used video programs for years and I think this program would be great for those of you who want to graduate from the entry-level consumer video editor but you don’t want to make the jump to something like Adobe Premier Pro or Sony Vegas Pro. If you can’t afford it, then Pinnacle Studio will do just fine, but you won’t be disappointed with Avid Studio. I have always believed in paying for quality, and Avid fits that bill.

UPDATE (6/24/11):  A patch has been released for this product.  Grab it here:  http://bit.ly/jemGvM

Filed in categories: Audio, Video, TV Gear, Reviews

Tagged: A/V, Software, Video

Avid Studio Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on May 11, 2011 at 11:30 am.

When I was offered the opportunity to review the Cirago TV Platinum Network HD Multimedia Center my first thought was ” good grief, not another media center”.  I had previously reviewed the Cirago CMC2000 and was duly impressed, so how could this be an improvement.  Then I read the specs and saw that the CMC3000 supports the PLAYON server and I was hooked.

The CMC3000 is an upgrade of the Cirago CMC2000, so I’ll focus my review on the new features with the device.

Features:

Specifications:

• Interface  2x USB 2.0 (host), USB 2.0 (device)
• Ethernet 10/100Mbps, wired and wireless (via optional USB 802.11b/g 54Mbps adapter)
• Card Reader formats MemoryStick/MemoryStick Pro, SD/SDHC/MMC
• Power 12V, AC/DC 110/240V adapter included
• Video output HDMI up to 1080i, AV
• Audio output SPDIF (optical), Stereo
• Video input AV Input
• Recording format MPEG2, up to 720 x 480
• Supported video formats MPEG1 (dat, mpg), MPEG2 (vob, mpg, ts), MPEG4 (avi, divx, xvid, wmv, mov, mkv), RM/RMVB, VC-1, H.264
• Supported audio formats MP3, WMA, OGG, FLAC, WAV, AAC, AC3, ADPCM
• Supported image formats JPEG, JPG, BMP, GIF, TIFF, PNG

The package contains the device, power supply, remote and batteries, installation manual and 3 cables;  AV composite video, an HDMI cable and a device USB cable.  I did have to supply my own Ethernet cable to hook into my LAN.

The front panel has the on/off switch and a power indicator.  It has a clean look.

On the back, from left to right you have power, AV in and out, HDMI, optical and LAN connections.

On the right side are the USB device port, 2 x USB host ports and the card reader.  If you’re wondering what is meant by the USB device port, it allows the CMC3000 to be plugged into a PC USB port and then acts like a regular USB drive to the PC.  It’s an easy and fast way to transfer files between the CMC3000 and a computer.

I put the CMC3000 in the video cabinet under my LCD TV and plugged the HDMI cable between them.  I connected a cable between the Ethernet port and my powerline home network.  I also plugged in a portable USB drive to the Cirago and then the power cable and was set to go.

In a short period I was presented with the home screen.  My first impression was that the Cirago people really need to get some user interface designers.  This screen and the subsequent ones are the least pleasant and informative of any media player I’ve seen.  All selections are made using the supplied remote.  The remote also acts like a DVD remote having functions for play/pause, stop, FF, etc.

The first icon on the bottom of the screen is for the video in.  The CMC3000 can record to its hard drive, video from the composite input.  I want to be perfectly clear:  this is NOT a DVR in the conventional sense.  You will need a tuner (I use an old VCR) for input.  They suggest taking the output of a cable box.  In conjunction with the input, the sixth icon on the bottom of the screen lets one set up record times.  I rarely use the video in feature except to copy some old VHS tapes to the hard drive.

Here’s where it gets interesting.  The browser function is what makes this device useful and flexible.

After selecting the browser function, you are presented with several options.  You can now explore any drives plugged into the 2 USB slots and play the media stored on them.  The same goes for any memory cards attached.  Selecting HDD explores the internal hard drive from which you can play media.  The network tab makes it possible to play media from all networked PCs and devices.  For example, I connected to the CMC2000 in my bedroom and played a movie stored there on the CMC3000 in my living room.  Then there is the UPnP selection.

When in UPnP mode, the CMC3000 will find all devices on the network that have UPnP enabled.  In my case it saw the 2 PCs running Windows Media Player 11, a digital picture frame and the Playon server running on my desktop.  I downloaded a 14 days free trial of the Playon software for this test.

Now I was able to view Hulu content on my TV, which finally gets me away from the computer.  The quality is a function of the resolution streamed and is not HD, but it is watchable.  It’s also a lot cheaper than paying the cable company.

In addition, the CMC3000 with Playon provides access to your Netflix account, displaying your selections on the TV.  The above screen shot shows the preview screen.  In addtion there is access to YouTube, several TV network IP feeds and assorted video content.  Unfortunately, moving between selections was very slow, apparently because each preview had to be transcoded by Playon on my PC before being displayed.  My dual core cpu usage was pegged at 100% each time the Playon server was running.  I guess it’s time to upgrade

Besides the functions already mentioned, the CMC3000 has a P2P function allowing you to check the status of torrent files that are being downloaded.  I didn’t test this feature.

The CMC3000 also has an Internet radio function.  This is very basic and searching for stations can become tedious because the display only provides cryptic information.  I don’t consider this a show stopper.

The NAS function of the device is a plus.  I use the internal 1TB drive to store some of my media files and backups of application data from the PCs on the LAN.

The CMC3000 is truly a Multimedia Center.  It makes it fairly easy to play and store personal content as well as allowing access to the vast amount of media available on the Internet.  All of this can be played on an existing TV up 1080i for video and 5.1 audio.  Considering its capability and the included storage, it is an exceptional price performance purchase.

Filed in categories: Audio, Video, TV Gear, Reviews

Tagged: A/V, Video

Cirago Network HD Multimedia Center CMC3000 Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on January 6, 2011 at 5:09 pm.

The elgato EyeTV Hybrid is a beautiful little USB 2.0 TV Tuner for Mac or Windows computers. It’s “hybrid” in that it will tune just about anything you’ve got: analog cable/tv, Digital/HDTV, and Clear QAM digital cable. It even has adapters so you can hook up a Composite or S-Video source (such as an analog camcorder) to capture standard definition video. The EyeTV is fully supported without additional drivers under Windows 7, via Windows Media Center. If you’re a Mac, the included EyeTV 3 software enables viewing and recording for you.

The photo above shows you everything in the box: the EyeTV receiver, a USB extension cable, the breakout cable for connecting analog sources, Mac software, and the IR Remote. For the review I set the EyeTV up on a couple Windows Laptops (an HP “entertainment” class laptop with Core 2 Duo CPU and Windows 7 Home Premium, and an Acer Aspire One netbook with 2GB ram, running Windows 7 ultimate) and one MacBook.

A Closer Look

Before we get to the nuts and bolts, let me show you the reviver and remote up close.

The device itself is roughly the size of your average USB memory stick. The large antenna/coax adapter on the right is often not shown in promotional/web shots on the elgato web site, but the review unit arrived with it attached and I wasn’t able to remove it with gentle tugging. Not that you can use it with it removed, anyway – but we’ll get back to that later.

On the right edge is the dongle port. The left edge has the IR receiver for the remote.

The remote is one of those standard gray slabs we all know and love. I did not verify this, but I expect the IR codes used are compatible with/the same as Hauppauge-based tuners/remotes, so it may be fairly simple to use a universal remote.

Setup/Install (Windows 7 Media Center)

This isn’t a review of Windows 7 or the Windows Media Center, so I’m going to breeze through this pretty quickly. If you have any version of Windows 7, you should have (or can install) Windows Media Center. Getting the EyeTV to work with WMC is a two step process. First, insert the USB receiver. Wait for Windows to install the drivers, which it should do automagically:

After a while, Windows will tell you it’s ready to use. Fire up WMC and it will walk you through the configuration for your TV source. One of the many many windows you will see is:

This is showing that, when plugged into my very large HDTV antenna coax cable (we’ll get back to that at the end, I promise!) WMC and the EyeTV agree that they can see lots of HDTV over the air channels. Very promising! Continuing on for another few setup screens finally leads to victory:

The EyeTV remote is fully supported under WMC and, assuming you can see the dongle itself with the remote, works fine from normal “couch” distance of 6-10 feet.

I tuned to a couple of HD channels and verified that both 720p and 1080i HDTV works fine. Windows 7 can’t take a screen shot of a full-screen video overlay, so first here is a shot of PBS in a window.

I captured a few seconds of our local NBC and ABC stations to get 1080i and 720p video. A small clip of the ABC nightly news (720p) is available here. Below are two frames from recordings made in WMC with the EyeTV of 1080i and 720p programs:

As expected, digital TV captures (and live viewing) work beautifully.

Setup/Install (Mac – EyeTV 3)

Phyiscal installation on the Mac is identical. Plug in the USB tuner. On the Mac you’ll need to install the EyeTV 3 software to get to the point of viewing/recording video. Installation went without a hitch:

As in the case with Windows, the setup detects the device and walks you though setting up/detecting channels, and determining what guide you should be using based on your service. I used the same Digital over the air antenna, and (not surprisingly!) found the same channels. After a few setup screens, success again:

As with Windows, the EyeTV remote fully controls the software. You can also use your Mac remote, if your Macintosh has one.

EyeTV 3 DVR

The EyeTV 3 software is a full featured DVR, with built in program guide, scheduler, series recorder, and timeshifting/pausing live TV. It performed as expected during the review. Navigation via the keyboard, on screen remote, or physical remote was straightforward, and the software worked equally well in windowed mode (in case you wanted to work with the TV on in the background) or in full screen mode.

In full screen mode, the on-screen remote disappears after a few seconds. It pops back up if you move the mouse (that’s why its in all my screen shots!) but it does go away if you’re using the IR remote.

You can change settings in full screen mode as expected. For example, let’s get subtitles going.

Subtitles are Muy Bueno:

I was able to record digital sources even on a very underpowered Macbook without difficulty. A small clip from the opening of a world cup game, recorded via EyeTV 3, is available here. I actually don’t have any analog sources left in the house to test the analog recording, but it clearly states on the elgato site that analog recording is encoded as mpg2 via software, and not on the EyeTV hardware itself. This shouldn’t be a problem for any Mac with a Core 2 or better CPU.

Tuning, Antennas and Other Small Details

As promised, this is my big problem with this nifty little adapter. Without a fairly decent sized antenna, or a Cable TV source, you’re not going to be seeing anything with it. It seems silly to have to point that out, but you could get the impression that an antenna isn’t needed. What you have here is a really small TV tuner. Depending on where you live (or where you want to watch TV) you’ll need anything from a small set-top antenna to a large rooftop one. I went through this dance in the early 2000s when I got my first HDTV – before the digital transition, and before Comcast even offered HD. From my home to the big HDTV broadcast tower in San Fransisco, I needed not only a full-sized rooftop antenna, but also a 10 foot poll to mount onto the chimney, to put it up high enough. From there, I got a great signal. Fast forward to 2010, and Comcast gives me all the HD I want. The antenna still sits, neglected, on the roof.

When the EyeTV arrived for review I tried it naked, with no antenna, and as I expected got no channels at all. Plugging into that monster on the roof got me upwards of 40 digital channels. I also had a Winegard SS-3000 indoor amplified antenna handy (I seem to collect antennas) and sure enough, it only pulled in the closest couple of stations from inside my house – and it’s nearly three feet across.

So, what’s this mean to you? If you’re expecting this EyeTV to get a picture over the air with no antenna, forget it. Unless you are sitting under the broadcast tower, you are going to need some kind of HDTV/Digital antenna. If you need a big antenna, then that’s going to limit your portability much more than the EyeTV tuner itself.

So, what do you gain from the portability of the EyeTV? Well, if we lived in an analog world, being able to take a small analog capture device with you might be quite handy. I’m not sure that the need to capture analog video comes up much these days, but if you have that need this is a great device for that. Also, it’s possible you’d like to add digital recording to a device that doesn’t support internal expansion. Certainly this is true for many Macs, and for any Laptop device. Being able to set up a system for casual recording, or for regular recording/viewing via the EyeTV is fast, simple, and once completed doesn’t require much more than plugging in (or pulling out) a USB cord.

Conclusion

The EyeTV Hybrid is a good, small TV Tuner/Video capture device. It’s ability to tune and hold a channel lock is comparable to that of “full sized” external or expansion card-based tuners, and it works equally well for Mac and PC based machines. The USB-based device is ideal for all-in-one machines, Laptops, and even Netbooks. If you’re buying the EyeTV for a Windows machine, you’ll pay a premium over Windows-only USB tuners since you’re also paying for the Mac EyeTV 3 software.

Out of the box you’re not given everything you need to watch over-the-air TV, and from personal experience getting an internal antenna to work even from the near-in suburbs can be tricky, so be sure you understand the requirements for an antenna, or a cable box, before you decide the EyeTV is for you.

Filed in categories: Audio, Video, TV Gear, Laptops and Gear, Reviews, Travel Gear

Tagged: A/V, DVR, Laptop, Mac OS X, USB devices, Video, Windows 7

elgato EyeTV Hybrid Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on August 2, 2010 at 11:57 am.

The latest offering from Pinnacle Systems is Pinnacle Studio 14 MovieBox Ultimate, and there are some new goodies under the hood for those of you who are long-time Pinnacle users.  I started using Pinnacle video software about 6 years ago and still stand by their products as good entry-level consumer video editors.   There is alot to love in version 14, but it isn’t all good news.  Is version 14 worth it enough to make you jump at the new version?  Let’s go see…

Let me start by talking about what comes in the box with this version.  This is the Pinnacle Studio MovieBox Ultimate edition, which means it comes with a converter device that you can use to attach to your computer and connect to other devices such as cameras, VCRs, etc.  I have used Pinnacle converter devices for years and this one performed good.  It recognized anything I connected to it and the software recognized the devices just fine.  No complaints in that department.  My only gripe is that in the past the converter devices that I have received as part of the Pinnacle products were much ‘beefier’ and made of finer materials.  This converter box is ‘plastic-y’, whereas the converter box I have used for years from Pinnacle is made of brushed metal.  It just feels ‘quality’, whereas this one feels ‘cheap’.  A sign of the times I guess.   Time will tell how it holds up.  Also in the box is a quick-start guide, some software on CD, a USB cable, a Firewire cable, and a green screen for doing green screen work.  Here are some pictures of what came in the box:

Pinnacle has always built ease-of-use into their products.  This is what makes Pinnacle such a joy to use.  The interface is simple, and it just makes sense.  You have 3 steps to making a video and each is represented by a tab across the top…. 1. import, 2. edit, and 3. make movie.  I am not trying to say that the interface has been completely revamped, but it does look cleaner in this version than previous versions.  They streamlined everything it appears to me, and it just looks more modern, which is refreshing.

Anything you want to use in your video is represented by a row of icons down the left side of the screen:  (starting from the top)… video, transitions, montages, titles, photos, menus, sound effects, and music.  You click on each icon and you see the available items you have in each category.  For example, you click on the Photos icon and see the pictures you have chosen for your project.  If you haven’t chosen any, then you click a little folder icon and go choose which folder contains your pictures.  Easy as pie.

There is a preview area in the upper right corner of the window which shows you what your items look like before you insert them into your project.  So for example, you click on a picture it loads up so you can look at it.  You click on a video clip and it loads up so you can watch it.  You get the point.  The preview area is also re-sizable by dragging a slider bar above the preview window to make the preview bigger or smaller, depending on your personal preference.

The main area is across the bottom, which is the timeline.  This is where you assemble the various items you want to include in your project.  While the layout of the timeline is more streamlined, it is still extremely easy to use and control.  Pinnacle still only has 2 video tracks, which is somewhat of a disadvantage compared to its competitors, such as Adobe Premier Elements and CyberLink PowerDirector, which both have more layering capabilities.  Like most video editors, you can switch between different views of the timeline, depending on your personal preference.  I personally prefer the regular timeline view.  Here are some screenshots of each view:

Storyboard view of timeline:

Regular view of timeline:

On the timeline you have several tracks available to use… the video track, a track for the audio that comes from the video, a music track, a sound effect track, and the Overlay track, which is used for titles and other video clips that are used in picture-in-a-picture effects.  You simply drag items from the various areas in the upper left (video clips, photos, sound effects, titles, etc) and drop them where you want them on the timeline.  As you can see from the screenshot above, for a transition you simply drop it between 2 items on the timeline and it creates the desired transition.

You also have numerous items in what is called your ‘toolbox’ to enhance/edit audio files, video clips, titles, etc.  The toolbox menu across the top provides access to these things, but there are some small buttons scattered here and there among the interface that give you access to the toolbox items as well.  Let me talk about some of these…

Audio Toolbox
The Audio Toolbox provides many options for editing the audio clips in your project.  You get access to it by clicking the small speaker icon located right above the timeline area from the Toolbox menu item at the top of the window.  With the Audio toolbox you can do things like… adjust the volume of audio clips, import audio from CDs, record a voice-over narration, create background music automatically with the Scorefilter tool, and add effects to audio clips like changing the speed or adding reverb or echo.

Let me mention something about the Scorefilter tool.  It automatically adds music to your video and adjusts itself to fit.  I tried several different pieces of music and it automatically filled in the exact length that I needed for my movie and it sounded seamless.  Pretty darn neat for someone who wants to quickly add some music to their video without any audio editing.  I have always been skeptical of tools like this, but I was pleasantly surprised.  I tried to trip it up and it performed well.

Scorefilter screenshot:

Video Toolbox
With the Video Toolbox you can you do things like… grab a frame of video and create a still image, add great effects such as pan-and-zoom, auto color correction, stabilize (to help correct that shaky camera shot you took), picture-in-a-picture, old film effect, earthquake, motion blur, and lots more.   You get access to it by clicking the small camera icon located right above the timeline area, or again, from the Toolbox menu item at the top of the window.  You can also edit the properties of a Montage (more on that in a min) that you have chosen for your project.  You really could get out of hand with all these and the temptation is large for sure.  But having them there means that you’ll have lots of options for your videos and you won’t have to repeat the same ones over and over for all your videos.  But of course if those aren’t enough for you, there is always Hollywood FX!  Hollywood FX effects add special effects to both photo and video.  As I mentioned, the program comes with a bunch, but of course Pinnacle offers many more effect packages for sale on their website.  Of course!

Motion Titler
This tool allows you to ‘jazz up’ your titles by adding motion and graphics to your text titles.  I will say that some of the motion graphics for the titles were a bit cheesy and reminded me of PowerPoint transitions circa 2003, but there are a bunch of them and some of them are pretty cool.

Create Smartmovie Tool
In the video toolbox you can also let Pinnacle create a music video for you using the “Create Smartmovie” tool.  This was pretty darn cool.  Simply use this tool to add opening titles, closing credits, drop your video clips on the timeline, choose what type of music video you want (fast-paced, elegant, old movie, romantic, etc), and the tool does the rest.  I won’t say that I would have chosen all the things that the Smartmovie did for my attempt at using this tool.  But for a novice video person, wow, this tool could really make some movies quickly for you.

Project Bin
A great feature is called the ‘project bin’.  It is accessed by choosing “Show Project Bin” from the Toolbox menu, or by clicking the small folder icon right above the timeline.  The ‘bin’ is a panel that opens up above the timeline that shows you only the items that have been using in the current project… video, audio, pictures, menus, etc.  Very nice touch.  This way, you don’t have to scroll through dozens and dozens of little thumbnails trying to figure out which picture or which video clips you used.

A feature that has been included with Pinnacle for several versions is what are called “Montage themes“.  I have always considered myself a creative type and for years I have stayed away from such things because in my mind I was more creative than these canned themes!  But I like the way these have evolved.  Pinnacle has included some great new themes in this version and I used several of them in the video project that I did during this review.  Let me explain what Montage themes are…

Montage themes have been around since version 12, but there are several new montages added in version 14. For those who don’t know, Montage Themes are where you select any pictures and/or video you want, and it displays them in the pre-formatted animated presentation of the montage.  What’s cool about using Montage Themes is that the montage comes with an opening animation, a closing animation, and several segue animations.  So you can maintain the same theme throughout your video and it gives is a much more professional look as opposed to using just plain-jane transitions like fading in and out.

Let me now mention some a couple other really great features of this program…

First of all, a great new feature that I haven’t seen before in previous Pinnacle products is the ability to right-click on a video clip in your timeline and choose “copy all effects” (or just individual effects) and then right-click on another clip and ‘paste’ the effect(s).  This is a huge time-saver, especially when you have a large video project.  Here is a screenshot:

One of the biggest improvements in this product is the unified import tool.  This is a huge improvement and will be the most noticeable to those of you who have been Pinnacle users for years.  I love this feature!  It is very intuitive and also allows you the ability to set the start and stop points in your importing process.  This is important because it allows you to start a video import (from a digital video camera for example) and then walk away knowing that Pinnacle will stop importing when it reaches the point at which you told it to stop.  This has been one of the biggest gripes I have had with Adobe Premier Elements.  I don’t have that option in Elements, so I have to either sit there and watch it until it is done or be willing to import the entire video tape to my computer harddrive, therefore taking up harddrive space with video I’ll never use.  You can even let the import tool import stop-motion clips every 8 or 12 frames.  Pretty neat option!  This improvement alone would be worth the upgrade to me!  Here is a screenshot of the import tool with an arrow pointing to the various things you can import from… VCRs, digital video cameras, your webcam, a Blue-Ray player, your computer’s DVD drive, etc.

Your export options are on par with all the other video editors… you can pretty much export to any format you want, including uploading directly to Yahoo video or Youtube.  I used the Youtube upload and it worked great.  Here are the available output options (along with a screenshot):

• ‘Disc’ output formats:  AVCHD, Blue-Ray, HD DVD, DVD, SVCD, VCD
• ‘File’ output formats:  AVI, DivX, Flash video, iPod compatible, MOV, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-2 TS, MPEG-4, Real Media, Sony PSP, Windows Media, 3GP
• ‘Web’ output formats:  Yahoo video, Youtube

Finally, let me mention some of the things that I think are drawbacks of this program…

First of all, I experience the same problem that I have had with Pinnacle products for years, and I just don’t understand this.  I have used Pinnacle on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and now Windows 7, and the same thing happens.  I’ll try to explain it…

On my laptop the Pinnacle window can’t open up big enough for me to avoid having to scroll down the window just a little bit to see the very bottom part of the timeline.  This is no big deal really, I know how to scroll obviously and I have a mouse wheel.  But here is where it gets strange.  Sometimes when I am working with various tools… editing audio files or video files, working with pictures, etc., the scrollbar down the right side of the window will expand to fill up the entire scroll area, preventing me from scrolling down the window any further, even though I can’t see the entire window.  I hope this makes sense.  But basically, I can see that there are parts of the window at the bottom that I can’t see, but I am prevented from using the scroll bar to scroll down and see them.  The only solution is to minimize and then maximize the window.  I just don’t get it.

Secondly, there were several times that I was doing something during the editing process and the program simply locked up.  And there was no pattern for this.  One time I was editing a DVD menu.  Another time I was trying to grab an MP3 file and drop it on the timeline.  So I got into the habit of saving my work often.  To be fair, I also have this issue with Adobe Premier Elements, so perhaps it is an issue with my computer.  But reading message boards told me that others have this issue as well, so I am not sure what to think.

Final comments
Finally, I will mention this.  Knowing I was going to be doing this review, I enlisted my retired father to try using this program and see what he experienced.  He has never done any kind of video work using a program like this, so he is about as green as they come.  I didn’t give him any guidance at all… I simply handed him the box and said “good luck, let me know how it goes”.  Here were some of this comments…

“The initial video tutorial that came up when I first started the program was good, but it does not effectively replace the detail of an owner’s manual.   As a first-time user it was difficult to understand all of the necessary details of the software and it was cumbersome having to return to the videos, then having to watch the video from the beginning to get to the part that would explain the detail I needed.  The HELP menus were too summarized to provide the detail I needed.”

“The IMPORT function was simple; easily understood.  I used the box to import video from my VHS-C video camera.”

“I only did minor editing of each clip, deleting footage from the beginning or end of the clip.  That editing was simple.”

“The most challenging part of the project was creating the disc Menus.  The problem was NOT the actual creation of the menus but KNOWING that the menus would NOT take effect until the project was ‘processed’ to fit on the blank DVD.  This was frustrating!  After I saved the finished project I wanted to play it back to preview it before loading it to DVD.  On playback the menus appeared at the beginning of the video but were NOT selectable and did not appear at the beginning of each Chapter.  It was only AFTER going through the process of resizing the video and loading it to the disc that I discovered the menus had become active.  As I mentioned above, having TEXT instructions available would have made the project much easier.”

Bottom line
If you want a video editing program and you are new to video editing, you can’t go wrong with this program.  The ease-of-use and set of features out of the box mean that you can be successful quickly, and you’ll have some great videos.  And sharing to Youtube is a breeze, which is where most of your videos will end up.  The converter box performs well and you’ll be able to connect older as well as newer devices.  But it isn’t all a bowl of cherries, as you read from my comments and my father’s.

This program doesn’t includes some of the more professional features that more high-end programs would have like Adobe Premier or Final Cut Pro, but then for this price you can’t expect that.  Although, Adobe Premier Elements (which is a direct competitor to this product) does have more feature-rich options available to you, but Elements doesn’t perform quite as snappy as Pinnacle Studio does and it isn’t nearly as easy to use as this product.  If you want more features and a higher-end video editor, this program is not for you.  But it is so easy to use and adds new features with every release, I can create videos alot more quickly with this program, which is why I still use it.  I won’t give up my Adobe Premier Pro for my sophisticated projects, but Pinnacle Studio will still remain one of my recommendations when people come asking for my opinion!

Filed in categories: Audio, Video, TV Gear, Reviews

Tagged: A/V, Software, Video

Pinnacle Studio 14 MovieBox Ultimate Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on May 18, 2010 at 11:30 am.

The Tandberg PrecisionHD USB Video Camera is a high quality camera that captures 30 frame per second full 720p (1280×720) video and mono audio. This would be the ideal camera for corporate desktop video conferencing, or for casual or mobile video podcasting. It’s large size and decent heft make it less appealing for the business traveler who is probably hauling a laptop with a passable VGA or better webcam built into their laptop already. Its relatively high cost and the current dicey support for HD video in non-business videoconferencing systems like Skype, Google Chat, or MSN, along with the higher bandwidth demands for HD conferencing, makes it a bit of a reach for the rest of us. Still, the future is always just a few months away, and if nothing else the Tandberg sets a pretty high bar for 720p HD video.

Before I get too far into the review, it’s helpful to check with the manufacturer’s marketing blurb on their product page to see how they’re pitching it. Quite accurately they position the PrecisionHD as providing “business-quality HD video communication” for “executives or mission critical employees”. There is nothing wrong with that, and I believe they’ve hit their target dead center.

Look & Feel

The device is constructed out of a metal top half, and plastic bottom half, and has a 39″ long USB cable attached. The hinged base is designed such that it can sit on a surface, or hook over the top of your monitor for more natural video chatting. The styling, the heft, even the quality of the included carrying pouch all convey a professional, business vibe.

You can see from the photo above that the PrecisionHD is not small. It’s hanging onto a 16″ laptop screen in the photo. You can also see the green indicator LED showing it’s powered up. The LED glows orange (or maybe it’s yellow?) when the camera is transmitting. The small dot on top is the omni-directional microphone.

The camera is auto-focus, but you can still twist the ring around the lens. If you do, you’ll engage the privacy shutter (shown above) which blocks the lens. When blocked, the camera transmits a nice “TandbergHD” information screen as the video image. You can use that image to check your firmware revision as well – more on that a bit later. It’s important to note that the microphone is NOT muted in that mode, just the video is disabled.

It’s a hand full for sure! It does pack up nicely into the semi-rigid carrying case supplied

Installation

The PrecisionHD is a UVC webcam. There is no software shipped with the PrecisionHD. Webcams following the UVC specifications are “driverless” – and compatible with a wide range of operating systems and software. It will work with Macs, Windows, and Linux – at least that’s the ones I threw at it. On all three you just plug it into a USB 2.0 port and you’ll get a video and an audio device, which you then select in whatever software you’re using.  Like any other high bandwidth USB device, you may have difficulties if you use a hub loaded with other high-bandwidth devices, but that’s a USB limitation.

Camera Performance

I don’t have the kind of video evaluation equipment I’d need to do a fully accurate assessment. The best I can do is put the camera into some challenging situations and show you how it performs. I also don’t have access to either of the two supported HD video conferencing systems (both enterprise/business systems including Tanberg’s own Movi video conferencing system, and Microsoft Communicator) that directly support the device.

For the purpose of the review I was able to coax Skype into a “HD/High quality” 640×480 video chat, and  I used native video capture software to view/record/frame grab from the camera in full 720p mode. Finally, I compared the microphone quality vs the inbuilt microphone of a laptop. Let’s look at each, beginning with a couple of shots from Skype:

These probably say more about Skype then about the PrecisionHD, but as you can see, even in 640×480 mode the camera delivers a sharp image. The setting is in a room with lots of windows, midday, on a sunny day. Lots of backlight, and yet the camera was able to adjust exposure well. The second screen capture is of a printed chart I held about 14″ away from the camera. You’ll see that chart again later. Even though this is not a software review, it does bring up the somewhat thorny problem of bandwidth use. Most home (or hotel) Internet connections are somewhat anemic on their upload speeds. Trying to push 720p video through anything less then a 1Mbit wide pipe isn’t going to be very pretty, no matter how good the camera is. Also, trying to process 720p video is going to require a fairly decent CPU. I was able to use an Acer Aspire One (Atom 1.6Ghz CPU) but it was running full out, and it was barely keeping up. Any Core 2 or better CPU should be fast enough, but if you’re trying to use something from more then three years back, it may not be able to handle it.

Example of video captured to AVI format:  tandberg-precisionHD.avi (39mb download)

Auto Exposure, Auto Focus

For these next tests, I’m using the full 720p mode, capturing frames from the video stream. I positioned the camera in a challenging (but very typical) setting, with the subject (me) strongly back-lit with daylight through a window.

First, I am nearly out of frame. The camera focused and set exposure for the tree outside, as you would expect.

As I leaned in, the camera adjusted the exposure and focus compensate. The window is blown out, but the exposure is very good for the subject (me) and even with the blown out window there is no flare or bleed into the subject. This is NOT the kind of performance you get out of a $30 webcam, and shows off the good optics used in the PrecisionHD.

Finally, I held my hand up in front of the window, a little closer to the camera.

This forced the exposure up even more, completely blowing out the window. But again, look at the clear, sharp outline of my hand – no flare, no bleed, very clear all the way to the edge. The focus has pulled in more, such that the window/back wall is now clearly out of focus, but the focus depth is wide enough that my face is still in focus.

Hey, it’s that chart!

The last test was to hold up the chart while shooting 720p. Again, I was making it hard by having a bright backlight. This was from about 14″ back from the camera.

Since we resize the images here, I’ve provided a 1:1 crop of the center of the frame below:

You can see that the camera is sharp and even – good optics, good focus, good sensitivity.

What this translates into for someone doing a video conference is what I call the “document test”. It’s the point in the conference where someone holds a diagram or document up to the camera for the other person to see. Here’s a couple pages from the PrecisionHD, as viewed by the PrecisionHD, in 720p (resized down by nearly 1/3rd!)

Even shrunk down to liliputian-sized for the web, you can see that the text is completely readable. That’s pretty impressive performance right there. And yes, we are still in the same bad lighting situation here.

Can you hear me now?

The final test is just as subjective as those video tests. I recorded a clip of audio from the built-in laptop microphone located just above the keyboard on the right side, and from the PrecisionHD when it was positioned on top of the monitor in the typical “video conference” configuration. I sat in front of the laptop, and also moved around a bit, from all sides, and from about 10′ away. As you might expect if you’ve ever used your laptop mic, the built in mic picked up my voice and the whine of the fan and the click of keys and other machine noise, yielding a messy but understandable voice when directly in front. From the back, sides, or from any more then a couple feet away the results were pretty bad. Compared to tha the positioning of the microphone way above the fray on the PrecisionHD, along with what I can only assume is a higher quality microphone, resulted in a far clearer and more natural sounding voice when recorded from the PrecisionHD. It also picked up sound well from other directions, and from a fair distance away.

Conclusion

I’ve used a lot of cameras, a lot of webcams, and a few HD digital camcorders. The PrecisionHD has the video performance of a good quality point & shoot HD digital video camera, such as one of the Aiptek HD cameras. It’s got acceptable audio performance – not as good as a high quality microphone, but better then the tinny noisy mics on most laptops and low end webcams. It’s all wrapped up in a largish but lugable package. It also has one last surprise – you can update the firmware on the camera (from a machine running windows XP or Vista, at least) by downloading the latest version from the Tandberg web site.

Filed in categories: Audio, Video, TV Gear, Reviews

Tagged: A/V, USB, Video, Video conferencing, Webcam

Tandberg PrecisionHD USB Video Camera Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on March 26, 2010 at 12:30 pm.

It seems like there’s a new media center/player introduced every week, so there must be some interest out there.  I had the opportunity to try out the Cirago CMC2000 TV Platinum unit, one of the latest offerings from this Company.  If you want to record video, stream music and photos or listen to Internet radio, this could be your unit.  We’ll give it a test drive and try to find the pluses and minuses.

Before we begin there are two things you should know;  this is NOT a DVR and there is a steep learning curve associated with the product.  Also, you may wish to reference John’s review of the CMC1000, a similar product in the same line.

Features:

• One button and scheduled recording in MPG format, from cable/satellite boxes through the AV input.  Time shifting function (pause)
• Video Playback supporting VOB, IFO, MPG 1/2, AVI MPG-4, DAT and Mpeg-2 TS: up to 1080i
• Music playback of mp3, OGG and unprotected WMA
• Photo supports JPEG and BMP
• Card reader support of SD/MMC/MS/MS pro
• Works as portable hard disk using USB 2.0
• Network via ethernet & Wlan streaming playback and NAS.
• Internet radio
• Built-in HDMI interface
• Either 500MB or 1TB hard drive (mine came with 500MB)
• S/PDIF Output
• Ethernet lan port or optional wireless USB adapter.

Upon opening the package my first impressions were very positive.  To begin with the device is solidly built.  It felt like it could take some abuse, which probably isn’t an issue in most households, but when you have twin 1 1/2-year-old grandsons running around, bullet proof is an asset.  Secondly, it comes with all the cables you’ll probably need.  Included are A/V, composite, HDMI and a USB cable.

The front panel of the device is aesthetically pleasing having only a power switch and slot for the memory cards.  This does however, point out a shortcoming.  The USB ports are on the back, making it cumbersome to insert devices.  I suppose it’s a trade-off between looks and functionality.  I’ll let you be the judge.  I found a couple of USB extension cables and used them to route the USB ports around the side of the unit.

With the exception of the memory card reader, all connections are on the back.  The mini USB connector is used when the device is accessed as an external USB drive.  The 2 USB host ports are used for external devices and the optional wireless dongle.  I didn’t check out the optical output because I don’t have anything that uses optical yet.

It’s important to understand how the hard drive in the CMC2000 is configured.  The above window is taken from my laptop which has accessed the unit from the USB device port.  Disk 1 is the CMC2000 drive as seen by the laptop and in this case shows drives E: and F:   Both of these drives are accessible from the laptop or via NAS.  The additional disk space is used by the CMC2000 to store recorded video from the AV port and is not accessible except by the CMC2000 during playback.  In order to use the recorded video on a PC or MAC, it has to be copied, via a menu function, to the Fat32 section of the disk.

As I said, this is not a DVR, because there is no tuner in the unit.  Because I don’t have a cable or satellite box at this house, I went into the archives and came up with a VCR, which has a built-in tuner.  I thought this would be great because now I had the opportunity to back up some of my ancient VHS tapes that were starting to deteriorate.  I plugged the AV out from the VCR to the CMC2000 and hooked the unit to the TV via HDMI.  And lastly, I attached an Ethernet cable from the device to my LAN.  The user interface won’t win any design awards.

I found my 1995 VHS edition of the Stars Wars Trilogy and fired it up in the VCR, pressed record on the CMC2000 and………COPY PROTECTED!  What the.. Apparently the CMC2000 has logic precluding the copying of purchased video.  To see if this was the case with DVDs also, I borrowed a player and attempted the same thing with a legally purchased DVD and again… COPY PROTECTED.

OK, so you can’t copy commercial videos, but it will copy videos you’ve recorded.  I gathered several tapes I had from my camera recording days, and easily transferred them to the hard drive.  The process involves selecting video in and initating playback on the VCR.  When playback begins, hit record on the CMC2000 remote.  Now you can turn off the TV or switch to a different input and watch something else.  To insure I don’t record a bunch of dead time, I use the OTR feature and press the record button several times incrementing the amount of time record will go on in 30 minute segments.

Using the VCR I recorded live TV.  The process is the same for recording from a tape, but in this case select a channel on the VCR and record continuously or set the number of minutes.  Remember, the CMC2000 will only record what is coming through the AV port, so if you change the channel on the VCR while recording the recorded material will change.

You can also setup to record at different times and days.  The CMC2000 will switch on at the correct time and date, but has no control over the input.  So, in my case, I have to ensure that the VCR is on and set to the channel I wish to record.  I believe cable/satellite boxes do have a timer function, so this would not be a problem.

After your video is recorded, there are several options for editing the file.  You’ll notice the Copy to FAT32 partition function I mentioned before.

The browse selection on the main menu enables searching through the internal hard drive, 2 USB attached devices, a memory card plugged into the front slot or via the lan to one of your attached computers.  When accessing a PC via the LAN, I played videos, photos and music located on it.  I did have some minor problems connecting though, but experimenting with passwords and firewalls allowed me in to all 3 systems.

The Internet radio feature of the device is probably the least useful.  Finding stations was a pain and the descriptions were useless.

The CMC2000 can be accessed as a USB drive and shows up as two devices, in the above case E: and F:.  This provides a fast and easy way to transfer multimedia content to the media center or use the device as external storage.

New to the CMC2000 is the NAS function.  Out of the box this feature is not available.  You are advised to download a utility at Cirago’s web site, but they failed to tell you the file name or where to find it.  I sent an email asking for help and after several days with no response,  I stumbled upon an .rar file, on their web site, that looked promising.  Not having an .rar decompressing utility, I had to find that.  Inside the file was a SYS folder which I put in the root of the HDD1 CMC2000 partition.  It seemed to do the trick.  I have noticed that recently Cirago has listed downloads under the CMC2000 product information and there is now a .zip file with the SYS folder.  Perhaps they read my email after all

After several weeks of using the CMC2000 I am both frustrated and amazed.  Frustrated because the documentation is sparse and the printed book that came with the device is unreadable.  The screen shots are for people with better eyes than me.  I suggest you give the printed manual a toss, and download the PDF from their web site.  It is more readable.  Plus there’s one issue that’s driving me nuts.  Apparently there is a conflict between my Visio TV remote and the CMC2000.  Toggling some buttons on the TV remote turns off the CMC2000.

I am amazed by what this device can do.  From the video recording and editing capabilities to the multiple ways of accessing the device.  I admit, it appeals to my inner geek and may not be suitable for everyone.  However, for about $173 you get a 500MB external USB hard drive that can record and edit video, plus it’s a network streaming device and acts as a NAS sever on the LAN.  The CMC2000 is the Swiss Army Knife of Media Centers.

Filed in categories: Reviews, Video Reviews

Tagged: A/V, Entertainment

Cirago TV Platinum CMC2000 Network Multimedia Center Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on March 11, 2010 at 11:15 am.

The next time I purchase a house I will look for one that has Ethernet wired to all the rooms, but until that happens I need a way to get high speed LAN access in different areas of my home.  WiFi is too slow and unreliable.  One of the possibilities is a technology called Powerline Ethernet.  The MegaPlug AV Powerline Ethernet from ActionTec kit is one option.

I had previously reviewed the Netgear Powerline AV Ethernet Adapter and found that it satisfied my needs, but it would have been better if there were more ports to plug devices into.  The MegaPlug AV purports to provide the same connection experience with the addition of a 4-Port integrated switch.

The kit consists of 2 transmitter/receivers where one is a single port device and the other has the 4-Port switch.

Features:

• Plug-N-Play
• Any electrical outlet will work
• Supports HomePlug speeds up to 200 Mbps
• HomePlug Av compatible
• More secure than wireless networks
• Works with any Ethernet enabled device

In the box:

• The devices as mentioned above
• Quick start guide
• Two Ethernet cables
• Power cord

The Ethernet adapter plus 4-Port switch from the front.

And from the back showing the 4 ports.  The button under the lock symbol allows the encryption of the data.  Because I live in a detached home I don’t need it, however, for those living in multi-unit dwellings, setting encryption would be a good idea.

The single port Powerline adapter.  It also has the button to enable encryption.  Not shown is the flip side which has the 2 prong AC plug built-in.  The device has an integral power supply and looks like a wall wart when plugged into the wall.

Installation is a snap, entailing plugging the devices into a convenient AC outlet and then running an Ethernet cable from your modem or router to one device and then a cable from the other Powerline adapter to the device you wish to connect to the LAN.

As my current Powerline setup also states that it conforms to the PlugAV specification, I should then be able to plug the Actiontec devices in the wall and they should work mixed in with the Netgear devices!

To be honest, I was surprised that it worked.  In the above photo the 4-Port ActionTec device is in the kitchen with a laptop plugged in and the LAN also includes a Netgear device for my Linksys Media Center and the adapter at the router/modem end is also from Netgear.  I tried different combinations of all 4 devices (2 x Netgear and 2 xActionTec) and all worked fine.  So my conclusion is that PlugAV truly is a standard and there is interoperability between compatible devices.

One thing that ActionTec doesn’t supply is a utility to monitor the network.  They rely upon the indicator lights on the units which give a broad estimate of the throughout.  I had to dig through their website and online documentation to find the meaning of the green/yellow/red indications (red means less than 50Mbps, orange means 50-100Mbps and green means more than 100Mbps throughput), but fortunately the Netgear utility was able to recognize the ActionTec devices.

In the above screenshot, device 04 is the single port ActionTec adapter at the modem end of the LAN.  Device 03 is the 4-Port ActionTec device in the kitchen feeding a laptop.  The Media Center device is my Linksys DMA2100 connected by a Netgear Powerline adapter.

In the 7-8 months I’ve been using Powerline  Ethernet for my LAN, I’ve made some discoveries.  When I first used the devices, I lived in a 30 year old house with antiquated power wiring.  The throughput I realized was fairly constant and only varied when we ran the clothes dryer which seems to introduce electrical noise in the power wiring, slowing the LAN speed.  Since then I have moved to a 10 year old house with modern AC wiring and cannot get consistent speed results.  Who would have thought that I’d have better connections in the older house.

I was able to able to trace some of the problems to a set of L.E.D. under cabinet lights, which when turned on make the LAN unusable.  Also, during the evening hours the throughput is affected by something I have yet to find and quite frankly, it has become annoying.  This problem is the same whether using the ActionTec or Netgear equipment and seems to be an issue with the underlying technology.  I hope to solve the problem by replacing the Powerline gear with the new MoCA (Multimedia over Coax Alliance) technology which would use the cable TV outlets I have in every room, but the price will have to drop appreciably before I go that route.

At the moment, Powerline Ethernet is my most cost effective option short of tearing down walls and running Cat 6 cable.  I’ll give the same advice I gave in my first review of the technology:  if you wish to go this route, buy the hardware from a merchant with a liberal return policy.  That way if it doesn’t work for you, then you only lose a little time.  The ActionTec Plug AV Powerline Ethernet Kit is a viable solution and worked as advertised.  One of the advantages of the 4-Port switch device is that you can use it at the modem end if you need more ports and use the single port adapter as the remote.

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, Laptops and Gear, Wireless

Tagged: A/V, Networking

ActionTec MegaPlugAV 200Mbps Powerline Ethernet Kit Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on October 9, 2009 at 8:49 am.

The Cirago CMC1000 Multimedia Center is an enigma. I’ve never heard of the company, or the product. Google found a few online sites that carry it, so I can tell you the 500GB model I am reviewing sells for under $190 online, and its 1TB version goes for about $60 more. It sure seems like a product that someone might like, I’m just not sure who that person is.

The little box arrived for review, and I spent a good few minutes examining the package before I even opened it up. What was this beast? Was it a media player? A PVR? A NAS? Checking the specs and the marketing-blurbs on the box didn’t help much.

Top of the fold (as it were) the first feature is Record Video or Timeshift Live TV. That means there is a tuner or three in this box, right? Well, not exactly – look on the back, and (again, right there on top, first thing you see) there is a section for Digital Video Recorder. Records Live TV it says, very confidently. But how? Down at the bottom of the feature list we see Video Input: AV. OK, you now have my undivided attention! Looking at the back of the unit as pictured on the box, I see – no, it can’t be – a composite video connector + L/R RCA audio jacks over a label saying AV Input! Is this 2009? Well at least I can set aside all worries about HD video recording, clear QAM tuner issues, or Cable Cards! The rest of the specs and connectors seem somewhat plausible, except for one last detail. The networking spec says 10/100 wired Ethernet, and they helpfully include an 802.11b/g USB dongle for wireless support. Yikes. Let’s hope we don’t need to move big files onto this thing over a network!

With serious misgivings, I opened the box.

Sure seems like a lot of stuff in there! A rare but refeshing difference from many products is the inclusion of all the cables you’d need to hook this beast up to your home theater with the exception of a coax or optical digital audio cable. You’re given one self-assembly job – attaching the feet to the box. If you’re going wireless, you’ll need to insert the WiFi usb dongle into the side USB slot – you can do that at any time, even with the unit on.

Setup

I used the analog composite + L/R audio jacks to connect to an ancient Tube TV, and sure enough the unit was able to provide a readable menu. For the purpose of all the review shots I hooked it up to a 37″ 720P LCD using the HDMI connection.

That gives a very clean and simple hookup – the left (bottom) plug is the power connection, the right (top) is the HDMI. With that, you’re good to go with any digital TV made in the last few years. The back of the unit (shown rotated above so you can read the labels) has the Big Red Switch for power, two banks of analog outputs (composit and component), the composite + L/R analog AV Inputs, the Coax and Optical digital audio outputs, a single HDMI port, USB port, and 10/100 Ethernet port.

Turning it and the TV on, the system comes up in a conservative 4:3/480i video mode and I am greeted with a fairly simple but not too hard to figure out menu. Using the remote to navigate is straightforward for any child and many adults, as it looks much like a DVD or PVR remote.

To get the best experience you configure the video and audio to match how you’ve connected the device to your home theater, and its capabilites, via the setup menu. If for some reason the device ended up in a mode that doesn’t display on your TV, there is a “TV SYSTEM” button on the remote that, when pressed, cycles through the various video output modes. You can keep pressing that until something shows up on screen, although I admit the unit I reviewed never had a problem detecting how it was connected.

You begin with the main menu – navigate over to Setup to get started:

I apologize for the moire (squiggly lines) and slight fisheye effect on these screenshots – taking digital photos of an LCD isn’t the easiest thing in the world! On an actual LCD the menus were very clean and pleasing. Setup lets you configure Video, Audio, Recording default quality, Network connection, and some low-level system stuff like disk formatting.

Video supports 4:3 and 16:9 aspects, 480i (standard TVs) and 480p/720p/1080i (digital via HDMI or Component) output. I was pleased with the quality of the image across all modes- within the limits of the various systems, the image was clean and sharp with reasonable color and free of ghosting or other obvious artifacts.

Audio out includes analog L/R, or Digital via the HDMI, Coax, or Optical outputs. There is a Night Mode (clipping some of the dynamic range) for those with little kids and thin walls.

All in all, the output connection options are very good. The box is not able to output 1080p, but that is not likely to be an issue given the limitations of its media playback abilities. More on that in a moment. I’ll skip the tedious but typical setup of WiFi and note that you must enter your WEP or WPA key in hex – a somewhat annoying throwback to a bygone era for most home-networking appliances. On the plus side the device linked up just fine to my home WiFi. I also plugged in the wired Ethernet, which pulled an IP address from my home DHCP server just fine. Both network methods work without much fuss.

Let’s finish the tour of the box and then get on to the business of using it!

The bottom front and right side have the rest of the interesting bits of the unit. The front has 7 buttons that replicate some of the functions of the remote, along with a green power LED and a red record LED. On the right are another USB port (occupied by the supplied WiFi dongle with its own blue LED) and below that an SD slot. You’re on your own if you have mini/microSD cards or CF cards, although I can report that all my various adapters worked just fine.

One last odd thing – the box has no fan, it should have been quiet as a mouse. For some reason the review unit’s hard drive created some kind of vibration that was transmitted to every kind of surface I tried. The resulting hum was at least as loud as a cooling fan and was present whenever the unit was on.

What Is It, Really?

So, what is this thing? It’s sort of a frankenstine monster – a mishmash of functions in a small attractive box. In the end it sort of does most things kinda well, and others not so well, which I found frustrating. I found myself rooting for it to succeed whenever I tried to use it, only to find myself disappointed many of the times. Let’s start with something simple

It’s a USB Disk Drive

Connect a USB cable between the CMC1000 and your PC/Mac/Linux box and like magic, it’s a USB 2.0 disk. It performed admirably as such, giving decent read/write speeds of close to 17MB/second. There is only one small issue. As shipped the drive is completely formatted as a Fat32 disk. In that mode the unit can use the whole disk to record (more on recording in a bit) and you can copy as much as you want to it, but no single file can be larger then 4GB. If you want or need to copy larger files, you will need to reformat the drive (via that System option in Settings) to split it between Fat32 and NTFS partitions. The unit can read NTFS but cannot write it, so that portion of the disk won’t be available for recording. You can see how this is going to go by now, can’t you?

So one thing you can do is copy a bunch of media onto the internal drive – haul the thing and its brick to your PC, mount it as a disk, load it with goodies, and then bring it back to the home theater. Not the best use model, but it could work. Let’s assume you do that, and now its back over by the TV…

It’s a Multimedia Center

Time to play some media! Go to Browse Media (see the first screenshot above) and hit the OK button and you see this:

Yes, it is a simple file browser. Across the top of the menu you can filter by media type (All, Music, Photo, Movies) and on the left you select where to look (USB, Card slot, HDD – internal disk, LAN, or a playlist you’ve created before.)

If you copied stuff onto it, you’ll find it under HDD. You’ll want to do that if the media you are trying to play is to demanding to play over 802.11g WiFi, or if you can’t get a good signal to the box. With a decent signal and not very demanding content I used the LAN. The first time you connect to a device on your LAN you are prompted for a User Name/Password (if needed) and you can save that information in a “Shortcut” which you can use from then on to bypass the login. This works reasonably well.

Audio

Below is an example of playing an MP3:

You get some useful information as it plays, and not much else. It works as expected, and plays MP3, WMA, AAC, and OGG audio formats. It won’t play any DRM’d files, and can’t see shared iTunes libraries. It plays files.

Video

Let’s play a video!  Prepare yourself for some disappointment here. Video playback requires a discussion of codecs which is beyond the scope of this review. Suffice it to say that for an appliance (like this CMC1000) you’ll be able to play media it can play, and you won’t be able to play whatever it can’t. So, what can it play? It did pretty good with mpeg-ish stuff (mpg1 and mpg2 video, transport streams captured off cable, even ripped DVDs if they were copied onto the device) and it did ok with divx (some content downloaded off the Internet.) It failed at h.264 mpg4.

The browsing experience over the LAN is also a little problematic, since it wants to give you a preview for each video. Pause too long on a file name and it runs off and checks the LAN speed:

Then it gives you one of two results. The happy result is a preview of the video playing, along with media info:

The sad result is an error message (slightly misleading, if you ask me) if it cannot play that type of video:

I didn’t bother taking a photo of the video playback, as it was actually quite good (or rather, its as good as the source material) and the photos I attempted looked atrocious! If it can play your video file, it plays it quite well.

This then is the first major shortfall of this device. It failed to play quicktime/mpeg4, and other variants of h.264 videos. That’s the format used by a lot of HD video on the web, and many digital video records like my own Aiptek Action HD. In other words, I can’t view any of the hundreds of hours of video I’ve shot with the CMC1000. Not good.

There is some kind of streaming software provided on the CD – you can run this on a Windows PC on your LAN, point it at your h.264 videos, and then use the LAN view on the CMC1000 to stream them (converting on the fly to mpeg on the Windows machine) to the box. I assume it works, but frankly its not a solution to the problem.

Photo

Photo browsing from a LAN or internal store works much as video/audio. One typical use might be to view your freshly shot photos (or videos – if only it supported my video format) simply by connecting up the card from your camera.

Yes, it works. First, you get your card out, and then you plug it in. Hmmm… my Nikon D70 uses those large CF cards, guess I need to use my USB adapter. Uh, wait:

Minor annoyance – yank WiFi out, plug in card and…

Yay! The CMC1000 will happily play a slideshow of all images in a folder for you, with pleasing transition effects.

Its a VCR

I’ve finally figured out the recording model of the CMC1000. Plain and simple, it’s a VCR without the tapes. You can create schedules to record whatever is coming in via that AV composite connection at a given date and time, in whatever quality you desire. Selecting a higher quality uses more disk (the highest seems to be about 1MB/sec mpg2)

To test the function, I dug out my old DV camcorder, hooked up the analog output, and recorded a few clips. As advertised, when you select AV In from the main menu you see (side-boxed in 16:9 mode) whatever is going into that input. It’s playing/buffering, so you can Pause (up to 30 minutes or so) and then play/ff the signal. You can also simply hit the Record button to start recording (in a file with the current date/time stamp) whatever is going in.

This is a frame capture from the source (16:9, squeezed to 4:3, resized to 16:9 – isn’t analog FUN?) from the recording I made in the highest quality:

The files it produces are standard mpeg2 videos – you can copy them off and play them on a PC, burn them to a DVD, whatever. Is that a PVR? Well, not in the Tivo sense, no. It’s a video recorder plain and simple. Perhaps what’s worse is its an SD-video recorder, on a “HD” Multimedia box.

It’s a handy storage thingie

If you can plug it into the CMC1000, you can copy stuff onto or off of whatever you plugged in. For example let me grab those videos I recorded and dump them onto an SD card. Insert Card:

Use  Copy Files on the main menu to select source and destination:

And without much fuss it copies the stuff over. You could use it to quickly dump your photos from your digital camera without needing to boot a PC, for example.

I was also able to copy media off the LAN onto the HDD, and vice-versa, but the painfully slow speed of WiFi (or even 100mbit wired) makes this a poor choice. Trust me, you are better off using a USB drive, or carring this thing to whichever PC you want and plugging it in directly, unless you have hours to kill while your media trickles over the slow network links.

Its NOT a NAS

The CMC1000 lacks the ability to share its hard drive on the network. Yes, you read that correctly. It seems an obvious function of a network device with a disk drive, and yet it’s not supported. The device firmware can be updated, perhaps that will come in a future release.

Does It Blend?

The Cirago Multimedia Center is in the end the sum of the compromises needed to get all the various functionalities it offers into a small, cheap box. If it does what you need, it could be a great way to get a toe into the digital media age. I can’t help seeing all the flaws, but maybe my expectations are just too high.

Filed in categories: Audio, Video, TV Gear

Tagged: A/V, Audio, HDMI, Video

Cirago Multimedia Center Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on June 12, 2009 at 9:36 am.

Over the years, I’ve tried quite a few devices that allow you to watch and listen to your digital media through your television set. Some of these devices have included WiFi, some included hard drives, some required that you stream the content from a computer to the player and some required that you convert the content to a format that the player could handle. For one reason or another, I stopped using all of those devices except for the AppleTV. I really like the AppleTV’s user interface, but have never really liked the fact that I have to convert the files and then ‘send’ them from my desktop computer to the AppleTV in the living room. I’m all about simplicity, and while the AppleTV comes close, it doesn’t quite get there. I think I’ve found a device that does get there tho. It’s the WD TV HD Media Player from Western Digital.

The WD TV doesn’t include YouTube or allow you to rent movies, but it does play the video, audio and image content that you already have, and does so in a really user friendly way.

Hardware Specifications

File Formats Supported:
Music – MP3, WMA, OGG, WAV/PCM/LPCM, AAC, FLAC, Dolby Digital, AIF/AIFF, MKA
Playlist – PLS, M3U, WPL
Photo – JPEG, GIF, TIF/TIFF, BMP, PNG
Video -MPEG1/2/4, WMV9, AVI (MPEG4, Xvid, AVC), H.264, MKV, MOV (MPEG4, H.264)
MPEG2/4, H.264, and WMV9 supports up to 1920x1080p 24fps, 1920x1080i 30fps, 1280x720p 60fps resolution
Subtitle -SRT (UTF-8)
USB 2.0 ports: 2
External Drive Formats Supported: FAT32, NTFS, HFS+ (no journaling)
Video Interface: HDMI, Composite A/V
Physical Dimensions: 1.57 x 3.94 x 4.94 Inches
Weight: 0.67 Pounds

Package Contents

WD TV Player
Remote Control
2 AA Batteries
AC Adapter
Composite A/V cable
Passport USB Drive stand
Instructions
The WD TV unit is small, allowing it to fit into even the most cramped areas of your entertainment center.

It’s made of shiny Black plastic and lacks buttons, dials and switches.

On the Left side, you will find a USB port and a reset switch.

On the back side, you’ll find an AC power connector, another USB port, an HDMI connector, TOSlink Optical audio port, and composite A/V connectors.

A small remote control with real buttons is also included along with the batteries to power it.

The WD TV doesn’t include its own hard drive like some players (AppleTV, MVIX). Instead, it has two USB ports in which you can plug in thumb drives or even WD’s own USB Passport drive.

There’s a little stand included specifically for the Passport drive, so that you can set it next to the player.

I tested the WD TV with my 32GB Kingston flash drive and a WD Passport drive. The cool thing is that you don’t have to specify which USB drive you want to view content from. The software in the WD TV reads both drives and creates one list of all the content.

Setting up the WD TV with your TV is a snap. A composite A/V cable is included in the package, that you can use to connect to your TV. While this works fine, you can get MUCH better video quality by using an HDMI cable (if your TV has that capability). The only bad thing is that you’ll have to go out and buy your own HDMI cable. Tip: Don’t go to Walmart, Target, Best Buy or other local stores to buy an HDMI cable. They will charge you $25-$30 for one, which is robbery when you can buy the same thing from NewEgg for less than $10.

After you connect the WD TV to your television and power it on with the remote, you’ll be presented with a simple user interface. You can scroll up and down to choose the main function (Photos, Video, Music, Settings) and then side to side to pick options for that specific mode.

In Photo mode, you can view images on the attached USB devices by thumbnails or a list of file names.

You can click on an image to see it in full screen. You can also rotate, pan and zoom. You can view the images in slide show mode and even have music playing in the background.

In Music mode, you can easily play your tunes. Even the album art will display on the screen while music is playing. You can choose music based on Artist, Genre and Album.

Photo and music modes are nice additions, but my main use for a device like this is to easily view my video content on my TV. I have to say that I think the WD TV does this easier than any device I’ve tried so far. Save your videos on a USB device, plug it into the WD TV, scroll through the list of files, press play on the remote and away you go. The best part for me is that no time consuming file conversions are needed. This is something I had to do all the time with the AppleTV in order to play video that I’d downloaded from the internets. I much prefer downloading the file, copying it to a USB stick, plugging the stick in the WD TV, sitting down and watching it. Easy!

Video quality using HDMI is great to my eyes. Of course it will really depend on the video itself. If you have low resolution video, it won’t look the best on a large TV.

The WD TV impressed me after I had downloaded an AVI video that wouldn’t play on my MSI Wind and wouldn’t play on my iMac using VLC, without VLC having to reindex it. I thought for sure it wouldn’t play on the WD TV either, but I was wrong. It worked just fine. The only video file that would not play for me was a really old .WMV file that I had created using Movie Maker on a Windows PC. The WD TV comes with some software that you can use to convert files if necessary. I didn’t try it, but I bet it would have fixed that file for me.

One nice feature is that you can resume playing a video if you stop it and want to go start it again later. The player will automatically remember where you left off.

While watching video, you can rewind and fast forward at four speeds (2x, 4x, 8x, 16x). I wish there was a feature to skip ahead so many minutes or to go to the end of a video. Just nit picking here though…

I really like the WD TV HD Media Player from Western Digital. Its small size and ease of use has me sold. It’s definitely going to stay in my entertainment center until something better comes along.

Filed in categories: Audio, Video, TV Gear, Desktop Computer Gear

Tagged: A/V, Audio, Device, Video

WD TV HD Media Player Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on December 8, 2008 at 1:00 pm.

Is there a place in the market for another MP3 player? What if this one doesn’t require a computer in order to copy music, buy music, etc? Sansa is willing to gamble that the answer to both of those questions is yes, with their new slotMusic player. Keep reading to learn more…

The slotMusic player is unique because it has no internal memory of its own. Music is loaded via MicroSD cards that are either bundled with the player for $34.99, or sold separately for $14.99 each.

Package Contents

slotMusic player
Earbuds
1 AAA battery
Instructions

The player is cigarette lighter sized, with a plastic cover and aluminum body.

On the long edge, you find the Play/Pause button (which doubles as a power toggle button when held down for several seconds), flanked by next and previous track buttons. A small status LED is also located on this side of the player.

On the top, you’ll find the volume adjustment buttons and a standard sized stereo earbud jack.

On the opposite side is a spring loaded MicroSD card slot.

The player is powered by a AAA battery. To load it, you just remove the plastic cover.

The whole selling point of the slotMusic player is that a computer is not required in order to transfer music it. Instead, you purchase pre-loaded MicroSD cards with albums like this one – Spirit by Leona Lewis.

When you open the CD sized package, you find liner notes like those that you would find inside the jewel box of a CD. But instead of a CD, the album has been saved onto a 1GB MicroSD card.

Also included is a plastic case and a handy little MicroSD USB reader. With this reader, you can save even more music on to the MicroSD card or copy the music to your computer. Yeah, that’s right, the music on these little cards does not have any DRM restrictions.

The music has been sampled at a decent bit rate and sounds good. As you can see, the tracks include album art. Also included on the card are the liner notes in PDF format.

I was unable to copy files to the card using my Mac as the card shows up as read only. Worked fine on my MSI Wind netbook though…

The player performs the same as other music players out there. The buttons are easy to press and have good tactile feedback. The only “problem” with this player should be obvious – it doesn’t have a display… That may or may not be a concern for some people. The other issue is that there isn’t a way to shuffle the music or find a specific track. For that fact, if you copy more music to the card, you have to use the prev and next tracks to find specific songs.

Besides those issues, probably the biggest deal is the availability and price of slotMusic cards. Right now, there’s only about 30 different albums available from different artists. The selection of albums is all over the place. Jimmy Buffett, Kiss, Weezer, Ne-Yo, Abba, etc. But if the availability doesn’t bother you, the $14.99 price per album probably will. That’s too expensive when you compare the same albums on iTunes and Amazon…

Example #1: Fame by Lady Gaga is pre-order for $14.99 from the Sansa store. But, you can download it right now on iTunes for $7.99 or buy the CD from Amazon.com for the same price of $7.99.

Example #2: Year of the Gentleman by Ne-Yo is $14.99 from the Sansa Store. But, you can download from iTunes for $9.99 or buy the CD from Amazon.com for the same price of $9.99.

The only feature that the Sansa slotMusic player has going for it is that it does not require a computer in order to transfer music. You can just purchase the slotMusic albums on MicroSD cards, pop them into the player and away you go. That would be fine if there were more (a LOT more) albums available for it. As is, this is a novelty player that really doesn’t have a lot going for it other than the $20 price tag. I suppose if you have some MicroSD cards laying around, it might make a nice little workout player though…

Filed in categories: Audio, Video, TV Gear

Tagged: A/V, Audio, MP3

Sansa slotMusic Player Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on November 24, 2008 at 8:00 am.

With the massive influx of digital media in the past decade or so, consumers have become aware of the need for some way to use
their media somewhere other than a computer. More specifically, we want to be able to play our music and movies and view our
digital pictures from the comfort of the couch, and with the high definition glory of a 72″ plasma television. Apple, of course,
released the Apple TV. However, other electronics companies have tried to come up with good home media center solutions that
don’t require a full computer running Windows XP Media Center Edition, or Windows Vista Premium or Ultimate.

Being a pretty hardcore computer geek, I like the idea of a fully outfitted computer in my living room, but desktops use a lot
of electricity, and sometimes you just want something that’s easy to set up and simple to use. The D-Link DSM-330 attempts to fill
this kind of need.

Julie passed on her Unicorn Mvix 760HD
after she upgraded to an Apple TV, and it’s had a happy home in my living room for the past eight months or so. I love my Mvix,
so I knew that any similar product was going to face some serious competition. What I like about the Mvix is that it is extremely
flexible. It’s compatible with a huge range of file formats (even VOB files ripped directly from DVDs), it can hold an IDE hard
drive, and the latest firmware update significantly increased its general stability. So, does the DSM-330 compare?

Sadly, no. There is a lot wrong with this device, and with an MSRP of nearly $400, you’re much better off looking for other
solutions.

The meaning behind “DivX-Connected™”

When D-Link originally released the DSM-330, they also released a new online service that allowed streaming DRM-protected HD
video, complete with menus, in the DivX format. It was a good idea, but it didn’t last long. The service was prohibitively
expensive to keep up and running, and it was shut down only a few years after its inception. This was supposed to be one of the
main drivers behind the DSM-330 – you could upload video and stream HD video directly from the Internet to your television. Once
the service was terminated, the DSM-330′s functionality became a bit more limited.

Aside from the now-defunct Stage6 streaming service, the DSM-330 works with the DivX-Connected server software. This is a
Windows-only application that allows the DSM-330 to connect to your network and stream music, video, and digital pictures. There
are also plugins available that enable you to access video services on the Internet, like Hulu and YouTube.

I was originally pretty jazzed when I found out about the Hulu support, but it turns out that it’s not so great – we’ll get to
that in a minute.

What’s in the box

One bright spot in this product is that the DSM-330 includes a full range of cables, so you don’t need to worry about buying
anything extra to get started.

• DSM-330 device
• Remote control with batteries
• Screw-on wireless antenna
• SCART to Component cable
• HDMI cable
• Composite A/V cable
• Power adapter
• Ethernet cable
• DivX-Connected installation CD
• Product documentation

The tech specs

• Video outputs:
  • HDMI
  • Component
  • SCART
  • S-Video
  • Composite
• Audio outputs:
  • RCA stereo
  • S/PDIF
  • Optical
• Connectivity:
  • 802.11b/g wireless (WPA and WEP)
  • 10/100 fast Ethernet
• Supported video formats:
  • DivX
  • XviD
  • Windows Media 9 Video
• Supported audio formats:
  • MP3
  • WMA
  • M3U, M3U8, and PLS playlists
• Supported image formats:
  • JPEG
  • BMP

It’s worth noting that the DSM-330 is quite limited in its support of various digital media formats. It doesn’t even support AAC
(.m4a files), which is nearly as ubiquitous as MP3, thanks to the popularity of iTunes. Video support is also very limited, with
no compatibility with QuickTime or MPEG-4 formats. Images are limited to JPEG and BMP, so there’s no PNG support. Other file formats
can be enabled through third-party hacks and plugins, but out-of-the-box the player is pretty crippled.

At the very least, the remote control is pretty well laid out and easy to use. The buttons aren’t too stiff or too mushy, and the
DSM-330 seems to have a pretty good field of vision for the remote’s IR transmitter.

Using the device

Initial setup allows you to configure your network settings (enter any WEP or WPA keys for your WiFi network, etc.) and connect to
a DivX-Connected server. The server software requires at least Windows XP. The software is unremarkable but adequate. You can add
directories to the server software for videos, music, and photos. You can also use the server software to add plugins for support
for online streaming services like YouTube.

I’m not all that happy that server software is required to use the device. There’s a USB port on the front, but it’s unsupported
and officially “for service use only”. Even streaming Internet video requires that the DivX-Connected software be up and running.
Without a server to connect to, the DSM-330 won’t even start up past the basic setup screen. This is in stark contrast to the
Mvix 760HD, with its internal hard drive and two USB ports for connecting thumb drives and external hard drives. In my
opinion, if I’m going to have a computer on in order to play media on my television, I might as well have a full-fledged home
theatre PC in my living room.

Once you have your DivX-Connected server up and running and the DSM-330 connected, you can browse through an animated interface
to access your files. The interface is well thought out, but it’s slow and unresponsive. It seemed to hang for me a lot, which
got pretty frustrating. The little animations and effects seem to slow down the interface.

One of the supposed cool features of this device is its extensibility via plugins. I downloaded and installed the Hulu plugin, and
was sorely disappointed. TV shows are limited to 480i only (even though many shows on Hulu are available in 480p), and the player
doesn’t actually stretch the video to the dimensions of the screen, leaving you with a large black frame around the video area.

This brings me to what is probably my biggest complaint about the DSM-330. If you’ve ever hooked up a computer to a CRT television,
you’ll probably notice that the image doesn’t necessarily fully fit the dimensions of the television’s screen. It seems as though
the DSM-330 is designed in this same way. The screen doesn’t fit correctly to my television, so there is a black frame around
anything displayed by the DSM-330. This may not be a problem on LCD or plasma televisions, but I’d say it’s pretty inexcusable on
a device this expensive.

The bottom line

Unfortunately, I can’t really recommend the DSM-330 for anyone. If you want something with minimal setup, you can try the Apple TV,
but overall I’d highly recommend the Mvix 780HD (the replacement for the 760HD) over the D-Link DSM-330 for your media streaming
needs. The DSM-330 is underpowered and too limited for its high price. It can be found online for about $250, but even that seems a
little pricey for something with a slow user interface, complete dependency on a server machine, and very limited file format

support.

Filed in categories: Audio, Video, TV Gear

Tagged: A/V, Audio, Device, Video

D-Link DSM-330 DivX-Connected HD Media Player Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on November 15, 2008 at 6:30 pm.

It’s only been four months since I reviewed Slacker’s first generation Slacker Personal Radio Player, and now they have a new model available called the G2. I’ve loved using their first player, so I was super excited to be able to get my hands on a second generation unit. Second generation units are always better than their predecessors right? Let’s find out…

Hardware Specifications

Display: 2.4″ diagonal 320 x 240 TFT-LCD
Capacity: 4GB or 8GB
Audio Formats: MP3, WMA & AAC
WiFi: 802.11b/g
Battery type: Li-Polymer, up to 15hrs play time
Dimensions: 3.42 x 0.53 x 2.10 in (87 x 13.5 x 53mm)
Weight: 2.6 oz (74g)

Package Contents

Portable player
Plastic belt carrier
USB cable
AC Adapter
Earbuds with 3 sizes of ear tips
Slacker sticker
Quick Start Guide

If you’re not familiar with the Slacker Personal Radio, it’s a WiFi enabled radio that is used in conjunction with the free web radio service at http://slacker.com. Think of it as web radio on the go.
It doesn’t stream music like web radio clients on your desktop computer, it
refreshes station content (music) via WiFi.

The G2 is available in two capacities: 4GB and 8GB. You can choose up to 25 different stations for the 4GB device and up 40 stations for the 8GB device. There are currently 110 stations (and growing) available to choose from. There’s Rock, Classical, Country, Blues, Comedy, Seasonal music, etc. If you don’t see a station that you like, you can even create your own by building a list of your favorite artists. Mix country with classical and throw in a pinch of Spanish pop. It’s entirely up to you.

The G2 player is a complete redesign from the original player. As you can see, it’s significantly smaller. Smaller is typically better in the gadget world, but I have to say that I do kind of miss the larger display of the original player. The G2′s display is no slouch though. It’s bright, vivid and easy to read.

The device is about the size of an old school pager, with a Black plastic shell. The face of the G2 is slick and glossy. Yay, fingerprints and smudges… The sides and part of back have a thin rubber coating. The back of the device has a brushed aluminum covering, with the Slacker emblem.

The face of the G2 has five buttons. Along the the top are the favorite and ban buttons. If you use Slacker’s free service, pressing the heart button will cause the currently playing song to play more often. If you have the premium service, pressing the heart button will copy that track into your library (if the song has been licensed to allow that… some aren’t) so that you can play it whenever you like. Pressing the ban button will cause the currently playing song to not play again
on that station. Yay, no more Jonas Brothers ever again! My life is instantly
better )

Along the bottom are normal music playback buttons for Prev, Next, Play and Pause.
The Play/Pause button doubles as a wake up and shutdown button when you hold it
down for several seconds.

The top edge of the player has a volume rocker button and a stereo headphone jack.

On the Right side, you’ll find a jog dial that you can use to scroll through stations and menu items. Pressing the
dial in will select items. Below the jog dial is the menu button. Press it to go to the home menu. At the bottom a hold switch.

The bottom edge has a dock connector that isn’t currently used for anything. Maybe we’ll see a car dock at some point though…

The user interface

The user interface on the G2 isn’t that much different than the previous version. While a song is playing, the station’s name is listed at the top, with the album art occupying most of the screen. The current song’s title and artist name are beneath it. There’s also a song progress bar with a time counter and the name of the next song’s artist.
You can skip to the next track by using the next button. If you’re a premium
subscriber, you can skip as many times as you like. If you have the free
service, you can only skip 6 times per station, per hour.

You might wonder if you can press the Prev track button to replay a song. You
can’t do this in the station mode. You can play previous tracks from your
library or playlists though.

One of the features that I love about the Slacker Personal Radio is the artist and album info. Using the jog dial, you can select the album and click on it, to read a review of that album. Clicking on the artist’s name will show you a picture of the artist and display their bio.

Pressing the menu button will scroll up the main menu, which includes picks for stations, library, playlists, settings and connect.

Stations displays a list of all the stations on your player so that you can easily switch between them.

Library displays the songs that you’ve marked as favorites if you have a premium
subscription, or songs that you’ve copied to the player using the desktop
client.

Playlists are created from the music in your library.

Connect will initiate a refresh of the stations via WiFi. This is also initiated
automatically when you use the USB power adapter to charge the G2. You can continue to use your player to listen to music while it’s refreshing content.

Audio quality, battery life and performance

I’ve noticed that the G2 does have slightly better audio quality over the original device. There’s even a new equalizer feature that you can use to customize the audio, as well
as volume normalization options. I keep the EQ set to off and still think the audio quality of the G2 is better than the G1.

Battery life has been improved too. The original unit could play for around 10hrs per charge and this new model can go for an additional 5hrs.

As far as performance goes, I found navigating menus and lists to feel snappy. The only speed issue that I can complain about is that it takes too long for the G2 to boot up
after being powered off for a period of time.

Do you need a computer to use the Slacker G2 player?

You really only need a computer for two things. You need access to a web browser in order to select your stations, change your stations or create stations.
If you want to copy your own music to the player, you have to download a client application which is currently
only available for Windows computers. If you’re a Mac person like I am, you can just use the Slacker website to manage your stations.
Unfortunately, you won’t be able to copy your own music to your player though…

Should you spring for the premium service?

The premium service gives you unlimited skips, no ads or DJ commentary and the ability to have favorite songs saved to your device for anytime listening. With the free service,
you do get the skip feature, but you can only skip 6 times per station, per hour. I went ahead and paid for the premium service when I purchased the original Slacker radio.

Is the Slacker G2 Personal Radio a worthy successor to the original?

If you already have the first gen unit and don’t mind the size or 10hr battery life, I would say that an upgrade to the G2 is not really necessary. The main differences between
the G1 and G2 are:

Over 40% smaller in size
Improved audio quality
Custom EQ and Volume Normalization options
Improved Wi-Fi connectivity and transfer speeds
25% longer battery life

The Slacker G2 Personal Radio is a great little device for people that like to discover new music. I love mine and hope Slacker continues to improve upon thier product. I can’t wait
to see what the G3 will bring us.

$199.99 4GB
$249.99 8GB
Premium service: $9.99 3/mo. (billed as $29.99), $8.88 6/mo. (billed as $49.99), 12 month $7.50/mo. (billed as $89.99)

Filed in categories: Audio, Video, TV Gear

Tagged: A/V, Audio, Device, Video, WiFi

Slacker G2 Personal Radio Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on November 13, 2008 at 10:15 am.

You’ve no doubt heard of, or have seen the Snowball microphone from BlueMic.
It’s a very popular microphone for podcasters and anyone that wants to record audio. BlueMic have a new microphone
to add to their product line – the Snowflake USB mic. This is their first professional portable USB microphone, and I
think they have another winner on their hands.

Hardware Specifications

Transducer Type: Pressure Gradient w/USB Digital Output
Polar Pattern: Cardioid
Sample/Word: 44.1kHz / 16 bit
Frequency Response: 35Hz – 20kHz
Maximum SPL (THD 0.5%): 120 dB SPL

Package Contents

Snowflake microphone
USB cable
Instruction sheet

The design of the Snowflake is compact and portable. It folds up into a 6 ounce, 3.5 x 2.75 inch sized module, that can easily fit in almost
any sized gear bag or drawer.

The microphone is attached to a hinge that can pivot up and down.

The microphone can also swivel 365 degrees.

When you lift the microphone, you’ll notice a nifty little storage area for the included USB cable.

On the back side of the microphone is a mini USB connector. Just connect one end to the Snowflake and the other end to your
PC or Mac and you’re all set. I like to use the microphone is this configuration with my iMac. The only thing I wish is that
the base was just a bit heavier. If you extend the microphone too far forward, it has a tendancy to tip over. I suppose it would be
pretty easy to just place a small weight of some kind into the cavity that holds the USB cable.

You can also separate the Snowflake from the plastic base and use it with most laptop computers.

The aluminum hook slips over the edge of the laptop display. The Snowflake can fit over any laptop display that is not thicker
than around 5/8 of an inch. Four rubber feet protect the display from scratches. In the image above, you can see it sitting on top
of my 15inch Macbook Pro.

This microphone is plug and play, and is compatible with both PCs and Macs. You don’t have to worry about installing drivers or any special
software. For my testing of this product, I used it with my iMac and GarageBand. Upon plugging the Snowflake into my system, it was immediately
recognized and ready for use. Here are two short audio samples that I created. The audio in these samples have not been enhanced in anyway.

Voice recording sample
Instrument recording sample

For the voice sample, I had the Snowflake sitting in front of me on desk approximately one foot diagonally from my mouth. I said “Testing 123,
Testing 123″ and then leaned forward about 6 inches and repeated “Testing 123, Testing 123″. Lastly, I moved to within 2 inches of the microphone
and again repeated “Testing 123, Testing 123″. For the instrument recording, I placed the Snowflake on the edge of my desk about 8-9 inches from
the front of my ukulele.

I am very impressed with the Snowflake. The recordings that I have created with it are clear and sound very good to my ears. For the past year,
I’ve been using a Samson Zoom H2 recorder for my the ukulele instrument reviews on my other site Ukulele Review.
I have found that using the Snowflake is easier and less of a hassle for me to use. If you are looking for a high-quality condensder microphone to use for podcasting,
skype, chat, or other audio tasks, I think you’ll find that the BlueMic Snowflake will do a fine job for you.

Filed in categories: Audio, Video, TV Gear

Tagged: A/V, Audio, Device, Video

BlueMic Snowflake USB Microphone Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on October 29, 2008 at 10:30 am.

MP3 players come in 100′s of different shapes, sizes, colors and capacities. The player I want to show you today is unique because it’s shaped like a Mickey Mouse head. It’s the iRiver Mplayer Disney. The fine folks at Advanced MP3 Players in the UK sent one to me to review.

Hardware Specifications

Storage: 1GB
File Type: MPEG 1/2/2.5 Layer 3, WMA, ASF
Bit Rate: MP3, WMA : 8kbps ~ 320kbps
Play time per charge: ~9hrs

Package Contents

Mplayer
Earbuds / neck lanyard
USB cable

This audio player is officially license by Disney and is available in Black, White and Pink.

The Mplayer is made of plastic and has a ‘head’ about the same diameter as a quarter. On top of the head are two ears that can be clicked clockwise or counter clockwise. One ear controls volume and the other allows you to go forwards and backwards through your song tracks.

On one side of the head there is a power button and a reset switch.

The top of the player has a headphone jack and a eyelet for the included headphone / necklace.

On the bottom is a mini USB connector. Using the included USB cable, you can charge and copy music to and from the player as if it were a regular USB drive. It can be used with PCs or Macs and doesn’t require any special software to load the music. Just drag and drop your .MP3, .WMA or .ASF files into the Music folder. You can organize the music files into folders if desired.

A tiny Red LED on one side of the player will glow Red while the player is charging and will turn Green when the battery is fully charged. FYI: You can’t listen to music while it’s charging.

Audio quality through the Mplayer and included earbuds is good. No complaints there. But I did notice a few problems using this player to listen to music. First, there’s no shuffle feature. When you press the power button, it will automatically start playing music and will always start with the same track every time you turn it on. Since there’s no display or menu system, there’s no real easy way to find a specific track to listen to. You have to just keep skipping songs till you find the one you want. The biggest problem though is the lack of a pause button. As is, if you’re in the middle of listening to a podcast or audio book and need to stop, you’ll have to start from the beginning of the track when you want to start listening again. Ugh…

This player is really cute, I’ll give it that. I also like using the ear/knobs to control things. They seem more friendly than buttons. But, I always have to look for the silkscreened + and – to see which ear controls the volume. Due to the lack of a pause feature though, I probably wouldn’t buy this player for myself. Die hard Disney collectors might overlook its deficiencies though…

Price through Advanced MP3 Players is £29.99, which is cheaper than the $99.99 that I found at Buy.com here in the US.

Filed in categories: Audio, Video, TV Gear

Tagged: A/V, Audio, MP3

iRiver Disney Mplayer Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on October 13, 2008 at 8:00 pm.

Autumn is my favorite time of year for a couple different reasons. I love the cooler weather, the changing colors of the leaves and … new Apple iPods! For the last 4 years around this time, we’ve been introduced to a new iPod nano and this year is no different…

Hardware Specifications

Storage: Available in 8GB and 16GB Flash drive capacities
Display: 2.0-inch (diagonal), 320 x 240 pixels 204 DPI, LED backlight
Frequency response: 20Hz to 20,000Hz
Audio formats: Audio formats supported: AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Store), MP3 (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3, and 4), Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV
Video formats: H.264 video, up to 1.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Low-Complexity version of the H.264 Baseline Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; H.264 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Baseline Profile up to Level 3.0 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
Audio: 3.5mm stereo headphone minijack
Power: Rechargeable lithium polymer battery (up to 24hrs of audio playback time and 4hrs of video playback time)
Size: 3.6 x 1.5 x 0.24in (90.7 x 38.7 x 6.2mm)
Weight: 1.3oz (36.8g)

Package Contents

iPod nano
Earphones
USB 2.0 cable
Dock adapter
Quick Start guide

The nano really hasn’t changed drastically since 2005 when the original model made its debut.

I still have all my nanos as you can see above. The 1st generation nano looked like a miniature version of the full sized iPod of that time. One year later we were given the 2nd generation version, with its brushed aluminum body and curved edges. Last year’s 3rd generation nano was a bit of a surprise with its squatty design and landscape display. This year’s nano is a combination of generations 2 and 3.

Gone is the squished design of the last model; we’re back to a tall nano, with a tall display to go along with it. Available in nine colors, more than ever offered before, I decided on Orange.

Like the 2nd generation nano, this one has a one piece brushed aluminum shell.

The shape is a thin oval, making it appear quite slender from the side.

In reality, it’s not that much thinner than previous nano models.

The top edge has a hold switch…

The bottom edge has the dock connector, which happily has not changed from previous models. There is also a headphone jack located next to it.

The touch wheel also remains virtually unchanged from previous nanos. The only slight difference being that it curved to match the shape of the body.

The player is solid, but very light weight. I sort of wish it weighed more as it almost feels like it’s a demo unit with no innards. It does feel comfortable in hand though and is as easy to use as previous models.

The display looks oddly elongated, but is the same size and resolution as the previous nano (Fatty). It’s just in portrait orientation, instead of landscape. Other than that, it seems to be similar in color and brightness. One nice feature is that the display has a glass cover – it should do a good job at remaining unscratched.

So, not much has really changed with this new nano as far as the hardware design goes. Let’s take a look at the user interface.

The layout has slightly changed from the previous nano. A band of album art scrolls along the bottom of the display instead of on the right side. All the same main menu items are there though.

Everything appears to be the same until you start playing a song. It’s then that you notice the new Now Playing screen, which is similar to the iPhone and iPod touch. This is a nice improvement as the album art uses almost the entire display.

Sound quality doesn’t seem to have changed with this new version. I have no complaints in that area.

Besides the change in the Now Playing screen, this nano has inherited another iPhone / touch feature – the built in accelerometer. Rotating the nano will flip the screen. If you’re playing music, or are viewing a menu, it will automatically put you in cover flow mode. The screen will rotate automatically to landscape / widescreen mode when you watch video.

Apple has thrown in a few more new goodies too. There’s Genius mode, which will create a playlist of songs that go together. You can also shake your nano to shuffle to a new song. Another new feature is voice prompts. This is a great feature for people that are visually impaired. As you scroll through the menus, a male voice reads the menu items to you. And last, but not least, this nano can record voice memos if you plug in a microphone. It works well with the iPhone earbuds/mic.

Do I suggest that you run out and buy an iPod nano 4G even if you already have the 3G? Nope, not at all. Really I don’t think there has been a real improvement with this new version over the previous one. Yes, you can get a 16GB model – whoopee. I guess you can tell that I’m a bit bored with the nano. I think that it is overpriced for what it can do. I’d much rather spend $30 more and get get an 8GB iPod touch instead. There’s a lot more to like about the touch as it has WiFi, a bigger screen, web browser, app store, games, etc. I wonder if there will even be a new nano or regular sized iPod announced next year at this time… We’ll see, but I really doubt it.

Filed in categories: Audio, Video, TV Gear

Tagged: A/V, Audio, Device, MP3, Video

Apple iPod nano (4G) Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on October 12, 2008 at 4:30 pm.

One of the few features Apple has yet to integrate into its iPods is the ability to stream audio wirelessly via bluetooth. With the large number of electronic
devices and accessories either already available or coming on the market with built-in bluetooth, it seems like Apple should finally make it a reality. But until that magic moment, iBluon has created the TD02 (available through Brando), a small, lightweight Bluetooth audio transmitter engineered to connect to the iPod’s connector/sync port.

First and foremost, the TD02 bluetooth dongle works incredibly well. I plugged the dongle into my iPod Touch, it immediately went into pairing mode, and paired with my Jabra BT8010 Bluetooth stereo headset without any assistance from me (true plug & play). The sound quality was as good as wired earbuds, definitely no static or other audio issues. The AVRCP function allows Bluetooth headsets/devices to control many of the iPods/iPhones functions (i.e., play/pause, volume, skip, etc), although this is device dependent. My BT8010 controlled my Touch’s play/pause and volume but did not have the capability to skip ahead.

According to Brando, the TD02 (Infinxx AP23) is the smallest bluetooth dongle currently available for the iPod.

Features:

• Adds bluetooth A2DP function to your iPhone/iPod
• The smallest, slimmest, lightest A2DP transmitter available for the iPod/iPhone
• Powered by the iPhone/iPod
• Supports AVRCP function (remote control of play/stop, forward / backward, volume functions )
• With LED flashing patterns indicating the BT connection status
• Compatible with all A2DP bluetooth headphones / BT speakers

Specifications:

According to iBluon (& Brando), the TD02 is compatible with the Mini, iPod w/color display, iPod w/video, iPod Classic, all generations of Nanos, Touch and iPhone. I have tried the dongle with my Touch, a friends iPhone, my wife’s 2G and my 3G Nano. Three of the four worked perfectly. I was never able to get my 3G Nano to work with the bluetooth dongle. My Nano kept saying it was an ‘unsupported accessory’. I updated to the latest firmware, tried it with and without the lock switch on, and resetting the Nano….no luck. When I was at BestBuy I tried the dongle on their 3G Nanos and it did not work on any of theirs as well.

I went to CarToys and BestBuy to pair the iPod/TD02 with other Bluetooth devices. I paired it with a bluetooth enabled stereo speaker. Like the Jabra headphones, they paired/connected seamlessly without any input from me. However, when I was in CarToys there were so many Bluetooth enabled
car stereos (and no digital display on the dongle) it was (silly as it sounds) difficult to pair the TD02 with a specific car stereo. The indicator light said it was paired with something but the CarToys person and I could figure out which one. This should not be an issue in a car with a single stereo.

The concern I have with pairing is the fact that the dongle has a single (unchangeable) bluetooth authentication code (0000). That means if the device you are attempting to pair it with needs an authentication code of 1234 (or anything else) you are out of luck. The TD02 does not allow any type of input….absolute automatic pilot. But this is a relatively minor issue due to most devices you would be pairing it to would either have no authentication or 0000 as the code.

Surprisingly, the dongle does not significantly affect the iPods/iPhones battery life. I had my Touch paired with my stereo headset, playing music continuously for 5 hours (screen off), the battery charge went from 100% to approximately 75%.

iBluon has done a good job creating an iPod/iPhone accessories that definitely fills a void Apple has yet to. If you have any bluetooth stereo (A2DP enabled)
equipment and do not like wire laying around, I suggest you give the TD02 serious consideration.

Filed in categories: Audio, Video, TV Gear

Tagged: A/V, Audio, Bluetooth Gear, Device, Video

iBluon TD02 (INFINXX AP23) Bluetooth Audio Transmitter for iPods Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on September 4, 2008 at 4:04 pm.

Since my first experience with digital audio recording with a Sony M1 DAT more than ten years ago I have been an avid fan of new digital audio gadgets. I even got myself a (volunteer, non-paying) gig recording a weekly chamber music series locally, which is an opportunity to spend even bigger bucks on fancy microphones and preamps. But when last year a friend gave me a 1905 Edison Standard Phonograph cylinder player, I really was in gadget heaven. No bits, no bytes, no electrons, just a wind-up motor, and audio out of a groove onto a diaphragm into a horn. And it was damn LOUD. This of course eventually led me to upgrading to my forum avatar, a 1912 Edison Opera, top of the line cylinder player, and to hang out at various internet old time phonograph chat areas, where a few months ago I learned of a kit put out by a Japanese company, Gakken, which specializes in retro tech science kits. Reports from other Victrola forum members indicated that the kit worked, both for playing records and recording, and was not too hard to assemble, even though the instructions were all in Japanese (the eBay auction site has recently added a brief English translation of the parts dealing with recording, but not assembly). So I ordered one (from eBay seller minorinminorin, $82 plus $32 shipping to US, $37 to Europe, very fast delivery), and this weekend I put it together.

The kit comes tightly packed in a surprisingly small box.

The parts are all sorted and sealed in clear plastic bags, and the instruction illustrations suffice to enable you to assemble it in about two hours.

The finished phonograph is about 16” long and a foot high.

The only problems I had were interpreting the illustration of the odd (but effective) way they use scotch tape to seal the horn inside, and a brief panic at the end when I had not only a few extra screws left over (which I am pretty sure are there just to compensate for normal clumsy-finger losses), but also two medium size plastic rings. There was also an odd metal tool which I never got to use. But the last three pages of the manual illustrate the use of these items: you can take apart the soundbox (using the tool and the supplied small Phillips screwdriver) and insert one or the other of the plastic rings to give the link from the soundbox to the horn a different shape. This, and recording on different materials, constitute the science experiment part of the kit. But I was happy just to crank up the motor, cut a piece of bamboo into a needle (phonograph fans call this a “fibre” needle), and let loose with Caruso (adjusting the speed to get an approximation to his tenor pitch: you can use an included strobe disc to set the speed more exactly):

Click on image to play video

Using a “Tungs-tone” multiplay needle or a regular steel 78rpm phono needle produces a louder sound:

Click on image to play video

Neither of these needles works too well with LPs, though the Premium Gramophone has the three canonical speed settings (33/45/78). The micro-grooves are too narrow for bamboo and steel will damage them. I stuck to 78s.

My only disappointment with this kit is that the two most interesting parts come fully assembled. The spring motor is all there in the baseboard (though you get to attach the small spring and the arm that controls the governor), and the soundbox is assembled as well (though you get to experiment with it to some extent).

I see that there are now two sellers of the kit on eBay. I recommend Minoru most highly, for quick problem free delivery and help with questions, even though the new seller is undercutting him by a few dollars. There are also on eBay two cheaper (and inferior) Gakken audio kits, not to mention their Sterling engine and vacuum engine car. You could get hooked.

Filed in categories: Audio, Video, TV Gear

Tagged: A/V, Audio, Device, Video

Gakken Premium Gramophone Kit Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on August 29, 2008 at 9:05 pm.

I love my 65 inch TV. Even though it’s a rear projection TV and not a flat screen, which means it takes up a lot of space in my basement. I went from a 27 inch TV straight up to 65. I can’t go back now… no way. What do you do if you don’t have room for a giant TV, but still want that big screen experience? Vuzix thinks they have a solution with their iWear AV490 Video Eyewear. These glasses claim to give you a 62 inch screen experience. Let’s just see about that…

Hardware Specs

Twin high-resolution 640×480 (920,000 pixels) LCD displays
Equivalent to a 62″ screen viewed from 9 feet
Millions of colors
Visor weighs 2.9 ounces
Integrated rechargeable lithium ion battery allows approximately five hours of continuous operation
60 Hz progressive scan update rate

Package Contents

iWear AV920
Lens cleaning carrying pouch
Headstrap
DVD Player Cable
5th Generation Video iPod Cable (Cable Will NOT work with iPod Classic, iPod Nano, iPhone or iPod Touch)
Composite audio/video cable
Manual with warranty and safety instructions

I’ve always wondered how good video glasses were, but thought I wouldn’t be able to test them given the fact that I already wear regular glasses. The AV920′s can be worn with glasses, so I was happy to give them a try.

The glasses are made of shiny Black plastic and have a 53 inch cable with a small module connected at one end.

This module is where you plug in the included mini USB cable for charging, or one of the included video cables that allow you to connect these glasses to various video sources. Supported Devices include: Portable DVD players, Media players, Gaming systems, Digital cameras, Camcorders, Cellular phones with video output, iPod 5th generation devices. The iWear AV920 is designed to connect to almost all NTSC or PAL audio/video device with video out capabilities. For this review, I used my iPod Classic and a regular DVD player.

The AV920′s are like normal glasses in as much as they have folding temples…

and an adjustable nose bridge.

The default bridge has nose pads that can be customized by bending the wires that they are attached to. You can also remove this bridge and install a rubber bridge that is also included.

Also included is a soft rubber light shield that can be used with either style nose bridge.

You’ll notice the earphones that are built into the frame of the glasses. These earbuds are attached to flexible stems. The earphones aren’t really designed to fit inside your ears though…

You might think that a gadget like these video glasses might be difficult to use. That’s definitely not the case. All you have to do is to charge the glasses using the included USB cable for about 4 hours. This will give you approximately 5 hours of play time per charge. Once charged, you connect the appropriate video cable to the module and then connect your preferred video output device.

To power on the glasses, you just press the spring loaded wheel on the bottom right edge of the glasses. From there, you turn on the video device and video will begin playing on the twin LCD color screens inside the glasses. The wheel can be turned to adjust the volume in the earphones, or pressed to bring up the on screen menu which gives you the ability to change brightness, contrast, backlight brightness and video mode control (2D/3D).

The very first thing that I noticed with these glasses was the fact that I could not use either nose bridge style. The one with the adjustable nose pads stuck out too far and didn’t allow me to fit the video glasses close enough to my eyes while I was wearing my regular glasses. I tried bending them in a variety of ways, but had no real luck. I didn’t have much luck with the rubber nose bridge style either. Even when I took my glasses off, neither style felt right or allowed the glasses to sit on my face well enough. I couldn’t see the video without my glasses anyway. It was blurry. I ended up taking off the nose bridge altogether and then the video glasses were able to fit me – sorta. They still were not very comfortable.

Oh look, it’s Geordi La Forge’s sister!

Video quality watching regular videos from my iPod or with a DVD player through these glasses was good. I won’t say it was super fantastic, because it’s not. The color is good, but the picture is nowhere near high def by any stretch of the imagination. And if these glasses are supposed to give a person a 62 inch big screen experience, I’d think you would expect a really really good picture. I’m not saying the video quality through these glasses is bad, it’s just not going to impress many people. I have been watching a 65 inch TV for several years and these glasses do not give me the same experience. I’d actually rather watch a 27 inch TV from 6-7 feet away, or watch video on the small screen of my iPod classic, then watch video with these glasses. This is mainly because I find the glasses to be uncomfortable to wear for any length of time. Also after watching video through them for awhile and then taking them off, I felt like my eyes were a bit tired and blurry for awhile until they readjusted.

I did find two ways that these video glasses can be both fun and useful. The first way is that they can do 3D. There’s a very short DVD included with the glasses that has a couple 3D movie trailers that you can watch. I love stuff like that and was impressed using the glasses for that type of video content. I’m not sure how much 3D content is available though.

The AV920′s are useful in that they would be perfect for someone that is confined to a bed and has to lie flat. Wearing the glasses while lying down does seem to be more comfortable, at least to me…

In the end, I think that $350 is a lot of money to pay for this product. For me personally, I’d rather just spend that money on an actual TV or watch video on the small screen of my iPod. Let me know what you think, would you use a product like this?

Filed in categories: Audio, Video, TV Gear

Tagged: A/V, Audio, Device, Video

Vuzix iWear AV920 Video Eyewear Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on August 19, 2008 at 9:45 pm.

I’m a minimalist. The problem is that I’m a minimalist that has too much stuff. ;o) For those of you that might be true minimalists, I have a nifty USB doo-dad to show you, that has the potential to allow you to ditch your High Def TV and DVR. It’s the PCTV HD Pro Stick (801e) from Pinnacle Systems. With it, you can use your Windows laptop or desktop computer as your TV and DVR. Let’s take a look…

I’m sure that you’ve all been seeing the public service announcements on TV regarding the fact that as of February
17th next year, analog TV signals
will be going bye bye. This tuner will allow you to pull in DTV (digital TV) channels over the air or via your cable company.

Hardware Specs

TV Standards:
-ATSC (HDTV up to 1080i, SDTV)
-NTSC (cable, over the air)
-ClearQAM (HDTV up to 1080i, SDTV)
Inputs:
-TV/FM antenna (F-connector/Coaxial)
-S-Video, Composite Video (RCA), Stereo Audio (1/8″)
Recording Formats:
-MPEG-1/2
-DivX4
-MPEG-4: compatible with PSP or iPod (Trial Version)

Package Contents

USB 2.0 TV tuner for ATSC/ClearQAM/NTSC and FM radio reception
Mini remote control including batteries
Portable telescopic high-gain antenna
A/V Adapter cable
USB extender cable
Printed quick start guide
CD with Pinnacle TVCenter Pro and VideoSpin editing software

The PCTV USB tuner doesn’t look much different than your run of the mill flash
drive. The only noticeable difference is the threaded connector sticking out of
one end. You can attach the included telescoping antenna to this connector, or
a coax cable to another antenna or cable TV cable.

On the Right side of the tuner is a small connector for the A/V Adapter cable which is included
with the package. You can use this cable to attach the tuner to a satellite or cable box.

I love the 25 button IR remote control that ships with the PCTV. It has real
buttons instead of the crummy plastic membrane type. It runs on 2 AAA batteries
which are thankfully also included.

To use the PCTV, you first need to install the Pinnacle TVCenter Pro software which is included on CD. Then plug the USB tuner into a free port on your computer, attach the included antenna and start launch the TVCenter Pro software. FYI: you can also use this tuner with Windows Media Center. The included remote is not compatible with Windows Media Center though…

The first time you run the software, it will scan for available channels in your area. It will find analog and digital. It will also find FM radio stations for you. Scanning can take awhile, so be prepared to wait about 10 minutes or so for that step to complete.

I was really surprised how many channels the included antenna found when I did my initial scan in my basement. Of course, when I did a second scan with the tuner connected to my 30 foot TV tower, it found quite a few more. The moral of the story is that the number of channels that this tuner can find is entirely dependent on your location.

It’s also important to remember that even if you get a long list of channels during your scan, that they might not all actually look that great when you try to watch them. Your signal will definitely vary per channel. In my area, scanning with the included desktop antenna found none of the network HD channels (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX) in my area. But when I connected the coax from my 30 foot tower outside, it found all of them. I tried to get some screen shots of different channels in action, but had a heck of a time doing so. As luck would have it, the only screen shot I was able to capture that wasn’t completely blank was of a cartoon. I will say that when the signal was good, that the HD broadcasts looked great. You can watch the shows in a window or full screen. I did all my testing using my Macbook Pro running Windows Vista with Bootcamp. The HD channels (all channels for that matter) looked considerably better in window mode instead of full screen.

The software interface allows you to pause live TV just like a DVR / Tivo and then unpause to start playing the show where it left off. You can also schedule recordings like you would with a Tivo or VCR and save them to your hard drive or DVD. The program guide only allows you to see the guide per channel instead of all the channels in a grid, but it works ok. When you install the TVCenter Pro software, it gives you the choice of using the premium electronic program guide or the basic guide. The offer is 1yr free of the premium guide. Since they didn’t require a credit card, I went with the free offer. To me the premium guide seems pretty basic… but I’m coming from using a DirecTV HD DVR, which has a full programming grid, with searching and other features…

In addition to watching TV, the PCTV HD Pro Stick also picks up FM radio broadcasts. The software interface even has internet radio too…

If I was super short on space, I might even consider using this USB tuner with a desktop computer and a large LCD display in the place of a regular TV. That said, I’m really spoiled by my DirecTV HD DVR, so I wouldn’t want to deal with the weak program guide offered with this product. The other issue is the fact that there isn’t a Mac version of the TVCenter Pro software… But, if you’re a Windows user with $100, the PCTV HD Pro Stick from Pinnacle Systems is a fun USB gadget to play with.

Filed in categories: Audio, Video, TV Gear

Tagged: A/V, Audio, Desktop, Device, Laptop, Video

Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick (801e) USB TV Tuner Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on August 18, 2008 at 8:21 pm.

Gadgets that wirelessly transmit audio from one place to another seem to be pretty popular these days. Case in point – the two reviews we recently posted here: the SoundCast OutCast Wireless Outdoor Speaker and the EOS Wireless Home Audio iPod Speaker System. The product I’d like to tell you about today has approximately the same features, but comes in a smaller package and seems to be marketed towards teens. It’s the i2i Stream from Aerielle.

Hardware Specs

2.4 GHz Wireless Transceiver
CD Quality Audio (Uncompressed)
Wireless Range: 30 Feet
Rechargeable Battery (Charge via USB Cable)
Battery Life: 5-7 Hours
Frequency Response: 10Hz-24kHz
Bit Rate: 16bit @ 48ksps Stereo
Audio Latency: < 20ms
SNR: > 75dB
THD: 0.007%
Stereo Separation: > 75dB

Package Contents

2 i2i Streams
2 12″ Audio cables
2 28″ Audio cables
2 USB charging cables
2 Pocket clips
2 Neck lanyards
User Guide

The i2i Stream is a small module that has both a receiver and a transmitter contained inside it, that operates on the 2.5GHz frequency. They are sold in packs of two for $119.95, or can be purchased separately at $69.95 each. I was sent one package of two for this review.

The modules are approximately 2.5 x 1.25 x 075 inches in size. On the face of the i2i Stream are three buttons and two LEDs. The round center button is the channel button. It has an LED behind it, that can glow Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple or Light Blue. Each color signifies a different transmit channel and changes each time you press it. The button above the channel button is the Send button and the button below it is the Receive button. If you press the Send button, it will cause the center LED to blink, which shows that you’re broadcasting audio on whichever colored channel is blinking. Pressing the Receive button will cause the module to receive any audio that is being broadcast on whichever colored channel that you’re set to.

The Right side of the i2i has a mini USB connector that is used to charge the internal batteries. On the top corner, there is a spring loaded volume adjustment switch that doubles as the power switch. Hold the button in to toggle power, and rock it up and down to adjust volume.

On the top edge of the module, there is a standard 3.5mm earphone jack and on the bottom there is a smaller 2.5mm jack.

To use the i2i Stream, take one of the included audio cables and plug the 3.5mm end into the earphone jack of your audio device. Plug the other end of the cable (2.5mm) into the bottom of the i2i. Then plug in your favorite pair of headphones into the earphone jack on the i2i. From there, you can listen to you music normally without even turning on the i2i as it can be used as a pass through device. Of course, that’s not the point right? Turn on the i2i and pick a channel color. Then press the Send button. Take the second i2i module and plug another set of headphones into it. Turn it on and press the Receive button. Presto! You’re now listening to the music from other i2i. The receiving i2i doesn’t need to be connected to an audio player in order to receive music through connected headphones.

These modules have a 30ft range, which seems about right as I was able to test them by placing one i2i on one end of my house and walking to the other end. My house is about 32 feet long, and true to the 30 ft claim, the music would start cutting out when I had the maximum distance between the modules. Audio quality while in range seemed fine to me. I didn’t notice a huge difference in quality when listening through both i2i modules. Music through the receiving unit is slightly flatter sounding, but not significantly. I did notice a problem with volume levels though. I actually didn’t think one of my i2i modules was even working because I couldn’t receive audio through it. I finally realized that I had to crank up the volume to hear it. Then I noticed that increasing the volume on the sending module caused the receiving module’s volume to also increase. To me, that seems like a bad design due to the fact that you could actually harm someone’s hearing by cranking up the volume on the sending unit.

These i2i Streams have a one to many broadcast capability. You can send music to an unlimited number of modules within the 30 foot range. That said, only 3 transmitters may operate within 30 feet of each other, and only if they are transmitting on different channels. If the units are near a WiFi hotspot or other strong wireless network(s), it is possible that only 2 transmitters will be able to simultaneously operate within the 30 feet.

The i2i Stream is an interesting product, but it seems like it’s a bit more trouble than it’s worth due to the fact that you have to carry it around with the audio device that you wish to transmit from. There are extra wires involved, another device to keep charged, etc. It seems like if your friends really wanted to listen to your music that you could just hand them your player or connect it to a set of speakers and let them listen to it that way. I don’t really buy into the whole music sharing concept that the i2i is marketed for. I mean, do you have any friends that already have this gadget right now? I doubt it… However, I do think that there are alternative uses for this product that make more sense to me. For example, you could use it as a cheaper and easier to use alternative to the Audioengine W1 Premium Wireless Audio Adapter for transmitting audio from one device or laptop to speakers on the other side of the room. The only downside left would be the battery life, which is rated for only 5-7 hours. That seems kind of low in my opinion since most iPods and other players batteries last longer. I think I’ll pass on the i2i Stream. Let me know if you think otherwise…

Filed in categories: Uncategorized

Tagged: A/V, Audio, Device, iPod, Video

Aerielle i2i Stream Wireless Digital Audio Streaming Device Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on August 15, 2008 at 9:00 pm.

Are you a fan of podcasts? For those of you that are not in the know,
podcasts are pre-recorded
audio or video ‘shows’ that cover a wide variety of subject manner. These
digital files were first created for the Apple
iPod, hence the
name podcast. iPod owners that use iTunes, have an easy to use interface for
finding and downloading these shows to their computers and / or iPods.
Zune owners have a
similar ability, but owners of other digital audio players are not so lucky.
The CastGrabber comes to the rescue with a
standalone device that allows you to download podcasts into most USB equipped
MP3 players (even iPods), without the aid of a PC.

Available in Black and White, I was sent the CastGrabber in Black.

Package Contents

CastGrabber device
Ethernet cable
AC adapter
User Guide

Right away, I was a little disappointed that this device requires a hardwired
connection into your network by way of a free Ethernet port in your router. WiFi
would have been a much more elegant solution.

The CastGrabber is a plastic wedge shaped device, with one button and a status
LED on the front.

A pull out tray extends from the face of the device. You can set your media
player on this tray while it downloads and charges.

To give you an idea of the size of the CastGrabber, I show it here with my iPod
Classic (USB cable not connected…).

On the bottom of the CastGrabber, you’ll find the Ethernet jack, USB port and
the power port.

Setup is a pretty simple four step process.

Step 1: Plug the included Ethernet cable into the bottom of the
CastGrabber and into an open port in your router, plug in the AC adapter and
then plug in your USB media player using the USB cable that came with your
player. Right now, there isn’t a list of all the compatible MP3 players that
will work with this device, but chances are that yours will work as long as it
is not a Sony PSP, iPhone, iPod touch, or an iPod that
has been used with a Mac. For this review, I used a PC
formatted iPod nano, a generic Philips MP3 player and a USB flash drive.

Step 2: As soon as you plug the media player into the CastGrabber, the
status LED on the top corner will begin flashing Red. After a few seconds it
will turn Green, at which point you can unplug it and check the player for a
track from artist CastGrabber, album CastGrabber. It will have a wacky three
word title like ItchyCowPants. This is the unique registration key for your
player.

Step 3: Go to the CastGrabber.net website and use that three word phrase
to create an account for that player. There isn’t a limit to the number of
players that you can register for your CastGrabber.

Step 4: This last step depends on if you’re going to grab podcasts for your
iPod, or podcasts for other media players… If you’re going to use the CastGrabber with your iPod, you need to load up iTunes, pick some podcasts,
subscribe to them and then sync your iPod with the PC that iTunes is installed on. After
the initial sync, you can then sync with the CastGrabber from then on – or until
you want to add or delete podcasts from the player. Each time you want to make a change to your
podcast subscriptions, you’ll need to do that on your PC and sync once with your
PC before using your CastGrabber to sync.

Click thumbnail to see full-size image

If you’re going to use the CastGrabber with a non-iPod media player, you can browse the
podcast directory on the CastGrabber site to subscribe to shows. 

They have a large selection and variety of podcasts to choose from, but from my
experience, I found that quite a few of them haven’t been updated in a long time, or are dead links.
No worries though as you can add your own podcasts by supplying the URL to the
podcast RSS feed.

After you subscribe to some feeds through the CastGrabber site, then you’ll be
able to use this device without needing a computer. All you have to do is
connect your player to the device and it will download your subscribed content
automatically.

Cool right? Well there are some significant caveats… First of all, the CastGrabber only
has a blinking LED as an indicator for the download process. It blinks Red while
downloading and turns solid Green when complete. That might not seem like a big
deal, but to me, it just makes me feel helpless when I don’t know how much
longer I have to wait for the process to finish. For my first test, I subscribed
to 12 podcasts and plugged in my iPod nano. After 1 hour had elapsed, I thought the CastGrabber
had crashed.
I let it continue and 6 hours later, I finally saw the Green LED.

The second problem is the transfer speed. It’s slow, very slow. The issue here is that by default, every time you plug your
player into the CastGrabber, it will delete of all your subscribed podcasts and
then download the latest 3 episodes of each of your subscriptions. It does this even if
there isn’t a new podcast to download. This is both annoying and time consuming. You do have the ability to change this preference to
the number of episodes that you want to download each time you connect the player to the CastGrabber. Just be aware that it will
still delete the all the episodes first and then download the latest x number of episodes again.

The third problem is that if you leave your player connected to the CastGrabber, it won’t continue to check for new
podcast episodes automatically. The only way to get new content is to physically disconnect and reconnect your player.

So, what are the advantages to using the CastGrabber over using a computer with iTunes or manually downloading episodes to copy to non-iPods? That is a question that I asked myself several times during my
testing and writing of this review. For iPod owners, I don’t see any real
advantage to using this device over using your computer with iTunes. Since you
have to use iTunes to make all changes (additions and deletions) anyway, it just seems
pointless to use the CastGrabber for syncing. For non-iPod users, the CastGrabber does
simplify things somewhat. You don’t have to manually download episodes and copy them to
the player, so it does cut out one step for you. That said, the issues mentioned above tend to make this product more trouble than it is worth – at least with its current feature set. The CastGrabber’s internal operating system can be updated though and according to the folks that make this product, they have plans to fix some of the problems that I’ve listed. Until they do, I would advise against purchasing this product.

Filed in categories: Audio, Video, TV Gear

Tagged: A/V, Audio, Device, iPod, Video

CastGrabber Podcast Download Device Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on August 14, 2008 at 5:00 am.

I’m a big fan of webcams. Once I figured out how to broadcast a webcam stream on a webpage,
I started broadcasting from work so that my mom and friends could see me. One idea I had related to this was setting up a little home
surveillance system with my two Logitech QuickCams and my eeePC 701′s integrated webcam. I’m mostly just curious to see what my cats do
all day while I’m at work. While setting up such a stream is pretty easy, it requires running a computer 24/7 and can be a little power and
bandwidth hungry.

For those really interested in setting up home surveillance, a networked video camera system can be a better solution. The Security Network
Control IP Camera from Brando is one such device.

Unlike a regular webcam, Brando’s camera is designed to be connected directly to a network. It has a fast Ethernet (10/100) NIC built in,
and it supports DHCP and static IP addresses. The general premise of this camera is to hook it up to your home network, and access it by
IP and port (or via a service like dyndns.com) through your browser. You can remotely control the camera’s position through the browser
interface. It seems like a pretty good idea. The question is, does it cut the mustard for being a $130 camera? Let’s find out…

What’s in the box

• VGA (640×480)b IP Security Camera
• Power adapter
• Plug adapter for U.S. outlets
• 3′ ethernet cable
• 3′ crossover ethernet cable
• A/V cable (3.5mm minijack to RCA)
• User’s guide
• Drivers CD

The hardware

The camera itself is surprisingly large. The base holds an SD card reader, an on/off switch, an ethernet port, and a 3.5mm A/V port. This is
part of this camera’s feature set. The web browser interface allows setting the camera to use two motion detectors to take still snapshots
whenever motion is detected. These snapshots can be uploaded via three methods – to the FTP server of your choice, to a temporary folder on
your local machine, or to an SD card.

The front of the camera holds – shocker – the lens itself, along with two motion sensors (indicated by dim LEDs that glow when the camera is
on) and a microphone.

I like the SD card idea – rather than relying on a network connection (which might fail while you’re gone),
you can be sure to capture any detected motion directly to the card. The user’s guide recommends at least a 2GB card, considering that you
might end up with many pictures (particularly if you leave the motion detector enabled while you’re at home, or if you have pets).

The A/V output allows you to connect the camera to a television for a sort of closed-circuit security system. I don’t have a TV in my office
(which is where I’ve put the camera), so this feature isn’t particularly useful to me. However, it could be pretty handy if you want to
put the camera in the baby’s room and have a reliable connection to it that doesn’t rely on a network.

The main method of connectivity is, of course, the ethernet port. This allows you to connect the camera directly to your home network.
The web interface allows you to configure what port to use, so that you can access the camera remotely. The user manual is sparse and doesn’t
actually explain why the crossover cable is included. I can only assume that it’s to setup a crossover connection directly with a computer,
which would allow you to use the camera without the need of a television or a home network.

The camera’s image quality is far from good. However, being a security camera, I don’t know that high resolution is absolutely necessary,
but this camera is quite poor. The image sensor is VGA (640×480 or 0.3MP), but it’s much lower quality than a regular VGA webcam, as you
can see from this sample image:

The Software

This camera is entirely controlled through a built in web interface that only works with Microsoft Internet Explorer. I’m not a big fan
of the software. Instead of using Java or Flash to display the video image in the browser window, the interface relies on a cabinet file
that is a bit difficult to install – I ended up having to turn off all the security in IE just to get it to install the file.

The web interface allows you to move the camera around remotely, take still shots with it, enable the motion sensors, and manage the
camera’s image and configuration settings. It has built-in support for dyndns addresses, so you can set it to a text address rather than
relying on the IP for remote access.

The web interface is good in theory, but very bad in implementation. It’s slow, unstable, and requiring a CAB file (with no digital
certificate, mind you) to use the camera seems pretty unnecessary. Not only that, but I’ve since discovered that IE 7 in Windows Vista
SP1 crashes whenever I try to use the web interface.

Conclusion

All in all, this camera is a good idea. It’s pretty easy to setup, although the instructions were no help (Chinese-to-English never works
very well, it seems). The web interface is pretty crucial to using the camera, and it’s just a total flop in my book. For that reason,
I’d personally recommend looking at other products for your home surveillance needs.

Filed in categories: Audio, Video, TV Gear

Tagged: A/V, Audio, Device, Video, Webcam

Brando IP Security Camera Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on July 22, 2008 at 10:28 am.

Do you listen to your audio player through your car’s stereo? Then I would wager that you have probably run into the same problem with volume levels that I have. Quite often, in order to hear the music, I will have to turn the volume on the player all the way to maximum and then do the same with the car stereo. This in itself isn’t the real issue though… The problem is that after I disconnect my player from the car’s stereo, I’ll almost always forget that I left the volume turned to the max. Then later when I go to listen to the car stereo or player, I’ll be blasted with extremely loud music that makes me jump out of my skin. This happened to me three times last week, so I went looking for a solution and learned about CMoy headphone amps.

According to Wikipedia, the CMoy headphone amp was originally invented by Chu Moy. He created a simple design that can be powered by a 9V battery and stuffed inside a small container like an Altoids tin, making it a popular DIY project. Since I didn’t want to make the the time to order the parts, and build one myself, I did a quick search on eBay and found quite a few entrepreneurs selling their handmade CMoy amps.

I settled on one from a seller named Biosciencegeek because he offered customization options that the other sellers did not. I liked being able to pick the LED color, knob style and tin type. I went with a plain tin so that I can decorate it myself later.

The left side of the amp has a power status LED and a 3.5mm DC in jack. The amp is powered by one 9V battery that can run for 20+ hours. You can use rechargeables, or you can get an AC adapter that can supply 9-15 volts.

On the opposite side there is a line level input 3.5mm jack that is attenuated for strong signal sources.

On the top edge, you’ll find the audio jacks for input and output, as well as the volume knob. This knob doubles as the master power switch.

As you can see from these images, the installation of the various jacks looks really professional. They are even labeled for easy identification. I was very impressed with the workmanship.

Opening the lid of the tin will let you see the actual circuit of the CMoy amplifier. Everything is neat and tidy, with silicon around contact points and foam padding around the sides. The amplifier chip is socketed so that you can replace it if needed.

To use this amp with your audio player, you plug your headphones into the output jack and plug a 3.5mm patch cable from the input jack on the amp into headphone jack of your audio player. Unfortunately, you’ll have to supply your own patch cord as one is not included.

These headphone amps were designed to be used with headphones, but I’ve been using mine to boost the output of my Slacker Portable Radio with my car stereo and even with my Audioengine A5 speakers. Now I don’t have to turn up the volume on the player and car stereo or A5 speakers anymore than I normally would. If I need the audio to be a bit louder, I just turn the knob on the amp. I’ve found that the CMoy doesn’t just boost the sound, it makes the audio sound crisper and more colorful.

One of the nicer features of this particular amp (not sure if other amps do this too…) is that it will automatically power down if you turn it off using the volume knob, or when you disconnect the headphones from the jack on the amp. It also won’t power on unless you have headphones connected to it. Nice!

This amp was priced at $49.99 which was a little pricier than other sellers, but I’m very happy with my purchase and can recommend CMoy amps (at least the ones that Biosciencegeek builds). Now I need to figure out how I want to decorate this thing )

Filed in categories: Audio, Video, TV Gear

Tagged: A/V, Audio, Device, Video

CMoy Headphone Amp Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on July 18, 2008 at 12:07 pm.