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Monday, January 31, 2005
Projectors vs Plasma, LCDs, Rear Projection In moving toward an HD home theater system, probably the largest decision you'll make is the display. Do you get a plasma, an LCD, a rear projection, or a regular projector? For value, there is no comparison to a projection system on a decent screen.
A projector has three giant advantages over any of the other options: price, space, and size. In my own system, I use an InFocus X1 projected onto an 84" wide screen, giving me an effective 100" screen for about $1000. It is mounted in a closet behind the seats, and takes no floor space at all. Take any decent SVGA or above projector, an all-in-one DVD theater system, and a screen from Office Depot or wherever, and you will have an incredible home theater for less than the cheapest rear-projection displays. You could get it all for under $1000 if you look a little. A couple of considerations people normally need to make are aspect ratio, bulb life, and ambient light. My X1 is not the brightest projector, so I do use some window coverings to get the full experience, but only because it looks so good I want to max out on the pleasure. With a $4000 plasma that's 25% of the size, I'm just watching TV, so I don't really think about improving it a lot. On aspect ratio, at least for the foreseeable future I'll be recommending getting a 4:3 projector. Width is almost always the limiting factor, so 4:3 doesn't limit widescreen, whereas a 16:9 would limit fullscreen size unless you do that hideous stretch-to-fill. The $900 X2 has a bulb life of about 3000 hours, which would be about 8 hours a day for a solid year, before you had to buy another few hundred dollar bulb. I know it scares some people off, but it's not even a question for me, or for most people that see a projector in action. It's not expensive, and it's not difficult to replace.  When using data projectors, the connectors are not always optimal for home theater. For example, the HD outputs on your cable box might be component and the input on the projector is VGA. This cable is just what you need. If you have multiple sources, it's usually easiest to use component to VGA and then VGA to the projector, because VGA switching or KVM boxes are much cheaper than component ones.
We'll go more into depth on some of these things as we go on, but please make sure you think things through before you spend thousands on your display without needing to. There aren't a lot of 100" screens available in the $1000 range anyway. | ||
Sunday, January 30, 2005
Even Better Car iPod Shuffle - VFM7 $30 It's not on their site yet as far as I can tell, but it was in their store, so I grabbed one at Walmart tonight: the VR3 VFM7 MP3 FM Modulator for $30.
It makes the Car iPod shuffle just that much easier and cheaper. Just this, and any USB pen drive, and you're through. Still no random play, so you'll need Renamer still to shuffle it up, but these devices are great. It's not as juiceful as the Anydrive, so it has to be a regular solid-state pen drive, but I can't fault it for just doing what it says. Also it couldn't be simpler. Play, Back, Forward, and Change frequency. At this price I can have multiple playlists on multiple drives so I can listen to audiobooks and the like while keeping my tracks shuffled up. It might also be fun as prank device, you could use it in the back seat to override the radio station as long as it's below 89 MHz. That might limit it's usefulness in that area a little. The transmitter seemed powerful enough, I'll have to check out the sound quality tomorrow. | ||
Saturday, January 29, 2005
Yes, I Bought a Cassette Deck Today.... In the spirit of saving my analog past for the future, I bought a cassette deck today. Ouch? Well, in a way, yes, but I did it in the same spirit I bought the D-VHS deck.
The end-of-the-road Philips DCC format allowed you to play analog tapes out over a coax digital output, and in general the machines were high-quality tape decks to begin with. Like anyone over 25 or so, I've got some old tapes, some that I can't replace. But with this unholy mess in here, I've got to do something. So now, I've got three machines with formats that didn't really take off, but are allowing me to make good digital versions of my old analog material. Digital8 gives me DV encoded 8mm and Hi8, D-VHS gives me MPEG-2 converted VHS and S-VHS, and now the even less successful DCC gives me digital from the old cassettes. Now I just have to learn to live with what's on these tapes. | ||
Record HD and Restore VHS - HM-DH40000U $300 There was a time in my life where I recorded most TV I liked on VHS, so I have a sizable collection of stuff I just don't watch anymore, but I don't want to throw away.
With old 8mm & Hi8 tapes, you could always put them in a Digital8 camera and shoot them out over Firewire to save them, and the results were great. Now I'm going to do the same with my VHS. These Digital VHS machines aren't too popular I guess because they're getting cheap. So now I can save all those hours of classic stuff in MPEG-2, and ditch the tapes finally. And it's all done internally, it'll come out over Firewire as well, ready to put straight onto DVD. I'd never moved much VHS to DVD because the solutions are usually pretty corny, some USB adapter connected to your old beat up VCR or something. This machine should let me rest easy that I've gotten the best I could out of the old tapes before I kiss them goodbye for good. After that, I can use it for the reason it was intended, recording HD broadcasts. I suppose I can buy the HD D-VHS versions of some movies too, maybe I'll have to do that. Looks like Galaxy Quest is available. Mainly, though, I want to save my old VHS stuff in 720P. | ||
This Week on Gadgetize - Fun, Friends and More...Well, this past week can be summed up by the phrase "The D-Link DSM-320 product, software, and support stink to high heaven." I contacted them through the site immediately after noticing the video problems, got no response, read some forums full of people in my boat, and I returned it. Oddly enough, the thing can't stop winning awards and great reviews at CES and from PC Magazine. Who can you trust? Me, and that's it I guess. I'll be stupid enough for us all.So what does that have to do with this week? It gives us our project and focus for the week. Home theater without killing myself in frustration. So first, we'll follow a project: I picked up an Xbox, a 120GB hard drive, DVD remote and I ordered the SpiderChip solderless (hopefully) mod chip. It's apparently the most difficult version to get to work properly, so we'll see how easy I can make our worst case scenario. I just keep seeing Mac mini media center projects and I don't feel like spending hundreds more than I have to. Second, we'll talk theater displays. I use a projector, and I can't see how anyone would do anything differently unless they have money to burn. Third, we'll go over some other interesting media center possibilities, focusing on opening a box and having something work. For once in my miserable life. Along the way I'm sure I'll make some other poor purchasing decisions. Plus, I missed UPS to get that crazy Mcatch thing. How, I don't know, I was here all day, just like every day. I can't wait to use all the functions rapid-fire in a group setting so I can act like it's completely de rigeur. "What? Oh, I don't know, it's a video/still camera mp3 player/recorder, doesn't everyone carry something this crappy? Watch me use it in a dramatic fashion." | ||
Thursday, January 27, 2005
The Pains of Early/Uninformed Adoption - DSM-320Well, tough luck on my spur of the moment Medialounge purchase today, I'm going to recommend you NOT buy it anytime soon. If I had more than half a brain I'd have at least looked to see if there were major issues with it.My main purpose was to watch XviDs of TV shows I'd downloaded, but the A/V sync is gone within a minute. Apparently it's a known issue, but there's no resolution yet. Fortunately I didn't send in the rebate, I guess that's the real gotcha on these, you buy it, cut off the UPC, and you can't return it. Ouch. So maybe I'll give it a week, but I'm not too hopeful. Then I'll find some other media player to make a mistake with. Frustrating though, the video output was very nice on this pile of apparent junk. If I don't find something easy to use soon, it'll be our next builder project. Rest assured it'll be no more difficult than the Totally Awesome 1Gb Car iPod shuffle. | ||
Do I Like Fujitsu Today? P7000 Under $1600
I was at the Fujitsu site looking at this model when I saw the P1000 earlier, and it looks like almost the perfect size laptop for the ultraportable lover. A half inch smaller both ways than a sheet of paper, the Fujitsu P7000 has pretty decent specs: - Intel Pentium M (1.1 GHz, 2 MB L2 Cache, 400 MHz) - Microsoft Windows XP Home - 10.6" wide format XGA Crystal View TFT display - 256 MB DDR micro-DIMM SDRAM memory - 40 GB hard drive - Modular DVD/CD-RW combo drive - Built-in Intel® PRO/Wireless 2200BG LAN (802.11b/g) - Two USB 2.0, IEEE 1394, Memory Stick®/SD slot, Compact Flash slot, PC Card slot The P7000 can be customized on-line, and if you feel like spending $2000, you can get the built-in fingerprint sensor. Will that make people think you're cool? Yes. OK, somebody buy one ASAP and let me know, I'm getting antsy to make a decision here. | ||
Why Import Japanese Notebooks? P1000 - $1200
There's just no reason to spend more than $2000 on all the tiny Japanese stuff anymore. I had forgotten about this Fujitsu, but I was looking at the P7000 again today and I saw this there, and I fell in love all over again. - 800 MHz Crusoe™ TM5800 - Microsoft® Windows® XP Home - 8.9" 1024x600 TFT / touch screen - 256 MB memory - 30 GB hard drive - External USB 3.5" floppy drive - Integrated 802.11b wireless LAN It's truly a tiny one, and the comparable sized stuff at places like Dynamism is all over $2000. It's 9"x6.5", which is, in the all-important page size comparison, 2 inches shorter on each side. Also, there's a 10 hour battery you can get for it. I just retrieved my old laptop from video duty in my entertainment center, but my poor judgement may get the best of me and I might have to buy it. | ||
BestBuy - D-Link MediaLounge DSM-320 for $150
It does have a rebate, and no I didn't notice until after I bought it, but still, it's a pretty cool deal. It plays Xvid files, so I can finally get my laptop out of the entertainment area, and it has component outputs and everything else I need to watch all the Bittorrent downloads. I never trust the wireless on anything anymore, but I have horrible interference where I'm at, I needed a WiFi extender just to make a 30 foot connection here. But the Medialounge has wired and unwired anyway, so that'll work. For audio, you need a PC to connect to for Rhapsody and Napster, but the Radio@AOL service will run with just the Medialounge, so I'll have to check it out. It comes with a 6 month trial anyway. Maybe I'll tell you how it works out with the old Medialounge, but probably only if it stinks. Just assume it's completely sweet like I did when I saw it on my way to the restroom and bought it for no reason. | ||
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Is This Something? Eujoy Every-Device Thing $60 I'm going on record saying this is something. In fact, it's Eujoy Mcatch still cam/video camera/web cam/mp3 player/voice recorder. If it had a computer with a keyboard and a phone in there, we'd officially be in the future I guess, but for $60 how can you lose?
Two ways, I guess. First it's kind of ugly, but it is small (4.5 x 1.9 x 0.82-inches), so that's something. Second it has only 16MB in it. Fortunately, it has an SD/MMC slot to expand the memory. Again, what do you want for $60? I know, everything. These things are over $100 on eBay, and I just don't see a lot about them anywhere else. Saw some sample pictures on a review site, and they looked way better than I'd have thought. Also it doesn't look as crappy in bigger pictures. So that seals it, i'm buying one. | ||
Gotta Have a 10 Incher? Sony VGN-T150 for $1860 I still like the Tatung value from Walmart we talked about yesterday, but for those that need something smaller than a piece of paper, there's the Sony VGN-T150 at Clearance Club. It is refurbished, though, so if you want the pure stuff, spend a couple hundred extra and get it, see if I care. Now if you want it in burgundy instead of blue? Only Sony Style can hook you up with that, and full MSRP for no extra charge.
- Intel® Pentium® M Processor (1.10 GHz, 2MB L2 Cache) - Microsoft® Windows® XP Home - Integrated 802.11b/g wireless LAN - DVD±RW/CD-RW drive - 512MB RAM - 40GB hard drive - 10.6" widescreen display with XBRITE technology This thing's like #16 on the Amazon computers sales rankings right now, maybe I'm just grumpy that everyone has more money to blow than me. | ||
How Did This Not Take Off? Nokia 3300 for $99 I'm not sure how I don't have this already, as I love holding odd-shaped electronics against my head. It looks like they fit just about everything into this baby, an mp3 player with expandable storage, FM radio, a keyboard for messaging...
It's got some kind of fortune teller or tarot card reader on the box, but I doubt she saw this thing closing out for $99 at Computer Geeks. Who could have? Even with the benefit of hindsight I think this thing's gonna be a hit. | ||
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Dynamism or Walmart? 12.1" WXGA Tatung $998 If you love smaller notebooks a la Dynamism, and you love smaller prices a la Walmart, then you'll really love this Tatung Laptop and the $1500 it'll leave in you pocket. It's a little heavier than the Panasonic T2, with a little less (claimed) battery life, but I can live with that. It's a half inch longer and wider than a piece of paper, and it has way more gigabytes besides.
- 12.1" TFT LCD WXGA Widescreen Display - 1.40 GHz Intel Pentium M Processor - 256 MB RAM - 40 GB Hard Drive - DVD-ROM+CD-RW Combo Drive - Integrated 802.11g wireless If you don't like Walmart or something, send me $2000 and I'll send you one. Support small business, come on! Take a stand! | ||
The Totally Awesome 1GB Car iPod Shuffle - $128Apparently, Random is the New Order, so I thought an iPod shuffle for the car would be in even newer order. If you're like me, you hate having too many adapters and plugs all over the car. I prefer to save space for empty Wendy's cups and dirty napkins.So to be honest, this little rig will use no iPods whatsoever. It'll be way cooler, and cheaper besides. I'm sorry if you feel I've misled you. For those brave enough, we continue... Step 1: 1GB USB Pen Drive $74  You could actually any USB drive for that matter, but we're trying to make a 1GB Car iPod shuffle, so don't please. There are cheaper drives, but they're those ugly double-wides, and you may end up using a USB extension cable to make it fit, so again, don't. Plus it looks like this one comes with a lanyard, try to get that from Apple without buying that $29 Sport Case.Step 2: Anydrive Car mp3 Transmitter $54  Plug in the USB drive. Plug in the lighter adapter. Press play. Jam out on air seat belt guitar. I don't see how this thing is FCC legal, it's got to be the most powerful FM transmitter I've used. There isn't a bunch of annoying fine-tuning to do, it comes out CRANKED. It will play mp3s from 64Kbps - 320Kbps, just fill your USB drive with songs, plug it into this little guy, and press play.You can change the transmission frequency if you like, but it's not necessary to do it more than once. It'll destroy just about any other signal it meets, so you don't have to ride the controls while you're driving. I've used the Anydrive successfully with just about any kind of USB drive, there must be decent power on the port. If it shows up automatically when you plug it into your computer, it'll probably work on this thing. You could potentially plug other audio players into the mini plug input on here and transmit too, but that would make it no better than all the other disgusting adapter-ridden devices out there. But no, you say, there shouldn't be just two steps to this process! Something must be wrong! Well, I did forget the awesome switch on the back of the iPod shuffle, it's raison d'etre as it were. It would seem the Anydrive is not advanced enough to play in a random order. So... Step 3: Download Renamer  Like your mp3s shuffled? Renamer will add a random postfix onto your music files to keep them totally mixed up for a true iPod shuffle experience. Set the source directory to your music files directory, set the destination to your USB drive, set the options as you see at the right, and enjoy life as Apple intended.So now you've got your 1GB player with no display, your FM transmitter, your patented shuffle switch, and your hot lanyard. You could sand the corners and spraypaint it all white, but I'd say it's time to roll out in search of femininas that appreciate you for who you are inside. Or for some that appreciate you for the 20 bones you just saved tricking out your wheels with some fresh new Apple-ish gear. | ||
Futuristic, Visionary V800XPT-1 Tablets $869 Not entirely new, much less futuristic, but you wouldn't know it reading the hyperbole about some other tablets out there. Anyway, Newegg.com has the newer Visionary X800XPT-1 Tablets refurbished for $868.49 with FedEx Saver shipping. An 8.4" TFT, 800MHz Crusoe, a built-in camera and 802.11b, and 30GB hard drive make it a pretty sweet deal. The old one looks slightly different and has a 20GB hard drive, but it's under $800 now. Also it has a slightly shorter model number, no 1 on the end, which may be a dealbreaker for some.So it doesn't have the most stellar specs, but it does have TWO carrying cases. And try comparing it to some of those Dynamism and other small tablets. Seen something better around the same price? Let me know, I dare you. | ||
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Gadgetize: January 2005