Just when I thought I’d gotten a handle on the best deal in VOIP offerings, along comes Obihai with the OBI 100 VOIP telephone adapter.  In conjunction with a Google Voice account, they claim unlimited calling to POTS users in the USA.  Frankly, I didn’t believe it, so I received one of their devices and have been using for about two weeks.  What I discovered surprised me.

Firstly, it’s important to understand what the Obi is not.  It is NOT a VOIP service.  That you’ll have to get for yourself.  What it is, is an ATA (analog telephone adapter) on steroids.  The ATA allows you to connect an analog telephone to a Digital telephone system such as VOIP.

Features:

• Works with Google Voice for FREE calls to the USA and Canada to 2012
• VoIP ATA and Gateway Supports Analog Line, GV and SIP Services; Callcentric, Sipgate, Vitelity, Voip.ms, etc.
• Make free calls on the OBiTALK Network – Connect to other OBi Devices or use the free OBiON for iPhone application or OBiAPP for your PC.
• Connect to other OBi Voice Service Bridges or use the free OBiON for iPhone application or OBiAPP for your PC.
• Download Apps for PC, Speed Dial Up to 99 OBi Endpoints or Phone Numbers.
• Call Forward, Caller ID, Name and Number, Anonymous Caller Blocking, Message Waiting Indication – Visual and Tone Based
• Make free calls on the OBiTALK Network – Connect to other OBi Voice Service Bridges or use the free OBiON for iPhone application or OBiAPP for your PC.
• OBiTALK Portal Features: Manage Your OBi, Connect to Your Friends’ OBi Devices, Add Services, Download Apps for PC, Speed Dial Up to 99 OBi Endpoints or Phone Numbers
• Some of the OBi100 Calling Features: Call Forward, Caller ID ? Name and Number, Anonymous Caller Blocking, Message Waiting Indication – Visual and Tone Based

The Obi arrived in a plain white box which contained 4 items above.

There are only 3 connections to be made.  The quick start guide lists the following steps:

1. Connect an analog phone to the PHONE port
2. Connect the supplied Ethernet cable to the Internet port and the other end to an Ethernet port on your router or switch
3. Connect the 12 volt power adapter to the Obi and then a power outlet.

When the power is connected the lights on the OBi flashed for several seconds.  After the Obi power light stayed solid green, I was ready to make a call using the Obi network.

Calling via the Obi network is limited in that you can only place calls to other Obi users.  You do this by dialing **9 followed by a nine digit Obi number found on the bottom of each Obi device.  Unfortunately, I didn’t know anyone else with an Obi, so I dialed the Obi test number which echoed what I said.  The sound was clear.  I could also call an Obi number which connected to an automated attendant.  From there I can make a 3 minute call to any number in the US.  While this was interesting, the real usefulness of the product became apparent after I registered at the ObiTalk Web Site.

Here’s where the Obi shines.  The web site is a cloud based configuration application that remotely provisions your Obi.  From the ObiTalk dashboard page you can configure VOIP services, speed dial numbers, trusted caller IDs and Circles of Trust.  The trusted caller ID’s and Circles of Trust allow others to access your Obi and call out on your connected services.

After you configure the Obi device, you can then add up to 2 service providers which can be a combination of Google Voice and SIP accounts.  This will allow you to call PSTN numbers and receive calls on the phone connected to the Obi box.  The folks at Obihai have made it very simple to configure Google Voice as a service.  There are also configuration pages that make it easy to add VOIP companies that offer BYOD (bring your own device) plans who provide credentials.  On the Obihai web site you’ll find several informative videos that explain in more detail the features and functions of the Obi box.

I began my education into the Obi by configuring it to use my Google Voice account as the primary service.  Unfortunately, my house phone VOIP provider has a proprietary ATA device, so they do not provide provisioning credentials, so I couldn’t add it to the Obi.  As I mentioned, it is easy to set up and I could have stopped there, but I wanted to explore all the features.  For many people  making Google Voice act like a POTS service, with free calls to the US and Canada, would be worth the price of the Obi.  I found the voice quality excellent and the bridging of the Obi device to be transparent.  The user experience is no different from what most people are used to.

In addition to the device, there are  a couple of apps that allow you to call via the Obi.  I used the iPod app and was able to make calls to the PSTN, however, calls from the PSTN cannot be received by the app.  There is also a PC app, that in conjunction with a soft phone (I used x-lite) accesses the Obi to bridge calls to the services configured in the device.  If that wasn’t enough, Gmail Chat can access the Obi attendant which allows you to make calls.

The Obi attendant can be accessed by people you allow through the Circle of Trust or Trusted callers.  If the Obi recognizes either the CID, name or Obi number of the incoming call, the attendant vocalizes 3 options to route the call.  They are, put the call through to the telephone attached to the Obi; route the call to another number as input by the user; or give a callback to a number input by the user.   Here are some examples of someone calling my Google Voice number:

1. A trusted caller wishes to speak with me.  He would input 1 to ring my phone.
2. A trusted caller (friend) in Singapore calls my Obi from her Obi and then inputs 2 and a telephone number in the US.  The Obi routes the call and saves my friend some money.
3. A trusted caller (me) at his summer home where the local Podunk phone company charges a fortune for regional calls, inputs 3 and puts his phone number in for a callback.  He hangs up and 2 seconds later the Obi calls him and he can then use the attendant to place calls from he Obi.

In the the 3rd example,  there is a way to set the Obi up so that you can call and let it ring twice, hangup and then it will call back the CID of your phone.  Using the Obi expert the device can be setup to do this.  I’m working on it now.  Anyone else calling my Google Voice number will ring the phone attached to the Obi.

The Obi device is a complicated piece of hardware and firmware that’s been made accessible to most people, but at the same time it should satisfy the telephony geek with its Obi Expert Configuration.  The ObiTalk web site takes the mystery out of configuring VOIP services and gives users the flexibility to choose the most cost-effective routing for their call.  If you have a broadband Internet connection and you’ve been considering VOIP, you should consider the Obi.  All users have the ability to return the product (for any reason) to Amazon within 30-days of receipt and receive a 100% refund + no return shipping charges, so what do you have to lose?

Filed in categories: Home Tech, Reviews

Tagged: Device, Phone, VoIP

OBi100 VoIP Telephone Adapter and Voice Service Bridge Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on September 15, 2011 at 11:00 am.

A previous article here on Gadgeteer asked about the state of Android. I’d like to ponder on the state of the tablet: Here we are, almost 10 months after the iPad announcement, quickly approaching Christmas 2010, and where are our options other than the iPad? As far as I can tell, the maybe-soon to be released WiFi Samsung Galaxy with a 7″ screen might be the only option, and its release is preceded by Google saying Android is not for tablets. There’s the Dell Streak but at 5″, it’s not really in tablet territory. More like really big cellphone territory. So why aren’t any mainstream tablets on the market right now? Read on to find out what I think was Apple’s “Secret Plan”…

Here’s my opinion: Apple says the iPad was actually designed first, before the iPhone. Only after they realized it would work just as well as a phone did they release the iPhone and put the iPad on the shelf for a couple years(1). So I think this was also to give the iPad as much of a head-start in the market as they could engineer. Most big companies, like anything large and unwieldy, have a certain amount of momentum. Once a product plan is in place, thousands of people are required to implement the plan. And I think Apple used this momentum to steer everyone towards phones while they had a bigger picture in mind – And this is why it’s taking so long to get a decent iPad competitor shipping to the public.

When the iPhone was released in 2007, the whole market reacted and shifted to touchscreen. Android’s seen rapid growth, Palm came out swinging and then got bought by HP, Microsoft Kin was around for a week and now Win 7 is about to be released. We also can’t forget the marketplaces created within these ecosystems, with many additional companies developing applications, cases, and whatnot. All of this concentration on Phone OS’s and Phone apps created serious momentum. People were hired, schedules developed, budgets solidified, everything focused on making some great phones. Then, all of a sudden, while everyone’s attention is on the iPhone, Apple comes out with a tablet that fits right into the existing iOS ecosystem and uses this as a bridge towards the Tablet market. And sells millions.

Apple’s little mis-direction with the iPhone took alot of the R&D dollars that could be spent on a light & powerful tablets was spent on creating light & powerful cell phones. Sure, many of the components can be used in either device, but I bet things like manufacturing efficiency  focused on 4″ screens – not 10″. And the software market too: Google’s announcement that Android wasn’t designed for the tablet form factor made me wonder ‘why not?’. What about Google’s Marketplace; Where do tablet apps get distributed? This is a serious chunk of the marketplace that Apple seems to have effectively diffused for the immediate future.  ( Note: I’m not counting Windows7 or Linux tablets, nobody is buying them right now. That might change in the future like everything else )

So… If Apple really had a plan to release the iPhone first to get everyone going in one direction and then release their iPad a couple years later in another direction… It seems to be working. Of course, it only puts off the inevitable: A marketplace full of choice… coming soon.

( The image is from here )

Filed in categories: Android related, Articles

Tagged: Android, Device, iOS, Tablet

Did Apple have a Secret Plan? originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on October 5, 2010 at 2:46 pm.

When my kids were younger, I spent vast amounts of money on juice boxes of all kinds, because when a kid is thirsty you gotta have some juice that’s easy to deal with “on the go”.  Trust me, spill a sippy-cup of Apple juice all over your car seats and you’ll be making a bee-line to Wal-Mart for some juice boxes lickety-split!  My kids are almost grown and have long since outgrown juice boxes, but now we need a new kind of juice box… an ‘adult’ juice box, if you will.  Enter… the Technocel Powerpak!  Juice… on the go!

With all the mobile devices/gadgets that I own, I am constantly running out of “juice” and need to power up.  If I am in the car, it isn’t that big a problem because I have mobile chargers for several devices, plus various other charges like the iLuv USB charger and one of those cigarette lighter chargers where you can plug in regular power cords.  But you still have to have the charge cable for the device to use those charges.  And I don’t feel like carrying around all my chargers and cables for all my devices.  So I have wanted to get my hands on a charger of some kind that would solve this problem.  So I jumped at the chance to review the Technocal Powerpak.

The Powerpak comes with a cloth bag to carry everything in, and a special USB cable with the standard USB connector on one end (that plugs into the Powerpak unit) and a mini-din connector on the other end.  It also comes with 10 interchangable tips that allow you to connect the cable coming from the Powerpak unit to various mobile devices.  2 of the adapters are micro-USB variants, 2 more are mini-USB variants, and the other 6 adapters are proprietary.  All told, you can use the Powerpak to charge devices from LG, HTC, Blackberry, Motorola, Samsung, Nokia, Kyocera, Sanyo, Palm, Nextel, Casio, Sony Ericsson, and Toshiba.  They claim that 95% of mobile devices are covered.

I was looking forward to using the Powerpak to charge the various iPod devices that my family owns, because someone is always running out of juice in the car.  And I was a bit dismayed when I opened the package and didn’t find an adapter for the iPod.  However, I quickly discovered that any power cable with a standard USB connector on the end will plug directly up to the Powerpak unit without the need for any of the adapters.  So you won’t need any of the 10 adapters if you want to charge your iPod or iPhone… simply plug the USB that came with your device into the USB port in the Powerpack unit.

The Powerpak unit is clad in a soft-touch rubbery shell, like many of today’s cellphones.  I was very pleased with this, in addition to the round edges on the unit.  Because of this, it is very easy to hold and carry and it just feels solid.  The power plug on the back of the unit folds in flat to allow for easier storage, and when you plug the Powerpak into the bottom plug of a standard wall outlet, it won’t block the use of the top plug which is nice.  Another neat feature of this product that I was pleased to see is that when you plug one of the 10 adapters into the USB cable, each adapter has threads on the end of it so that you can screw the adapter into the cable for a secure, tight fit.  That way, it won’t accidental come loose.  Cord length is average at just a little over 5 ft.

When the Powerpak is plugged up to the wall it charges its internal battery while still being available to charge your devices.  And if you want, you can begin using your device as soon as it is plugged up to the Powerpak, which is how I am using it mostly as I run out of juice while talking on my cellphone alot.  To determine how much juice is left in the Powerpak you press a button the front and 4 red lights on the front will give you an indication of how much juice is left.  I don’t particularly care for this and wish that instead I had an LCD to show me a % value of how much is left.  But then again, I am sure that would push the cost up.  The interal battery is 1000mA.  Now, that isn’t as much as other chargers, and I have read that Technocel is coming out with a charger that has 2 connections built-in and a bigger battery.  While I would like to have a bigger capacity battery, I think the size of the device and price point ($35-40) will be very acceptable to most people.

One important thing to note about the battery as well… it loses its charge over time if left to sit unused.  I left it sitting with a full charge for 5 days without using it and it lost half of its charge.  I have experienced this type of battery loss with other devices that I have owned, so I can’t ding the Powerpak too bad for that.  But that does seem like a bit too much loss to me.

I was able to charge numerous devices with the Powerpak… an HTC cellphone, a Plantronics Bluetooth headset, an iPod Classic, a Kodak Playsport camera, and an iPod Touch.  When the 1300mA battery in my HTC Droid Incredible was completely dead, the Powerpak charged it back to 70% in 60 minutes.  Not amazingly fast, but not bad in my book.  I also tried charging my iPad with the Powerpak.  The Powerpak would not actually charge the iPad (it said “Not charging” in the upper right corner) but it would allow the iPad to operate without losing any battery life.  So while it won’t charge your iPad, at least you could use your iPad until the Powerpak died.

Overall, I recommend this gadget for most people.  I like the price, I love the features, and the size is just right.  I do wish the cord was longer, I wish it had an LCD readout instead of the red lights, and the loss of charge when unused is a little disappointing.  But I can live with those things for the convenience it provides me.

Filed in categories: Gear, Reviews, Travel Gear

Tagged: Cellular, Device, Power

Technocel Powerpak Review… an adult juice box. originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on September 5, 2010 at 12:30 pm.

The gateway between your home/office network and the rest of the internet is your router, and in most cases it’s  a very ‘dumb’ device. That’s started to change, with routers becoming more useful, and I started thinking about getting an upgrade. I’ve been using a Linksys WRT-54GL with DD-WRT firmware for the last couple months after my Airport Extreme got hit by lighting ( in Brooklyn! ). So I started thinking about what I’d upgrade to, and I heard about the Fonera router; It’s a community, everyone who’s part of the community gets free wifi from everyone else. Supposedly you can also make money off of people buying connection time through your Fonera, but I’ll have to wait and see what happens. But about a month ago, FON released their latest router and firmware, La Fonera 2.0N, and I decided to purchase one. Read on for my review of this very capable internet device.

This router is more than just a hardware device; It’s a global community of routers linked into one shared ‘cloud’ of Free WiFi. Wherever you find another Fonero ( The name for the people in the community ), you can connect to their router’s pubic signal for free and surf away. Your Fonero at home has a public and private wifi signal; The private signal is protected with up to WPA2 encryption, but you share the public signal and anyone connecting can use it for 10 minutes for free or they have to buy time. Doing this means you can possibly earn some bucks when people buy wireless time on your access point. Although I have doubts anyone is going to buy WiFi time on my router here in Brooklyn, I set it up to see what happens. However, I’m not in this for either the community sharing or the promise of dollars – I was primarily looking for a new wireless router with some cool features.

I was surprised when I received the package from UPS because of the ‘Tamper Evident Tape’ wrapping it tightly and the big warnings about Lithium batteries – I don’t know whats inside this Fonera, but I can safely say my La Fonera 2.0N was not tampered with before arriving. Once opened, the device is about the same size as most other routers; about the size of a paperback book, with 5 ports on the back, 2 antennas on the back, and a bunch of blinkin’ lights. It doesn’t look like anything special, except for the USB port in the front. The placement is a bit odd, the side would have been better, but it works. I plugged in my cable modem after leaving it powered off for 30 seconds ( Tip to anyone having cable modem problems; Unplug the power for a 2 minutes, then plug it back in ) & popped in a 2GB FAT32 formatted Flashcard. Connected a USB hub and a Brother HL2040 laser printer, and then started my browser on my Mac to configure the Fonera.

To log into the router, you just type ‘fonera’ into your browser window, and a registration process begins. One note here is that you should set the router up as soon as you power it on and get a network connection. Otherwise, if your location is hopping with other fonero’s, the first one on could sign up the router and have it added to their list of routers instead of yours. After the Fonera setup  you fill in your Flickr, YouTube, Picasa, FaceBook, Twitter, Torrents, and RapidShare downloader accounts, you get to the dashboard – and see all the neat things this router can do.

The services the router supports are: YouTube, Picasa, Flickr, and FaceBook automatic uploads; Torrent downloads; MegaUpload and RapidShare downloads, and the router even uses Twitter to ‘tweet’ its status. Beside all that, you get two SSID’s – This is the two seperate wireless networks mentioned above; One for your private use protected with whatever security method you choose and the other is open for public use. Like I mentioned, every Fonero who’s sharing WiFi can connect to any other Fonero’s wireless router. There are about a half dozen in my area of Brooklyn ( Dyker Heights ), and supposedly hundreds of thousands world-wide. The two networks are on different IP ranges, completely isolated from each other, and you can even limit the amount of bandwidth the public network is allowed to share to make sure your private network never gets bogged down.

So how does this work? Well, the Flickr, Youtube, Picasa, FaceBook, and Youtube services allow you to upload files just by dropping them in the appropriately named folder on the shared drive. The shared drive can be a USB Flash disk or a USB hard drive – I plugged one into the hub with a flash drive and both drives are accesdable via SMB & FTP, although the first one interact with the router software which means you’ll want you largest disk setup first.

Some examples of what you can do: drop a whole new gallery of images for Picasa, and even a couple videos for YouTube, both at the same time and the Fonera will upload the files on it’s own without any other computers on. Transmission lets you to use BitTorrent; Drop the torrent file into a folder called ‘Torrents’, and the Fonera starts downloading on it’s own. You can customize Transmission’s options too, via a separate Transmission webpage, as well as monitor the downloads. The MegaUpload and RapidShare accounts let you download files unattended too, and it links right into those services’ accounts. And when the Fonera is done performing an operation, it will use a Twitter account you setup for it to let you know what it’s doing.

Other neat features include Printer Sharing; Pretty basic, but it works – Although the setup instructions for adding an OS X printer uses the CUPS WebAdmin and might scare a newbie a little. Although its a bit strange, it does work brilliantly when you follow the step-by-step guide on the Wiki. Fonera also includes OpenVPN, which isn’t compatible with OS X’s built in VPN Client, but it worked with an Ubuntu client. You also have the option of using a UMTS/3G USB Internet device on the La Fonera 2.0N, enabling you to share your 3G internet connection with your network. Since I do not have a 3G USB internet device, so I couldn’t test this, but I can see how useful this would be in a hotel or on a worksite. There’s even a webcam interface for up to four USB webcams viewed in a 4 panel screen. Finally, and I find this really interesting, you can plug in a USB Audio Card and play back music with the Fonera by plugging a set of speakers into the USB Audio Card. A Fonera-Jukebox!  I haven’t tested this yet, I’m waiting for my USB Audio device I picked up for $10 at NewEgg, but I’m looking forward to playing around with this.

Some of the items above are added using the Application screen, like the printer sharing, the webcam, and the music ability. There is a group of about a dozen other applications, but from what I understand you need the developer version of the firmware that enabled SSH access. I initially used my Fonera with the latest final developer version, 2.3.0.0, but since have upgraded to a newer 2.3.5.0 release candidate. Either way, the shell access works great via SSH & with the developer version I add applications from the terminal which opens a much wider range of software additions for the router. From what I understand, software built for the earlier versions of the Fonera is slowly being ported to the newer 2.0n hardware.

The hardware of the 2.0N is impressive, especially coming from the Linksys WRT-54GL. The Ralink CPU runs at 300MHz, and the device has 64MB Ram / 8MB Flash. WiFi to WiFi is rated at 4MB/s, WiFi to internet is rated at 8MB/s, and WiFi to USB HardDrive is also rated at 8MB/s. I saw similar speeds, but closer to 6MB/s copying data to and from the hard drive. Torrent downloads are rated at a maximum of 800KB/s, and I definitely saw a slowdown when I had torrents downloading & uploads to YouTube, and sending a print job. All the operations would get slower, but otherwise everything kept processing. Torrent activity seems to be the biggest hit on the router’s performance, but even with the router bogged down with torrents and uploads the internet connection wasn’t badly affected.

A big note here is that I installed a newer release candidate firmware that included a universal media server and fixed some bugs. But unfortunately it also introduced a bug in the public wireless that caused me to turn it off for now. Since the original firmware had problems with my iPhone 3GS connecting over Wifi, I didn’t downgrade and kept using the newer firmware. Since it’s not a final update, bugs are to be expected, and otherwise I’ve been pleased with the router but please note the major issues with this router. Because of bugs in the 2.3.0.0 firmware and the issues in the current release candidate, do not buy this if you are expecting a trouble-free experience.

However, I want to say many of the primary features have worked well with either firmware with the exception of wireless. The developers are aware of the issues and working on a fix. So although it’s a great router with amazing promise, I think this router is more for the tinker until they sort out the firmware issues. Basically the Fonera 2.0N has some really nice features that expand the role a router can play on your network, but be ready to muck around with it.

UPDATE: One of the commenters reminded me of the problems with the original firmware and WiFi- The Fonera did NOT work well with my iPhone when I first installed it. I flashed the router with the RC candidate when it came out, and it’s been working great *with the public wireless disabled* so I had forgotten the troubles I had initially with wireless. I edited the review to include that information.

The bottom line is ONLY buy this router knowing there are serious bugs that need to fixed before it works as well as a Linksys or Netgear router.

Filed in categories: Home Tech, Reviews, Wireless

Tagged: Device, Network, WiFi

La Fonera 2.0N Wireless Router Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on January 9, 2010 at 8:58 pm.

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.

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.

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.

I have a confession to make… Even though I love my iPod classic, I really don’t listen to it as much in the car as I listen to… the radio. Yes, it’s true. I find myself listening to regular FM radio way more than my iPod. The radio is on when I drive into work in the morning and again in the afternoon on my way home. Why do I prefer listening to radio? One of the main reasons is that I never know what the next song will be and I like variety and finding new artists. Over the years I’ve tried XM and Sirius satellite radios and enjoyed them, but in the end, I got tired of the ads and mediocre audio quality. Now I think I have found the perfect radio gadget for me. It’s the Slacker Portable Radio.

This device isn’t a radio in the sense that it doesn’t tune into a frequency in order to listen to a broadcast. Instead it uses WiFi or USB to pull down music from various stations (musical categories) that you can customize for yourself. The cool thing is that once you buy the player, the service is free if you don’t mind a few small limitations. If these limitations bother you, you can subscribe to Slacker’s premium service. More about all that later.

Hardware Specifications

Display: 4″ diagonal 480 x 272 TFT-LCD (16 x 9 aspect ratio)
Capacity: 2GB, 4GB or 8GB
Audio Formats: MP3, WMA (personal content)
WiFi: 802.11b/g
Battery type: Li-Polymer, up to 10hrs play time, 3hr charge time
Dimensions: 2.76 x .67 x 4.2″ (70mm x 16.5mm x 109mm)
Weight: 4.6 oz (130g)

Package Contents

Portable player
Sleeve case
USB cable
AC Adapter
Earbuds with 2 sets of pads
Quick Start Guide

The Slacker Portable is made of shiny Black plastic and as you would expect, it is a magnet for smudges and fingerprints.

The entire face of the device is a color display, with a touch strip on the Left side. The screen is bright, crisp and easy to read.

On the back side, there is a battery door which I haven’t been able to remove. I am afraid of damaging it, so I gave up.

As you can see, the Slacker device is close in size to my 160GB iPod classic.

In hand, the Slacker Portable feels pretty solid. It was able to pass my patented Gadgeteer squeeze test with flying colors. Shaking it does yield some rattling from the buttons. Most people don’t go around shaking their gadgets like a tambourine, so I won’t hold this against the Slacker ;o)

On the Left side, there are two buttons and two ports. The top heart shaped button allows you to mark sounds as your favorites. If you use the free service, it will cause those marked songs to play more often. If you have the premium service, pressing the heart button will copy that track into your library so that you can play it whenever you like.

Both ports are protected by removable rubber covers that are easy to lose. I’ve already done that with the top cover, which protects a mini USB port that is used for charging and syncing. The other port is for a as yet to be available docking cradle.

On the Right side of the portable, you’ll find a Home button that returns you to the main menu. Below it is a scroll wheel that you use to move up and down in lists. Pressing the scroll wheel selects an item. Next in line is the track skip button. Below it is the Pause toggle button and then the last button is actually a spring loaded slider switch that is used to toggle power and set to hold mode.

On the top of the player there are volume adjustment buttons and a 3.5mm stereo headphone jack.

The Slacker Portable radio works with the Slacker web radio service. When you order a portable, you choose the model based on the number of radio stations that you want to add to the player. The $199.99 entry level portable has 2GB of storage and allows you to pick up to 15 stations, giving you approximately 1500 radio songs and 500MB of space for your own MP3s. The $249.99 middle level player has 4GB of storage, gives you 25 stations, 2500 radio songs and 1.5GB for your own music. The high end player will set you back $299.99 and has 8GB of storage, will give you 40 stations with 4000 songs and 4GB of space for your own songs. If you spring for the high end player, they will also throw in an FM transmitter. I picked the middle player…

The cool thing is that when you place an order for the player, it will let you select your allotment of stations from over 100 available stations that include such genres as Blues, Country, Classical, Alternative, Rock, Electronic, Jazz, International, Latin, Rock, Spiritual, Comedy, Youth, Standards/Big Band, Hip Hop/R&B and others. Each genre has quite a few specific stations to choose from. It would be nice if they include talk radio stations at some point.

A very nice feature is the ability to create your own custom stations. You do this through the web interface. You search for artists and bands and add them to a list to create a station. If you don’t add at least 15 different artists, the remainder will be added with similar bands. I really love this feature because I create stations that only play people that I like. You can also fine tune all the stations, which allows you to change settings such as Artist Discovery, Popularity, Favorites, Year and DJ commentary.

The Interface

After you receive the portable and charge it up, you can turn it on and start enjoying music right away. The user interface is easy to navigate using the scroll wheel. As I mentioned earlier, there is a touch strip on left side of the display. If you enable this feature, you can use your finger to scroll through stations and text. I found this feature to be very erratic and hard to control, so I turned it off about 1 minute after trying it. The scroll wheel works a lot better.

The main menu or home screen has a thumbnail in the upper Left corner of the currently playing song, next artist and options to bring up the station listing, your library, playlists, settings and connect screens.

The stations screen is just a long scrollable list of station names with the currently playing song info at the top. To change stations, just turn the scroll wheel till you highlight the one you would like to listen to. Then press the wheel to select it. A few seconds later a new song will start playing from that station. What I’d really like to see in the station list is the next song to play in each one. That way, if I’m bored with what I’m listening to, I can easily find another station to switch to based on what the next artist might be.

If you scroll to the album thumbnail and select it, you’ll go into the Now Playing screen. This shows the song name, band or artist name, release date, play progress bar and the next artist.

Pressing the scroll wheel will cycle through other screens for the currently playing song. They include an artist biography, album review and another screen that shows a list of songs that you’ve listened to so far from a particular station. I love the artist biography feature because it shows a picture of the artist or band and gives quite a bit of information about them. Scrolling through the info with the scroll wheel is a bit tedious though as it only scrolls a line at a time. It would be nice if it would scroll a whole page at a time. It’s also annoying when you’re in the middle of reading about an artist and the song changes as the artist info will change too.

So far, I’ve been pretty happy with the song selection that the different stations provide. I’ve found several new artists that I like well enough to buy their complete albums. I like being able to listen to types of music that I normally do not buy as it is helping me find new styles that I enjoy.

Audio quality is very good. It’s definitely better than FM radio and is easily better than XM or Sirius too. The only audio issue that I ran into is that every so often when a song starts playing, it will hiccup or stutter. Hopefully this will be fixed with the next firmware update.

If you pause a song and power down the player, the song will commence playing once you power up and press the pause button toggle to play. If you pull out the headphone jack, it will automatically pause the player. Putting it back in will resume play.

Do you need a computer to use the Slacker Portable?

Yes and no… An actual Windows PC is required for syncing new music via USB and transferring your own MP3s or WMA song files into the portable’s library. A Mac or PC is needed for charging via USB. Any type of computer with an internet connection will allow you to add, remove, or make your own custom stations, by using the Slacker radio web interface. You won’t need a computer at all if you are content to listen to the same stations that shipped with your portable and have access to free WiFi that you can use to sync new music.

Click on thumbnail to see full-size image

It’s important to note that Mac users will not be able to copy their own music files to the player. This requires a special software player to be installed. Right now, there’s only a version for Windows. Mac users can do everything else through the web interface.

Basic (Free) or Premium (Pay) Service?

The Slacker Portable comes with the free service by default. This service has a few limitations that may or may not bother you. You can only skip 6 songs an hour per station and you may hear or see up to 2 ads per hour. The ads that I’ve heard so far are about 15 – 30 seconds long and just talk about the Slacker radio. I’ve not seen any visual ads yet. Occasionally you’ll also hear DJ commentary about a song or artist. These little spots are also quite short. If any of that bothers you, you can upgrade to Premium service. It costs as low as $7.50 a month if you go with the 1yr option. With the upgrade to Premium, you get unlimited skips, the ability to save tracks to your library with the favorite (heart) button, no ads, no DJ commentary if you desire and unlimited song requests. Requesting songs will let you specify songs by name and artist that you definitely want to hear in each station.

When you buy the portable, you can try a free 7 day eval of the premium service. For me, the ads really don’t bother me and 6 skips an hour doesn’t seem that bad. But, I do like the ability to save tracks to my library so that I can listen to them again whenever I want.

Conclusion

I’ve been playing with the Slacker Portable for a couple weeks now and I just love this thing. It’s easy to use and the sound quality is great. It’s like having a magic iPod that always has new music for you to listen to. I also really like being able to create my own stations. I was amazed at the depth of the Slacker catalog. I made a station that included the following artists: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Regis Philbin and David Hasselhoff. Right now I’m listening to Spock sing “If I Was a Carpenter”. Yes, I’m twisted. If Slacker adds talk radio and podcasts to their selection of stations, my iPod might start taking up permanent residence in my gadget drawer…

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

Tagged: A/V, Audio, Device, Video

Slacker Portable Radio Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on July 11, 2008 at 8:30 pm.

This week’s video quick look review comes from the Gadgeteer Kid. He takes a look at the Disney Pixar Cars, Lightning McQueen 13″ TV/DVD Player Combo.

Features

13″ color screen
TV
DVD player
Remote control
Parental lock feature
17.0 x 16.0 x 16.9 inches

Video Notes

Jacen mentions that the TV can play video games. To clarify, you can connect your video game consoles to the TV using Red/White/Yellow composite cable.

You can find this TV at various online retailers such as Walmart. Price is around $150.00 – $200.00

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

Tagged: A/V, Audio, Device, Video

The Gadgeteer Kid’s Video Quick Look at Disney Pixar Cars, Lightning McQueen 13″ TV/DVD Player Combo originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on June 19, 2008 at 4:34 pm.

Let’s face it, the constant evolution of technology has spoiled us. We, as consumers, crave electronics that have everything, yet are small enough to be inconspicuous when not in use. The people at Insignia have created a shelf stereo system with numerous features designed to please, yet small enough to not require a lot of space. For those of you not familiar with Insignia, it is the brand sold exclusively at Best Buy. Today I review their 75W DVD/CD/HD Radio Compact Shelf System with USB Port (Model: NS-HD2114).

Hardware Specifications

Complete component system includes progressive-scan DVD/CD/MP3 player, 2 speakers and digital AM/FM/HD radio tuner
Plays DVD, DVD-R, DVD-R DL, DVD+R, DVD+R DL, DVD-RW, DVD-RW DL, DVD+RW, DVD+RW DL, CD-R/RW, CD, VCD/SVCD, JPEG, MP3 and WMA formats
75W RMS power: 37.5W x 2, (10% THD RMS)
Front panel USB port is compatible with MP3 players and other digital music devices; provides music playback control (play, pause/stop, fast forward, skip forward, rewind, skip back and random)
Tray load DVD/CD player
CD random/repeat functions, track programming and direct track access
Digital AM/FM/HD radio tuner with 18 presets
Dual 2-way speakers each with a 1″ tweeter and a 4″ woofer
Multiple DSP modes include Dolby Digital decoding; 6 preset equalizers
VFD display shows song information on the front panel based on the metadata in song files
Inputs: 2 audio (1 rear, 1 front)
Outputs: 1 composite video (rear), 1 S-video (rear), 1 component video (rear), 1 digital optical audio
Clock, sleep timer, on screen display, bass/treble controls and bass boost performance
Main Speaker Watts per Channel: 35W
Frequency Response: 200Hz – 20kHz
Total Harmonic Distortion: <10%
Tuner TypeDigital: AM/FM/HD
Station Presets: 18
Dolby Digital Decoder: Yes

Package Contents

Main Unit
Two Speakers
Composite Cables
FM Antenna
HD Antenna
Remote Control
2 AA Batteries
iPod connectors

I was impressed upon opening the box and initial laying eyes on the system. The main unit is a small and light, black, sleek cube-like design.

The two speakers, which are slightly larger than the main unit, are wrapped in painted black wood, which nicely highlight the grain of the wood. The wood is a nice contrast to the sleek and shiny exterior of the main unit.

Each speaker has four circular, dime-sized, rubber stabilizers on the bottom.

Set-up is about as simple as it gets. Unpack the unit from the box, make the connections in the back and plug it in, and then you are ready to rock.

The speaker wires are hard-wired in to the back of the speakers and the other end is pre-fitted with connectors, which makes set-up easy but greatly limits your ability to upgrade or lengthen the speaker wires.

Moving to the remote, at first glance I was shocked by the shear number of buttons it contains. My quick count puts the total at 50, that’s right, 50 buttons on the remote. Of course, with so many buttons, they are crazy small.

The large total of buttons greatly reflects the crazy amount of functionality this system offers. An iPod dock, CD, DVD player (video out), HD radio, AM/FM radio and USB connector are all included. If Insignia would throw in wireless capability, it would be a complete package.

The one gripe is that the actual main unit’s front lacks half the functionality available via the remote. The front has only about 8 function buttons, meaning this system is way too dependent on the remote. If you lose the remote, you are in deep trouble.

Turning the device on, I decided to check out the basic AM/FM radio. Needless to say, I was less then impressed. I had trouble tuning in Indianapolis stations (approximately 50 miles north) that I clearly receive on my other home stereos.

The HD radio was not much better. I downloaded a list of local HD stations from the net and attempted to tune some in but just like the AM and FM radio, the reception was unclear and lacked consistency.

Fortunately for the system, listening to a CD allowed the 75 watts of sound to impress without the static from tuning in radio stations. I could easily hear rich and clear sounds throughout my downstairs, which is fairly large and open. The built-in 1-inch tweeter and 4-inch woofer speakers can really pump the volume up, yet give you the richness and clarity to enjoy the subtleties of your music.

I did think the default equalizer setting was extremely bass heavy. I played with the Bass and Treble settings until I found a combo that work for my ears, again this is probably a user preference.

The iPod dock, CD and DVD player work as you expect. Meaning that I was not disappointed by the functionality and it did not serve as a delighter.

The iPod dock provides you control over each track, play, stop and pause functions.

The DVD quality was adequate, nothing better or worse then the other players in the house. The menu system, although not extravagant, was very simple to use and navigate.

Now I have not made the digital TV leap yet but if you have, this system utilizes progressive scan output and component cable hook-ups for the best picture quality with a digital TV or monitor.

Here is a look at the hook-ups located in the rear of the main unit.

The USB port provides music playback ability to other digital players. I easily connected my iPod shuffle and a non-Apple player through the USB port and they worked great.

As previously mentioned the remote has an insane number of buttons, reflecting the amount of functionality present in the system. I did experience a terribly annoying response lag of at least two seconds when using any button on the remote. Even the volume dial on the main unit has a terrible lag, which drove me nuts.

The main unit has a VFD display that shows the music track information (album, artist) pulled from the digital music file metadata.

The Insignia shelf system has built-in sleep timer and automatic turn on settings. The auto turn on feature allows the system to be utilized as an alarm clock, although it does not support weekend schedules.

In conclusion, I was disappointed in the radio, the response delay and how heavily the system depends on the remote.

That said I definitely can see the niche this device fills. In a small apartment or college dorm room, this system would be ideal. For less then $150 you get a AM/FM/HD radio, CD and DVD player, iPod dock and a USB port that provides music playback connectivity for other MP3 players. I would love such a system when I was in college.

Filed in categories: Audio, Video, TV Gear

Tagged: A/V, Audio, Device, Video

Insignia NS-HD2114 DVD/CD/HD Radio Compact Shelf System originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on April 29, 2008 at 4:14 pm.

What is the worst thing about setting up a stereo speaker system? In my opinion, it’s running all the necessary wires. I always said that if I ever build a new house, that it will have speaker wiring pre-installed in all the walls. But for an existing house without this feature, what do you do to get around this issue? You can either buy a wireless speaker system, or you can check out a wireless audio adapter like the one I’m going to tell you about today from Audioengine. The AW1 Premium Wireless Audio Adapter is designed for Audioengine’s A5 speaker system (my current favorite speakers), but will work with any other speakers just fine.

The AW1 uses a wireless protocol that isn’t bothered by interference from wireless routers, cordless and mobile phones, microwave ovens, Bluetooth or WiFi devices.

Hardware Specifications

Range: 100ft (30 meters)
Wireless protocol: 802.11

Frequency band: 2.4-2.4835GHz
Latency: < 20mSec
Data rate: 340Mbps
SNR: 91dB
Dimensions: 100 x 30 x 10mm (LxWxH)

Package Contents

Wireless Audio Sender
Wireless Audio Receiver
USB AC power adapter
RCA adapter “Y” cable
Mini-jack (3.5mm) audio cables (20″)
Setup Guide

The AW1 system consists of two small modules, a sending unit (with the rocket graphic on it) and a receiving unit (with the planet on it).

There are other wireless adapters on the market, but I’ve yet to see any that are as small as the AW1. In the image above, you see the sending unit next to a USB memory stick.

Both modules look alike and are just shy of four inches long by one and a quarter inches wide. Each have a standard USB connector on one end and a 3.5mm stereo jack on the opposite end. On the top surface is a small Blue status LED and an oval pairing button.

The sending and receiving modules come already paired out of the box, so installation is plug and play. That said, you can pair up to 8 receivers to one sender adapter and hop between them.

Hooking them up

There are a lot of different ways you can use these wireless adapters, but for my first test, I decided to connect the A5′s to my iMac. Normally, I just have them set up as a stand alone system that I connect directly to my iPod. But for the test, the first step was to just plug the sending module into a free USB port. As soon as I plugged it in, the status LED on the front began to blink, meaning that it was searching for the receiver unit.

I then plugged the receiving unit into the USB port on the top of the A5 speaker. Then using one of the included 3.5mm cables, I plugged one end into the jack on the receiver module and the other end into the audio in jack on the top of the A5. As soon as I flipped the power switch on the A5′s, the status LED on the receiving module blinked once or twice and then glowed steady, designating that both adapters were now paired and ready to go.

Click thumbnail to see full-size image

On my iMac, I brought up the sound preferences and and set the sound output to now be the Audioengine AW1 instead of the internal speakers. I queued up some music in iTunes and it immediately started playing through the A5 speakers. Audio quality was fantastic.

For my next test, I unplugged the sending unit from my iMac and, plugged it into the included AC adapter and then connected the 3.5mm stereo cable to the earphone jack of my iPod classic. I went in another room, plugged the AC adapter into a wall jack, queued up some music and it started playing through the speakers. Wirelessly. Nice!

I took the iPod / AW1 / AC adapter combination to different rooms and levels in my house and had no problems with music dropping out or audio quality suffering. The reported range between modules can be as much as 100 ft (30 m). My house isn’t big enough to actually test that range, but the testing I did showed that this wireless system should work well in most medium sized homes.

I also used the included RCA Y cable to connect the sending unit to my TV to send its audio into my computer room to the A5′s. Again, no problems and great audio quality!

Conclusion

It’s hard to find fault with this product because I really like how easy it is to set up with any existing gear that you already have, and how great the audio quality is while using them. About the only things that would make the AW1 Premium Wireless Audio Adapter an even better value would be a lower price and have additional power options. I’m not sure how much power is required for each adapter, but it would be cool to have the ability to power them with a battery. That way you wouldn’t need to be near an AC outlet for them to work. That said, if you have been looking for a way to avoid running speaker wire and are not scared by the price tag of this system, please do check it out. I highly recommend them.

Filed in categories: Audio, Video, TV Gear

Tagged: A/V, Audio, Device, Video

Audioengine AW1 Premium Wireless Audio Adapter originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on April 17, 2008 at 3:55 pm.

Earlier this year, Audioengine was
kind enough to send me a pair of their wonderful
A5
speakers to review. These speakers have turned out to be a favorite of mine
and still occupy space on my desk at Gadgeteer headquarters. Now Audioengine
have created another set of speakers for people that don’t want to devote as
much desktop space and money in order to own a great sounding pair of speakers.
The A2′s work great with both PCs, Macs and other audio devices. Let’s take a
closer look.

Hardware Specifications

2 audio inputs (RCA and mini-jack)
60W total peak power
Frequency response 65Hz-22kHz
Built-in power amps (left speaker)
2.75in
Kevlar woofers for super low end
20mm
Silk tweeters for smooth highs
High-quality speaker connectors
Auto-sleep power-saving mode
Hand-built 18mm thick MDF cabinets with high-gloss polyurethane finish
Video-shielded

Dimensions: 6.00 x 4.00 x 5.25 inches
Weight: 3.55lbs (Left), 3.18lbs (Right)

Package Contents

AC Power supply
Speaker cable (16AWG), 2 meters (~6.5 feet)
1/8″ mini-jack audio cable, 2 meters (~6.5 feet)
1/8″” mini-jack audio cable, 20cm (~8 inches)
Drawstring power supply bag
Drawstring cable bag
Drawstring speaker bags (2)
Setup Guide

Upon unboxing the A2′s, I was immediately struck by the size of these new
speakers as compared to the A5′s.

They are almost a quarter of the size. Very cute, it’s like a baby with its
daddy. The A2′s have been constructed similarly to the A5′s, which means they
don’t look and feel like a pair of $50 speakers that you can pick up at Target
or CompUSA. These little guys are high quality speakers in a small package. 

Audioengine designs and manufactures their own tweeters, woofers, and many
other critical components that comprise their speakers. They are not "box built"
speakers with off the shelf parts, but entirely custom designed to their own
specifications. What they don’t fabricate directly in their factory, they have
custom made (parts such as toroidal transformers,
magnets, and wiring harnesses, for example). The cabinets, drivers, bass port
designs, and amplifiers are all tuned together for each Audioengine model.

Available in either Black or White, I was sent a pair of White A2′s. The Left
and Right speaker look identical from the front, but when you turn them around,
you will find that the Left speaker houses all the extra connections and
electronics.

The A2′s have two audio inputs. One set of RCA Left and Right jacks, and another
input that is a single 1/8" mini stereo jack. Typically, you would use the RCA
jacks to connect this set to your computer, TV or stereo. The 1/8" mini jack
allows you to easily connect your iPod or other audio device. All of my testing
with the A2′s was done with my
iPod classic
connected through an older iPod dock.

I was flabbergasted (I don’t think I’ve ever used that word in a review
before…) the first time I heard these speakers in action. Wow! They sound very
much like the A5′s, which means that they sound great! I won’t say that they
sound exactly like the A5′s, because they don’t. They lack a little bit of the
crispness / treble that the A5′s have. But the bass is amazing and they are truly head and shoulders
better sounding than other desktop speakers that I’ve owned in the past.

When you crank up the volume, air puffs out of the horizontal vent that is
located at the bottom of each speaker. The volume level that these little guys
can go up to is very surprising. I think they can go to eleven, but they
rattle my windows before I even turn them up half way! )  Speaking of volume though,
that’s where my only true criticism of these speakers lies. I don’t like the
fact that the combination power and volume knob is located on the back of the
speakers. I really wish this was on the front as it would make access so much
more convenient. There’s also the fact that there isn’t any type of power status
indicator. The A5′s have an LED on the front; the A2′s do not.

Disregarding my gripe about the volume knob location, I have found the
Audioengine A2 speakers to be an affordable alternative to the bigger A5 set. At
$200, these probably won’t be a spur of the moment purchase for anyone, but if you want
a wonderful sounding pair of speakers that don’t require a large portion of your desktop real estate, then the A2′s might be a good choice for you.

Filed in categories: Audio, Video, TV Gear

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

Audioengine A2 Desktop Speakers originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on October 18, 2007 at 5:15 pm.

Apple has been particularly
busy these past few months. We’ve seen updated aluminum iMacs, the new
iPod classic,
new iPod nano
fatty and of course, we can’t forget the mega hyped
iPhone. Redefining
both mobile phones and digital media players, the iPhone has made a definite
dent in tech history. Now we have the iPod touch. This device takes all the
music and video related features that have made the iPhone so popular, and made
them available to people that don’t want to switch carriers or phones.

Hardware Specs

• Storage: Available in either 8GB or 16GB Flash drive capacities
• Display: 3.5-inch (diagonal), 480 x 320 pixels at 163 DPI
• Frequency response: 20Hz to 20,000Hz
• Audio formats: MP3 (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Store), Audible (formats 2, 3 and 4), WAV, and AIFF
• Video formats: H.264 video up to 1.5 Mbps, 640 x 480 pixels
• WiFi (802.11b/g)
• Audio: 3.5mm stereo headphone minijack
• Power: Rechargeable lithium polymer battery (up to 22hrs of audio playback time and
  5hrs of video playback time)
• Size: 4.3 x 2.4 x 0.31in (110 x 61.8 x 8mm)
• Weight: 4.2oz (120)

Package Contents

• iPod touch
• Earphones
• USB 2.0 cable
• Dock adapter
• Polishing cloth
• Stand
• Quick start guide
• Apple stickers

To say that the iPod touch is just an iPhone without the phone,
really isn’t an accurate description. At first glance, the touch does look like an iPhone, I’ll give you that. But once you look a little closer, you’ll see that it’s an entirely different device. One that just happens to look like the iPhone…

The touch is almost half the thickness of the iPhone. It’s also a little bit shorter and the select button is smaller in diameter. You will also notice that the rim around the display is Black instead of chrome like the iPhone.

After carrying around my iPhone for the past few months, the touch feels considerably thinner. It is comfortable in hand although a bit on the slippery side. Squeezing it yields no flexing creaking or cracking. It’s definitely a solid device.

Oh look, it has a chrome back. Yay. Not. Apple, please stop this madness!!! Chrome is smudgy and way too susceptible to scratching. It’s time to move on. Really!

Along the bottom edge, you’ll find the universal dock connector and a stereo earphone jack. Unlike the iPhone’s earphone jack, this one can accommodate any type of 3.5mm earphone connector.

The only other button on the touch is located on the top of the device. This thin button turns the screen on and off. The lack of hardware buttons to adjust volume, pause playback, and navigate forward and backwards through tracks was immediately evident. Without such buttons, you have to turn the display on and use the onscreen touch buttons for these functions. This can be a bit annoying.

To give you an idea how the touch compares to the iPhone size-wise, take a look at the image above. The touch is on top, iPhone on bottom.

Top: iPhone, Bottom: iPod touch

The touch’s color display is the same size and resolution as the iPhone’s display, but it has a slightly higher density of pixels. The iPhone’s DPI is 160, while the touch’s DPI is 163. Is this difference noticeable? Only when viewing images side by side like you see here. Comparing the exact photo on both devices, I think the touch has a slightly sharper picture and brighter colors. That said, some people have been complaining about issues with their touch’s display. They are saying that they have negative Black problems when viewing video with dark scenes. The picture will wash out and be hard to see. I’ve also heard reports of dead pixels. Luckily, I’ve not seen either of these issues on my own iPod touch.

User Interface

As soon as you turn the touch on, you are greeted with the same screen that you would see on the iPhone. It’s obvious that the iPhone’s interface has been stripped down and pumped into the touch.

Don’t like the earth wallpaper on the opening screen? You can change it to one of your own photos using the settings dialog.

The built in features / applications are represented by 11 icons. In my opinion, Apple should have created larger icons and filled the entire screen. The way it is now, it just looks lame to me. It’s like, what happened to the rest of the apps? It’s too iPhone-ish.

Let’s take a look at each one… First up, Safari.

Safari

The touch has WiFi built in, which makes it a great little surfing device. Safari is the best web browser for small devices, that I’ve ever used. With those remarkable pinch and spread finger gestures, that allow you to shrink and enlarge sections of the page for easier viewing, surfing is a lot of fun. There’s also the automatic changing from portrait to landscape mode when you physically rotate the display. The two images above are the same web site shown in both portrait and landscape orientations.

YouTube

If you’re addicted to watching user submitted video content, then the YouTube app will keep you busy busy busy. You see thumbnails of featured and most viewed videos, and also have the ability to search for other videos.

Oh joy! A Harry Potter puppet show video on YouTube. Can life get any better than that? I think not!

Calendar

Just like the iPod classic and nano, the iPod touch also has a calendar app. It looks like the same calendar app that you find on the iPhone, minus one important feature: the ability to edit and add new events. I guess since the touch is an iPod, that means that it is not privileged to have those features. Grrrrrr…

You have three views, agenda (List), Day and Monthly views.

Contacts

The touch makes a nifty rolodex for all your addresses. Pictures even sync with Apple’s desktop contacts app (Not sure how and what it syncs with for Windows users).

Hmmmm, look what we have here! The ability to add and edit new contacts records. What is up with that? Doesn’t it seem odd that Apple says it’s ok to edit and add new addresses on your touch, but it’s not ok to edit and add new calendar events? Are you as confused as I am?

Extras

You also get a world clock, alarms, stopwatch and a timer.

We can’t forget the calculator too.

Music

The touch interface on the touch (sorry) makes finding music almost as fun as listening to it. Scrolling through lists of artists with a flick of your finger has the be the greatest way to navigate content ever invented. The music interface on the touch has been lifted directly from the iPhone. I haven’t noticed any differences.

While music is playing, you can see the album cover art.

Tapping on the list icon in the upper right corner of the now playing screen, will pop you into the album song list screen. From there, you can rate the song by tapping on the 5 dots at the top of the screen. You can also jump to a specific song by tapping on it.

Rotate the iPod touch into landscape orientation while in music mode, and it will convert to cover flow. In this mode, you flip through your albums by their cover art.

Tapping the small i in the lower right corner will display the songs in the facing album.

The touch’s audio quality is very good. I rip all my music at 192 kbps VBR (Variable Bit Rate) and am more than happy with the way music sounds through even the stock earbuds.

Video

Watching video on your touch is very enjoyable. The screen is large, bright and vivid.

I had no problem watching an entire movie on this device. My eyes never got tired.

Photos

The iPod touch does not have a built in camera like the iPhone, but you can sync your photos to it and view them.

The touch makes a great little digital photo frame when you put it in slide show mode and set it up on the itty bitty plastic stand that comes with it.

iTunes

Finally, a feature that the iPhone doesn’t have (yet), but the touch does… iTunes! Yes, you can now browse, preview and purchase music directly from your iPod touch using a WiFi connection. It’s extremely easy… too easy really… which of course, Apple is banking on.

When you find a song (or album) that you want to purchase, you just tap the BUY NOW button with your finger. You’re then prompted for your iTunes password. After you type it in using the on-screen keyboard, your song will download directly to the device.

You can also search for artists, songs, and albums.

Entire albums can be purchased, or individual songs. At the moment, you can only find and purchase music. Videos, TV shows and movies are not available. Of course you can purchase them with your desktop version of iTunes and sync them to your touch.

Unlike other iPod models, the touch does not come with any games. (

Final Thoughts

I have to confess something to you guys… Until I purchased the iPhone, I felt like I had to always have my entire music collection with me on one device. All 60GB of it. That’s why I was happy to buy the new 160GB classic. I knew I’d be able to have all my music and lots of video too. But after using the iPhone for these past few months, I’ve come to love the touch-screen interface and large display so much that now I really don’t care that I can’t carry everything with me. Now I just create a playlist and cycle various new music in and out of it on a daily / weekly basis. I sync unplayed videos and podcasts too. It’s working out great for me. I have enjoyed using my iPhone as an iPod so much that I am really not sure that I’ll ever go back to using a regular old iPod again… I say all of this because I have a feeling that the iPod touch will dwarf the classic and nano in sales and that eventually, the regular non-touch screen iPods will be discontinued. We’ll see how it plays out…

The touch’s largest capacity is 16GB and is priced at $399. This is the same price as the iPhone, which does make it pretty pricey for a media player. If you’re already an iPhone user, I don’t believe that there is anything that should compel you to buy the iPod touch. But if you don’t have the iPhone and don’t intend to buy one, by all means, I’d go for the iPod touch over the classic and the nano. If the physical size of the device is a non-issue for you, if you enjoy surfing via WiFi and especially if you watch a lot of video content on the go. The large display is so much nicer than the ones on the other iPods.

Questions for all of you

If you’ve tried the iPod classic, nano and touch, which did you like best and why?

Filed in categories: Audio, Video, TV Gear

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

Apple iPod touch originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on September 21, 2007 at 11:30 pm.

Of the three updated iPods that Apple recently announced, I would have to say that the updates to the nano have caused me more excitement than the 160GB classic and the touch screen enabled iPod touch. To date, the nano has been Apple’s smallest audio player with a color display. But now it’s evolved into a video player as well. Dubbed the ‘fatty’, the new nano is anything but pudgy. It’s as thin as ever, but now has a wide display capable of showing your favorite videos and movies.

Hardware Specs

• Storage: Available in 4GB and 8GB Flash drive capacities
• Display: 2.0-inch (diagonal), 320 x 240 pixels 204 DPI
• Frequency response: 20Hz to 20,000Hz
• Audio formats: MP3 (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Store), Audible (formats 2, 3 and 4), WAV, and AIFF
• Video formats: H.264 video up to 1.5 Mbps, 640 x 480 pixels
• Audio: 3.5mm stereo headphone minijack
• Power: Rechargeable lithium polymer battery (up to 24hrs of audio playback time and 5hrs of video playback time)
• Size: 2.75 x 2.06 x 0.26in (69.8 x 52.3 x 6.5mm)
• Weight: 1.74oz (49.2g)

Package Contents

• iPod nano
• Earphones
• USB 2.0 cable
• Dock adapter
• Quick start guide
• Apple stickers

Before we dig into the review of this new nano, I just wanted to take a short walk with you down memory lane…

Left to Right: 1G nano, 2G nano, 3G nano

The original iPod nano was first introduced 2 years ago this month. One year later, the second generation nano was announced and right on schedule this latest version was announced a couple of weeks ago. Until this latest version, changes to the nano’s design have been minimal.

This new nano looks like a cross between the previous version and the full sized iPod classic. It’s now wider, yet shorter, while remaining just as thin as ever.

Available in five colors: Silver, Blue, Green, Black and Red, I decided to go with my favorite color: Green. The face of the nano is a finely brushed Aluminum. As you can see from the image above, most of the front is taken up by the color display. With the same resolution (320 x 240) as the full-sized classic, the nano’s display is half an inch smaller in diameter. At two inches, that might sound microscopic for a video screen, but I was very surprised at how comfortable it is to watch. Sure, it’s no where near as nice as watching a movie on my iPhone, but hey, it’s really not that bad at all.

For some reason, Apple decided to return to using chrome for the back half of the nano’s shell. This fact didn’t make me very happy when I first saw it, as my experience tells me that I need only look cross-eyed at it in order for scratches to magically appear. On the bright side, you can have it engraved if you like.

The universal dock connector, stereo earphone jack and hold switch are all located on the bottom edge of the player. The docking connector hasn’t changed, so most accessories that employe it should also work with the nano. That is everything except video-out accessories. Getting video out of your nano and on to your TV is another matter. I’ll explain more a bit later.

The size of the nano fatty is almost shocking when you first see it. You can’t help but love this little thing.

In hand it’s small, but very sturdy. No creaking, cracking or flexing was discovered when I put it through my good old gadgeteer squeeze test. I only have one issue with the small size. It’s that the touch wheel has been narrowed, which does make it ever so slightly harder to use. Yes, I’m being extremely picky here…

The user interface has had a major facelift with this new nano. I went into a lot of detail about the changes in my iPod classic review, so go take a look at it if you want all the nitty gritty details. I’ll just add a few screen shots here for those of you that don’t want to go read another review ;o)

The new interface is more graphical, with album cover slide shows displaying next to menu items.

A new feature called Cover Flow is included on the nano, which allows you to scroll through your music collection by album cover art. In my opinion this feature is one that you show off to your non-iPod carrying friends, but rarely use yourself. At least I never use it…

The nano also comes with 3 games and various updated extras (stop watch, alarms, calendar, contacts, etc.).

Audio quality remains unchanged as far as I can tell between the second generation nano and the new fatty. Of course it all depends on the bit rate with which you have ripped your music collection. Personally, I rip all my songs at 192 kbps variable bit rate and they sound great to me.

If you are curious as to how the nano’s 2 inch diagonal display compares to the full-sized iPod’s 2.5 inch display, I’ve included a side by side image of my classic and the fatty. Even though it is noticeably smaller, all the details, color, etc are still easily seen.

Here’s a screenshot of paused video. Even paused, the picture is very crisp. I love it!

If you want to output your nano’s video to a larger screen, like your TV, you’re going to face some issues… At the moment, only the old universal dock (with s-video) will allow you to connect your iPod classic to your TV to view video. Third party stuff doesn’t work. The old video cable (the one with a headphone connector and video plugs) available from Apple does not work by itself on the new iPods, because the new iPods don’t have the video output in their headphone jacks any more.

Apparently, there are now two models of the universal dock. One of them has supposedly been discontinued… The previous version is the one called “iPod Universal Dock” has a S-video jack on the back. The new version is called “Apple Universal Dock” and does not have an S-video jack. If you have a “iPod Universal Dock” you can get video out to your TV from the S-video jack or from the old video cable using the iPod Universal dock’s headphone jack. If you have the “Apple Universal Dock” you can get video out using the new $49 cables that Apple will be selling soon (they are not available yet). The new video cables work either with the “Apple Universal Dock” or directly on the classic/new nano through the dock connector. The new video cables come in Composite and Component. S-video is no longer available from the new hardware, so you either have to use crummy old composite, or jump up to component 480p. Confusing huh?

Bottom Line

The Apple iPod nano is a wonderful little digital media player. It looks cute, fits in almost any pocket that you have, has great sound quality and excellent video quality for such a small device. The updates to the physical design and user interface have made this device one that will surely be coveted for at least till the next product refresh.

Questions for all of you

Do you think that the nano fatty is too small for watching video content?

Filed in categories: Audio, Video, TV Gear

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

Apple iPod nano “Fatty” originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on September 20, 2007 at 5:30 am.

The globally popular Apple iPod video has been updated with a new face, a new interface, higher storage capacity and even a new name. It’s now called the iPod classic, which may sound like a name that would be given to a low end model, but this isn’t the case with the new iPod classic. This
classic may not be tiny like the new “fatty” nano, or have a touch screen like the new iPod touch. But neither of those devices are available in capacities of 80 or 160GB, enabling you can carry your entire music and video library with you in your pocket. Today I’m going to tell you about the 160GB version of this device.

Hardware Specs

• Storage:80GB-160GB hard drive
• Display: 2.5-inch (diagonal), 320 x 240 pixels
• Frequency response: 20Hz to 20,000Hz
• Audio formats: MP3 (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Store), Audible (formats 2, 3 and 4), WAV, and AIFF
• Video formats: H.264 video up to 1.5 Mbps, 640 x 480 pixels
• Audio: 3.5mm stereo headphone minijack
• Power: Rechargeable lithium polymer battery (up to 40hrs of audio playback time and 7hrs of video playback time)
• Size: 4.1 x 2.4 x .53in (103.5 x 61.8 x 13.5mm)
• Weight: 5.7oz (162g)

Package Contents

• iPod classic
• earphones
• USB 2.0 cable
• Dock adapter
• Quick start guide
• Apple stickers

I’ve been waiting for what seems like forever (ok, almost 2 years) for Apple to come out with a new full-sized iPod so that I could replace my fifth generation 60GB iPod video that was “borrowed” by Jeanne (the person I live with). I didn’t really want to buy an 80GB version of the same device as the replacement because the 60GB was already totally full and I was afraid that it wouldn’t take long to fill an 80GB model. There was also the fact that as soon as I would have ordered one, Apple would have
probably announced a product refresh. That’s why I was so happy when I learned that Apple
was offering the new classic in a 160GB model. That’s huge! I really can’t think of any other audio / video player on the market right now that is as small as the classic and has the same capacity (please correct me if I’m wrong).

Hardware Changes

The classic now has a brushed aluminum face (Silver or Black) like the
nano and
shuffle. The top has edges that are slightly rounded instead of being completely flat. Another update is that the middle select button, also made of aluminum, is slightly indented instead of flat. The back is still made of shiny chrome and still attracts smudges and scratches. I think mine scratched as soon as I
breathed on it. I sure wish they would have used the brushed aluminum on the back as well as the front. (

Left to Right: 5G iPod video, 6G iPod classic

Here we see the previous version 60GB iPod video next to a new iPod classic. The 160GB classic has almost the exact same dimensions as the 60GB model. I’m guessing that cases might fit without any modifications.

In hand, the classic feels familiar and has no problems passing the Gadgeteer squeeze test. This thing is solidly built, with absolutely no flexing, creaking or cracking.

The top of the iPod has the Hold switch and headphone jack.

On the bottom you will find the universal dock connector. Nothing has changed with this connector, so most existing accessories will continue to work with this new iPod. I say most because there is an issue with accessories that have a video out feature. More about that in a bit.

User Interface Update

Besides the new aluminum shell and 160GB storage capacity offering, the biggest difference between the prior iPod video and the new iPod classic is the updated user interface.

I noticed the difference immediately upon plugging the iPod into the dock to sync with my iMac. The status screen looks completely different and is even animated.

The menu system is basically the same as it was before, as you will still
navigate to your music and videos in the same way that you have been accustomed
to doing for years. The menus are just a bit prettier now. Check out the image
above. On the Left you see the previous iPod video’s Music menu. On the Right the same menu
is displayed on the iPod classic.

To the Right of the menu, you can see a random slide show of album cover art,
video art, photos, etc., that use a Ken Burn’s style transition effect.

One of the new features to be added to the music menu is Cover Flow. This feature was first introduced in iTunes and then recently on the iPhone. It’s a graphical method of viewing your music collection by flipping through  album covers.

To scroll, you just run your finger around the touch wheel. Pressing the select button will display the songs
contained in
the center facing album. From this screen you can start playing the desired album or individual songs inside it.

When you search via artist, you will see thumbnails of the albums for that
artist and their titles. The interface can feel a bit slow loading these
thumbnails. The same is true for the cover flow feature. Sometimes you’ll just see
a musical note icon as a place holder until the thumbnail is loaded from the hard drive. If a
thumbnail doesn’t exist for an album, the musical note icon will be
displayed in its place.

Not a lot has changed on the Now Playing status screen from the old version of the interface. You will notice in the image above that the album art on the classic is a bit larger and has a mirror effect. The text is arranged a bit differently as well.

There’s a new search feature that you can use to search for artists, albums and
song titles. As you type words, the search list filters to show only the items that
match what you’ve typed. When you see what you want, you just hold down the
select button to get out of input mode. From there you can select items in the
search list.

There is no learning curve to using the classic to listen to your tunes. It’s as intuitive as it has always been. Audio quality seems to be the same as far as I can tell and I have no complaints in that area.

The video menus are setup up similarly to the music menus in that they have the same
thumbnails and Ken Burn’s style previews.

When a video is paused, the title of the show is displayed at the top of the screen.

Speaking of the screen, I will say that the classic’s display is noticeably brighter than the iPod video’s display when both are set to max brightness.
Clarity and color are very nice as well. All of the screen shots that you see in
this review were taken with the display set to only 75% brightness.

Remember earlier in the review when I said that existing accessories that have video-out features
and were made for previous iPods won’t work with the classic? At the moment, only the old universal dock (with s-video) will allow you to connect your iPod classic to your TV to view video. Third party stuff doesn’t work. The old video cable (the one with a headphone connector and video plugs)
available from Apple does not work by itself on the new iPods, because the new iPods don’t have the video output in their headphone jacks any more.

Apparently, there are now two models of the universal dock. One of them has supposedly been discontinued… The previous version is the one called “iPod Universal Dock” has
a S-video jack on the back. The new version is called “Apple Universal Dock” and does not have an S-video jack. If you have a “iPod Universal Dock” you can get video out to your TV from the
S-video jack or from the old video cable using the iPod Universal dock’s headphone jack. If you have the “Apple Universal Dock” you can get video out using the new $49 cables that Apple will be selling soon (they are not available yet). The new video cables work either with the “Apple Universal Dock” or directly on the classic/new nano through the dock connector. The new video cables come in Composite and Component. S-video is no longer available from the new hardware, so you either have to use crummy old composite, or jump up to component 480p.
Confusing huh?

Like the previous iPod video, you can also sync your iPhoto images to the iPod classic.

For some reason Apple cut back on the types of transition effects for slide shows. Now you can just choose from Random, Cross Fade, Fade to Black, Zoom Out, Wipe Across and Wipe Center.

The Podcast menu has been moved out of the music menu and into a menu all its own, which combines video and audio content into one list. Items with Blue dots next to them indicate content that has yet to be viewed or listened to.

Now let’s check out all the changes to the Extras menu.

The Clocks feature is prettier now, but has the same basic function of listing the time in various locations.

The Calendars feature remains unchanged. You can still sync your desktop calendar with the iPod, creating a sort of pseudo PDA.

Clicking on a date that has a flag on it, will show you the appointments and associated info for that date.

The Contacts feature also remains pretty much unchanged. Too bad that the search function doesn’t find
contacts entries too.

Contact photos sync as well as all the contact info.

The timer feature was buried down in the old clocks menu. In the new interface,
it’s been pulled out to be in its own stand alone menu. It’s now much easier to
access.

Yay, games! The classic comes with three games: iQuiz – a music, TV show and movie trivia game, Klondike – a solitaire game, and Vortex – an arcade style game. There is some bad news regarding games though… I’ve not tested this, but apparently, any games that you may have purchased for your previous iPod, will not work on the classic. You have to buy them again. Not good Apple…

Of all three games, I’m best at Klondike )

The Stopwatch feature has the same abilities as before, it’s just been graphically updated to match the rest of the interface changes.

This feature has actually come in handy for me on numerous occasions.

The Settings menu has also been beautified.

Battery life on the classic has been greatly improved. Apple states that you should get up to 40hrs of audio playback time and up to 7hrs of video playback time. That’s a big improvement over the iPod video. I’ve not done any real testing with regards to battery life as I’ve had the classic in and out of the dock all week during my review. I hope to do some tests soon and will report back if the claims of 40hrs are greatly inflated.

Bottom Line

While I do like all of the graphical updates to the user interface, I have to
say that navigating through the menus now feels considerably slower than before.
I also notice the hard drive clunking as I maneuver through the menu structure.
It’s like it’s trying to keep up with my travels. That makes me curious to know
if the 160GB hard drive has a slower RPM than the older 60GB drives in the iPod
video. I’d also be interested in hearing if new 80GB classic owners also notice
sluggish performance. Besides the somewhat slow interface, I’m happy with the
iPod classic so far. And at a whopping 160GB capacity, I don’t think I’m going to
outgrow it anytime soon.

Questions for all of you

What kind of iPod user are you? One that wants your entire media collection
with you, or one that only carries a subset?

If you also own an iPod classic, do you find the interface to be sluggish?

Filed in categories: Audio, Video, TV Gear

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

Apple iPod classic originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on September 19, 2007 at 9:40 am.