G E E K A P U R A

An HDMI Switch Box Necessary

2009-11-06T19:55:00.005+01:00

So now I have the PS3, Xtreamer, TechniSat, MacBook and JVC GZ-HD7 camcorder that needs to get plugged into the HDTV. It could be a chore to bend over to move HDMI cable from one peripheral to the other for viewing. My Samsung TV only has 3 HDMI inputs thus once a while I gotta pull out an HDMI cable from one and plug into another. In care of my already sore back, my solution to this is to get a HDMI Switcher. I think its a nice simple gadget that helps you with the cable hassle. You plug in all the different accessory into the Numbered Input of the Switchbox and its one cable out to the HDTV. Voila!

Switching differs from various switch box. This one I got comes with Auto Detect. Which means it will switch to the last hardware that's been turned on. But just in case they're all kept on and you want to switch from one source to the other, this NEET switch comes with an IR Remote. Handy! Pun intended I guess. :) Well you could also walk to the switch and manually select the input.

HDMI Switcher allows access to multiple HDMI devices, such as PS3 and Satellite set-top boxes to one HDMI display . It’s the best peripheral for home theater systems and dual computer users. No more hassles of manually plugging in different HDMI connectors to view different HDMI sources. I got this out from their eBay store for around EU35 incl shipping. Its a 5*1 switch that enables 5 HDMI devices to be attached to my HDTV. Oh, and it comes with a complimentary MicroFibre cloth! Free.

Xtreamer. Don't underestimate its size!

2009-11-06T09:47:00.021+01:00

It might have been the best thing I got from my last visit in Singapore. I read the outstanding review about it somewhere (probably twitter), and stumbling upon the Singapore showroom by chance in Sim Lim was like luck on a satay stick.

The unkle (everybody is related in Singapore) behind the counter was the friendliest tech/sales person I've ever met. I'm not sure if its the Xtreamer's very own credibility or his irresistable charm that drew me to close the deal but I'd say its a fair of both! If you're ever in Singapore, go straight to the 6th floor of Sim Lim Square and see this man and product for yourself!

It didn't take long to decide that I wanted the Xtreamer. How long have I battled to have a Media Player that plays various HD content directly to my HDTV?? I've got a couple of edited home-videos that's been sitting in the hard drive. There was an option to transfer it into the PS3 but that player is pretty fussy on its playback format. The Xtreamer however is a hog on both video and audio format. I think it only missed JVC native TOD format, but that's about it.

Netherland's Deadly Electronic Pricing

Thanks to the iPhone and web world I was able to quickly Google the Xtreamer price if I were to buy it in Holland. What??!! (Scroll down to see Dutch - Singapore price comparison) I didn't hesitate paying SGD$400 for the package from IT-Image Pte Ltd. For that price I got a complete package which includes:

- The Xtreamer
- Western Digital 2.5" 500GB 5400rpm HDD
- Gold 1.3b certified HDMI cable 1.5meter
- WiFi-N USB Antenna

On top of that I got my 7% GST returned at the airport.
Thus the total cost of SGD$372 nett = EU179 = HAPPY SHOPPER!!!

NOW COMPARE THE EU PRICING FOR THAT SAME PACKAGE

That's EU153 incl tax but before the 2.5" 500GB HDD.

Another referred Benelux retailer MobileHardDisk.nl will bill you EU317,91 incl tax before shipping. Unreal if compared to the price in Singapore. How oh how does the pricing gets fluctuated like this in Europe? Who's making the money I wonder???

I would suggest buying the product from Singapore and having it shipped here. I'm sure you'd be paying much lesser even after the 20% VAT!
$400 + $80 + approx $20 shipping = SGD$500 = EU241

Quoting Xtreamer's Mission Statement of WHY PAY MORE? I think I did pretty good. :)

Assembly : Plug-N-Play

It's child's play to get the Xtreamer up and running. Plug the power-cord into the back of the unit with the appropriate prong adapter for the region you're in. The 12v adapter works on variable 110v~240v so its good to work just about everywhere. Plug in the HDMI cable into your HDTV's spare input connection and Press the Power Switch on the Remote. If you had content pre-installed in the internal hard drive, like the Demo Videos uncle had for me, you'd be laughing with joy witnessing the simplicity of using the Xtreamer. It can't be any harder!

*There are some settings to tweak but it doesn't really matter since HDTVs this days are mostly comes with hardware setup auto-detect. PAL or NTSC does not matter much with the digital screen of today.

But hey, I'm a tweak freak. Navigating to the HOME - SETTINGS menu, you'll see these options (as from v2.0.1):

Playback
A/V
Network
System
Application

Going straight into the A/V setup for best Audio and Video experience, I got my setup as such:
Night Mode - Comfort
HDMI Audio - On
Digital Output - DTS Master Audio / Dolby TureHD 5.1CH
Aspect Ratio - 16:9
Brightness - 25
Contrast - 25
TV System - 1080P 60Hz
1080P 24Hz - On

PLETHORA OF DATA TRANSFER METHODS

The easiest most straight forward way of transferring data to the internal drive of the Xtreamer is via its USB 2.0 port. There's a trick to let your laptop see the external drive. Not as tricky as it sounds, but you FIRST need to power it with the adapter and turn it ON using the REMOTE. Then, Plug In the USB Cable provided and you'll see the Hard Drive appear on your Desktop. You're good to go!

You can create Folders and the rest is just an easy Drag n Drop. That's it! I tried various video and audio formats and nothing is alien to this little beast. (I use a MacBook to do the transfers and it works fine.)

Small But Amazing Media Tank!

The next biggest selling point about the Xtreamer is most definitely its size. Its no bigger than a regular 3.5" hard drive! Besides the USB WiFi-N that sticks out from its rear connection point, you'd hardly notice the most powerful Media Player on your TV desktop. I have a PS3 and a TechniSat HD Satellite Box that already sits on the rack. I don't want a media box to protrude out between the two hardwares. Bottomline, the Xtreamer is not obtrusive to the eye. And being black, it kinda fits perfect in between my Home Video setup. ; )

"Don't just stop there!" Says Xtreamer. "Expand!! 4TB!! eTRAYz.."

Go ahead. Call me a kid with his new toy. I've also ordered myself the eTRAYz which will hold max of 4TB of data from 2 SATA drives. That would be usable as my Network drive. Thanks to Xtreamer who honors the purchase from Singapore, I'm gonna get the eTrayz at their offer price of EU59 offer price. YES!! More savings!!

SUMMARY

I'll have to give Xtreamer a double thumbs up! Both on hardware design and Customer Service Response. My request to purchase the eTrayz was replied in less than 24 hours. And not only that, they've responded in perfectly good English.

Quote:
Dear Sir,
As you initiate an order for the Xtreamer before November 1st you are able to buy eTrayz for 59euro promotion price.

1. Please provide a scan PDF of the receipt to: sales@xtreamer.net
2. Kindly provide your order number and SN of your device in the order notes.

Then, we will approve your order and ship you the eTRAYz for 59 euro promotion price.
Thank you,
Xtreamer sales team

Its majorly important for a tech company to have background customer support that communicates as good as the product. And the fact that they're constantly busy with firmware updates tells of a company that would be creating lots of positive news in the days to come. Hats off to the team!

Keep up the good work Xtreamer! And I'm sure we'll be hearing more success stories from you in future. I'm a fan already!

Excuse me Kamera-Express - Do you care?

2009-08-12T17:38:00.026+02:00

Call me a sour customer. But I've never felt more right to be, especially after what I've experienced with this outlet's service. Today, my blog will be a channel where I vent my unsatisfied experience with after-sales service from KameraExpress. Please be reminded that this is my 1st time expressing negative feedback on a company, which should focus on service more than anything else; to promote sales.

Over a year ago I flattered myself with the newly released Canon G9. The camera functioned great for my stop motion animation studio. Its also a handy camera to tote around for great pictures and videos. To make it even more user-friendly, I've added custom add-ons from Richard Freniec. Just to be clear, the camera itself was not tempered with the add-ons. This include a 35mm lens adapter, a glued-on hand grip and thumb rest and flash-shoe protector. I later got a Canon SpeedLight 580EX II to complement the built-in flash.

Nothing out of the unusual. But I did crack the LCD protector one time when I accidentally sat on the camera just 4 mths after purchaee. This would have been the 1st sign of how dear it is to get cameras fixed via Camera Express. They asked more than €80/$110 to get that plastic cover replaced. I ended up fixing it myself buying the part off DarnToothySam.com for $24/€17 incl shipping. Work the difference!

Your camera is still under warranty. We'll fix it for free.

Fast forward a year later, in July, I took the camera out of my Crumpler Bag and started setting up for a stop motion shoot-out but the camera didn't want to power up. I thought ok, probably need to recharge the battery. I got 3 spare batteries, fully charged, but none of them worked. So back to KE I went with my fav'd G9.

On the service desk, all was dandy. I showed them the non-working camera, KE guy tried it with various batteries he had behind the desk and verified it as faulty. I asked how much the servicing would cost and he smiled saying, you're lucky coz its warrantied for 2 yrs! GREAT!!

"How long will it take?" I asked
"Maximum 6 weeks. And we can have it delivered back to your home for additional €8 charge." He smiled.
"I'll do that. And what a relief to have 2 year warranty!" But I guess I complimented a little too soon.

6 weeks later... Sorry sir..

Its unusual that repair service takes a whole 6 weeks, so I called KE asking for Repair Status #5653. Here's when things started to go southwards. They explained that Canon Repair Centre in Netherlands have shut-down. OK so what does that mean for me? They say it might take a while longer since all repair services have been diverted to Germany. Great, so it will still get fixed right? Right. Said the voice on the other end. We'll call you.

8 weeks' passed... No news..

By this time, I was more concerned if I can have my compact camera back before the vacation coming in one week. I called again and KE rep said it should be ready in couple of days. He claimed hearing about repair service shipment coming in a couple of days. They'd call when its back. Again, no call.

Following that, 3 days before my vacation I rang again to ask about the camera return. Bad news, said KE, my camera is still not back. I bought the G9 specifically also for travel purpose, and its not going to be with me... In New York, if in B&H, they'd offer me a camera for loan I thought for the inconvenience. Thus I politely asked if I can be compensated with a temporary camera for loan. Something of equivalent standard maybe? But got rebutted right away. OK I can understand that they cannot loan out 800 similar cameras that's stuck on service repair. But can they not make exceptions for a week's loan. Its a small camera, thus small risk. I'd even pay rental if I got to. NOP. Said the rep. Final answer.

I was broken hearing that. I'm going on my one time vacation into France with the family without my fav pocket cam?? I paid so much for it, and not to be able to have it with me for that one purpose just killed me. Why can't they loan one out? I just don't understand... My camera is under warranty. They should respect that its not my fault to be camera-less. They've earned my money. KE or Canon should share for consumer rental costs if need be. Both these companies are not doing their work to keep their customers. That's my final thought. Or somebody is just not doing the needed PR in these bad times.

DSLRs are good. But on the road, its not ideal.

I left for the vacation with my 400D. The vacation got my head off the hassle I'm in with KE for a while. At least I know I'll have a fixed camera when we back. And I no longer need to vent more steam on the delayed repair. What's done is done. I have no option but allow this to happen. But it would not be as so in USA or Singapore I'm sure. Or maybe I'm spoilt by these 2 previous places I lived in. I have heard before that there is no after-sales service in Holland. If you want one, you probably gotta pay for it.

Finally last week, I got an email from KameraExpress regarding the repair status. And if there was any lava in me, it'd be a good time to erupt. The email writes:

Uw reparatie met nummer: 5653 is niet gerepareerd. De kosten voor de reparatie zijn €49

Omschrijving:
Ongerepareerd retour i.v.m. val en /of stootschade de kosten van de reparatie bedragen meer dan de economische waarde van uw toestel.

U kunt uw reparatie afhalen bij Kamera-express.nl.

Translated:
Your repair service item numbered: 5653 is not repaired. The service cost is €49/$69

Note:
The damage cost to repair the camera is more than the economic worth of the product.

You can collect your repair service item at KE

We'll advise you to buy a new camera.

I didn't want to call them up right away after reading that email. It would not have been good. But I doubt it made any difference calling them a week later today. In due respect I doubt I needed to call em at all. But I did. The email received pretty much summarized the 'work' they've done. Nothing. Which is worth €49 on my behalf.

They promise a free fix after a visual check in the store 1st day
3 mths later they insist the camera was damaged from an accidental drop
They will not believe that the camera was in a bag until discovered faulty

I'll let you deduce how that conversation went today. But if I was the owner of Kamera Express, I'll definitely advise to look into the company's relation with future and more importantly, current customers. Instead of driving me closer to the company for future business and garner positive feedback. This 3 months ordeal with KameraExpress brought me to the edge I've never been through before as a consumer and a company director. A company that stocks everything doesn't mean it will sell everything with such after sales support and PR.

I read earlier about the Netherlands' Consumer Satisfaction Index as compared to the rest of the EU and refused to believe the figures. Would KE has a chunk to do with its consumer's votes? I'd pull it another point negative if you ask.

I was thinking of getting a new DSLR. But after this experience, I guess its clear that I'm not going to shop at KameraExpress no matter what the price offer is. And as for the camera they still hold. I'll pay for it. I'm paying to thank them for the horrible service they've reminded me never to offer to my customers.

12 weeks later - Today

What do you think? Should I give them the €49 for a no-fix service that is within the 2 year camera warranty?

Year of the OX in Netherlands

2009-01-26T10:42:00.004+01:00

It was a beautiful day out in The Hague. Bit chilly but better than the previous weeks. It was also a Chinese New Year weekend thus we had a bit of a walk around. There were cultural performances around the Stadhuis thus we brought the girls for a bit of an adventure. It was fun and almost necessary discovering new asian stores around the region. One of them was Amazing Oriental supermarket which stock just about anything I'd miss from home. From Singa Beer to Maggi Chili Sauce! That'd mean lighter luggage bags for future visitors from home. : )

Air and Simple Gifts - A complete package for Obama.John William's homage gesture to Aaron Copland.

2009-01-21T03:43:00.051+01:00

Pre-recorded or not while being performed on stage doesn't matter. Its a great composition and no one does it better than John Williams. I'm more amazed that the recording turned out pretty good despite the fact that it was recorded in some Marine Barracks in WA. In the end, it didn't really matter since the playback was going to be done to a cheering crowd of thousands. Shows to proof that you can record anywhere when there's good idea and talents on the job. Yep, mobile recording IS the way of the future!! I am curious however if they actually DID play on stage... Why bother with the fancy microphones and cablings then? Can anybody that was seated on the inaugural platform tell us how it was?

Television or not, the beautiful melody we all heard was pre-recorded on Sunday. Mr Perlman predicted a disaster if it was performed live based on how acoustic instruments would tinker in cold weather. But I also believe JW may already got a planned date with Sony Studios for a proper recording before its seen fitted to go on sale in iTunes. Either that or some WA Marine Barrack is now garnered as John's next fav'd recording studio. ; )

Aaron Copland (1900-1990)

The melody that Aaron McGill played on the clarinet is undoubtedly from 'Simple Gifts' which is a ballet score from 1944's Appalachian Spring done by Copland. That very tune was weaved in beautifully with the opening material. And yep, guess who Obama's favourite classical composer is. Will this mean more support for classical music and the arts with Obama's administration? But there's more to this. In 1953, a pre-inaugural concert by the National Symphony Orchestra at Constitution Hall, a concert attended by then president-elect Eisenhower, was to have included a performance of one of Copland's most popular works, A Lincoln Portrait. But a Republican congressman (from Illinois) objected, suggesting that Copland was too liberal and maybe even Communist-friendly, so the piece was pulled from the concert.

Inserting the touch of Copland into the Obama inauguration, Williams told Variety last week, offers "a completed circle of events that is nice to think about."

I look forward to hear the official release on iTunes. For the time being, I'm happy with what I've captured on tele. Congrats America. God speed Obama.

Air and Simple Gifts
Featuring Itzhak Perlman, Yo Yo Ma, Gabriela Montero and Anthony McGill

Right Click to Download (4:30min 5.2MB)

Microsoft TAG re-invents the QR Code

2009-01-10T01:01:00.026+01:00

- "Let's re-invent the wheel when it works..." Right? And re-veal it to the world! -

Came across an announcement on the release of MicroSoft TAG app using HCCB technology. On first glance I thought, " Now, why'd they have to do that?"

I remember 2 years ago when I got my N95 that it had this BarCode reader function built-in. Did anybody in Europe actually use that technology? For a while, I thought its going to be the future of super market shopping! Tag your product and then scan your payment through at the cashier(less) counter on your way out. All by using your smart phone. Right??! Nop. The technology just never caught on here.

Apparently, that is how its being used in Japan. You scan the product you intend to buy then place it in your shopping basket then complete your payment via either scanning your bank code at the cashier or (like in Australia) complete that retail purchase via encrypted sms banking as introduced by NAB.

Dutch supermarket franchise Albert Hein is almost close to this. The only exception is that you pick up the chunky bar code reader from the front of store. You then scan as you shop, with your cart's value and item listed on the scanner, and then swipe your card at the exit without having any human intervene at all. The bar code reader is returned to its dock and its batteries re-charge for the next registered shopper that comes in. Scan and Go. Clean - but not as green. They COULD eliminate that bar code reader altogether in future equation with the emergence of secured mobile banking and of course the application of this codes in todays' smart phones. Each tagged product would not only show its pricing, but when purchased, also be given the opportunity to 'advertise for free' by leaving URLs that could be accessed later on whenever the customer please. There is more to this. Since the data exchanged can be used for a broader spectrum of possibilities, just think what companies could do with efficient market research data collection. Of course then, there need to be a buyer and distributor agreement for such a transaction to take place. But that's definitely the near future. And a lot of security measures to be planted on privacy issues of sort.

QR Code two years ago was already the future in Japan. You get codes printed on bus ads, banners, magazines, food products, etc, you name it. The codes are great because they're small. It gives designers the complete canvas to be creative with ideas without the clutter and worry of text placements for that dreaded boring URL. OK I may be exaggerating there. But after scanning, interested customers are quickly brought into the product realm within their mobile device. Given the lightning speed of mobile communication in Japan, large information could be transfered instantaneously. They could be watching the video advertisement directly from the clouds of your very own server, further saving the costs for magazine prints, radio or tv adverts.

With the emergence of more 3G phones globally, Microsoft tries to add some color to the rest of the world. And of course by that, they'd want a piece of pie to control this upcoming trend. Its a new and improved way of selling the idea of an already existing system. Only this time, polished by MS. Enter Microsoft TAG...

The Tag creation option is currently available for free on its Beta stage. You need to have a current Microsoft Live or hotmail account and you're set to create your TAG. The fact that you can place a duration date greatly helps. This will void a TAG which becomes handy for fixed-date product promotion. Think stickers or badges. Even though I prefer the looks of the QR code more than MS's colored forms, there's more behind its 'pastel' technology. Right now its just a matter of form over function. And definitely a great great plus for advertising companies.

With QR Code, the only way to monitor its response is from the date of event itself. With MS TAG you can monitor in real time. You log into your tag account and on the statistics chart it shows how many times somebody actually flashed their phone to 'view' your advertisement.

This becomes a highly important statistics for advertisors. How often have companies placed their ads in magazines and blindly left to guess how it did in response to sales? Chances of consumers viewing the picture/slogan and going on to the following page or bulletin is left to chance. On the other hand if its MS TAGged, the information is relayed to the advertiser right away. By default that adverts would remain in the mobile device for later viewing. How many times have you forgotten to clip that coupon where that perfume or DVD is going on 50% discount, just until you got somewhere near the store and say, "Damn, that ads sitting at home!" Now you can tell if the ads placed on say the train station is less effective than what's placed in front of the ladies restrooms!

Here's what it says on Microsoft's page. "Creating tags is easy, and during our beta, free! Just supply the text or the URL to a mobile page you want to display when the Tag is snapped, and we’ll instantly create a Tag you can use. Come back and monitor Tag analytics or create some more."

Chart above shows how many times the Microsoft TAG I created in Flickr has been scanned for 'viewing'.

Thus TAG creators can now see in real time how many times your TAG has actually been scanned. It works similarly like Google analytics for URLs visits. THIS is a huge step forward. THIS MONITORING OPTION IS NOT AVAILABLE WITH QR CODES. It gives a cost effective way on how or where to improve your ads. And remember, this is your phone sending the 2 way data to Microsoft each time you scan an ad. Its just time before you get GPS input on which location the TAG is most 'viewed' at.

But crikey!? Would this give rise to a customer privacy issue? Only time will tell. This wold mean that Microsoft have upper hand info on what you've scanned, collecting data from individuals, knowing exactly what ads you've scanned based on interest. Remember that web-based mobile devices has its own IP to be able to be on the web for such data transfer to happen. Yes, somebody is watching over you. Should we be worried. Who will MS give this data to? Next thing you know, advertisement pop-ups will start appearing on your mobile cell phone. Or even through your home mail box. Did telephone companies say they will not share your home address? Yep its definitely possible. Your information is value to one business or the other. Information trading is big money these days.

Tag Reader is available for free download for most mobile phones and on iTunes for the iPhone. And whether you're going to go with QR Code or Microsoft Tag, I think its all a matter of what's trendy and what's not. But many in the applied field of business marketing and advertising seems to have already chosen.

Hope its not that too complicated to see who's tagging you. Thanks for reading.

* PS I am in no way a marketing surveyor. But it doesn't take much to read and understand onto which direction information technology is going, especially when its handled by Microsoft. Do leave a comment if you agree or disagree about this blog. And don't worry, it just helps me to know if I'm blabbering all for the wrong/right reasons. ; )

NIN 405GB HD videos for free online!!

2009-01-08T14:02:00.007+01:00

Nine Inch Nails "Gave Up" Portland, OR 12-7-08 from PDX Taper on Vimeo.

Was just skimming around T Reznor's page and little bird brought me here. The ultimate deal. Get your own footage of the concert, mix it and release it for the www.

The video above is just first few released from the p2p video share. I hope to have some time to edit em few after its down on my server! You never heard that from me or Mr Reznor himself... ENJOY!

Let Me See!

2008-04-22T15:10:00.013+02:00

I guess it all goes down to the final servings.

Try to watch GZ-HD7 consumer video posts on Vimeo. It has better resolution as opposed to youtube which does not deliver HD playback. There are groups in Vimeo that are evidently enjoying their camcorder. And if you must compare them to let's say the HV20 videos. Then do just that! Evidently videos posted on Vimeo are more well directed for community of users. So you definitely see better quality edits and professionalism in the posts there as opposed to youtube. You get optimum video if you on a fast connection and a good video card. Due to the odd downsized ratio in my blogger, the video might not play as good as it is in full screen. Also try to let the flash buffer bar finish uploading if you're on a slow connection.

Brussels from rastAsia on Vimeo

Go ahead and view the rest of my posted videos on Vimeo. Feel free to comment on this blog or Vimeo about the HD7. I'm no video professional but I try to keep my creativity at flow. If you don't own the camera and need to know more about it, you're more than welcomed to eMail me with your questions. But of course its best if you address your technical questions to JVC themselves. Thanks for visiting my review blog.

Controlling the shots

2008-04-22T08:53:00.013+02:00

The HD7 is by far an achievement for pro-sumer video enthusiasts. It has created a a wave of excitement for the video enthusiasts being the first Full HD cam. But despite the claims, there are flaws which should have been fine tuned by JVC. I guess in the real world nothing is perfect, except for my mom's cooking!

If you fall in the 80% of users who claim that the HD7 is not a good camera - then you are. There is nothing to change that scope of thought unless JVC themselves make the effort to address the existing weakness of the cam. It uses three 1/5-inch 16:9 progressive scan CCDs designed for HD use in a diagonally offset pixel configuration to generate the high resolution image for recording in full HD. There is only so much that 1/5 inch CCD can capture at one time. These are the figures released by Canon on their new CCDs performance :

Newly Developed Progressive Scan CCD Overview

Image size: 1/5” Diagonal
Aspect ratio: 16:9
Pixel size: 3.28 microns x 3.28 microns
Total number of pixels per CCD: 1016 x 558, approximately 570,000 pixels
Number of effective pixels per CCD: 976 x 548, approximately 530,000 pixels

RATTLING HANDS? GET YOURSELF A STAND!

For a camera that fits the size of your hand, that's a lot of pixel crunching if you multiply that to do 30x in a second. And that's just for one CCD. There's 3 of them that needs to be interpolated to give you that final viewing you see. While its capturing and converting all those pixels, then comes the wall of a task that didn't seem to have been worked out correctly by JVC. Image Stabilization.

Before we scrutinize this biggest weakness of the camera, lets go back to the derived design of the HD7. Idea came from broadcast cameras. How JVC has came about letting you carry those huge studio cameras in the palm of your hand is a feat on its own. Fujinon lens used in the JVC system is also used in broadcast HD video cameras. The incredible minimal F. No. is F1.8 wide open and F1.9 for telephoto. This is only made capable due to the indexed aspherical lens giving superior optical performance on the entire zoom range suited for an HD system. JVC designers can now keep the lens small and at no loss of light when you zoom in to your subject. To understand this, take your DSLR into AV priority mode with a zoom lens. The higher your zoom, you'll see a significant drop in Aperture and thus the need to add gain - resulting in unwanted noise. This is not the case for the HD7 lens.

Now come the biggest grudge about this camcorder. JVC has this selection included in the OIS menu option, but many (including myself) would swear that we don't see any change with this option turned ON or OFF. In fact I keep mine constantly on OFF mode since I now only shoot the camera with a monopod. But when I do come to situation where it has to be shot handheld, I will turn it on and try not to breathe - but hope! Why JVC has not addressed its HD7 users about this lousy claim of an IS is yet to be heard about. But knowing its normal not to have a built in stabilizer in broadcast camera has helped me to forgive the claim. But looking at JVC's page advertizing its great IS Mode gets me fumed to have the camera returned at times. IT IS JUST NOT THERE JVC!! Their claim of the OIS meant for hand-held shots is highly not visible here. Even when I tuck my hands to my chest, I fail to get it stabilized. I guess I have minute parkinsons disease!

So I hear claims that the OIS works only while on a tripod or monopod. But come on JVC, that'd be the 1st I hear about Image stabilization. Maybe I deserve a T-Shirt too for buying myself a monopod. But that's exactly what I did - an experiment and I'll only let you guess the outcome.

PIxel Shift Tech
The Red and Blue imaging CCDs are shifted a half-pixel both horizontally and vertically relative to the Green imaging CCD. Because the pixel-shift system uses progressive scan CCDs, signals are processed first as 1920 x 1080p progressive signals, then converted to 1920 x 1080i interlace signals for recording. Thus it is progressive upon capture but when recorded, its interlaced. This explains the need to de-interlace the video when its being exported for playback.

As a result, JVC developed a new HD-specific processing circuit to process high-density interpolation signals for brightness and color. The circuit separates low frequency and high frequency components of the brightness signal to create an image with exceptional color reproduction and less moiré. The analog front end (AFD) uses 14-bit signal processing to produce HD high-quality resolution.

Continue to... LET'S SEE IT!

JVC GZ-HD7 Full HD camcorder

2008-04-04T12:31:00.000+02:00

There is so many negative reviews on this cam. But yet I bought it despite the reviews I read. Why? Simple. Coz it sells so much cheaper in the US than in does in Europe and even after the import tax imposed!! Before jumping into the review about the camcorder alone, I'd like to touch about video formats in US and elsewhere in the world.

NTSC VS PAL SHOPPING:

Few people have asked if I'm not worried about compatibility when shopping in US with its NTSC format while planning to use it in Europe or Asia when we're clearly with the PAL format. Its not a big deal really. In fact its better to buy NTSC than PAL for compatibility.

I remember some 8 years ago, I purchased a miniDV camcorder while living in the US. I bought a Sony DSC-PC115 which was the PAL version of the DSC-PC120BT obviously due to my worry about playback formats. I was new to video, thus I followed the guideline on format requirements. I was so gutted months after my purchase - I'll tell you why. Firstly PC115 did not come with the Bluetooth transfer option which was about the same price for the PC120BT. Due to fact that we lived in the US, our new TV a Sony Wega only played NTSC and not Multi Region switchable. Meaning, from root of the footages I shot it was set to be in PAL and even when I edit it using Pinnacle Studio set to PAL, it was no longer playable on my TV. Of course I only realized this after I burnt the PAL-DVD format.

So I can only play my edited videos on my computer and that sucks!!

BOTTOMLINE. Television is huge in the US but when it comes to playback compatibility, US is last in the queue. You actually have to pay additional when you seek to buy a Multi Region TV or DVD player there. And not to mention the Step Down Converters that you'd need to get if its a 230V appliance. I still have my 2000W converter with me today! It does come in handy sometimes.

SOLUTION: If you're an Asian living in US and plan to get video capture devices, think twice before buying PAL formats there. You pay extra but end up getting limited usability for your own pleasure. I am not suggesting this, but based on experience, if you get yourself an NTSC format hardware, chances are the playback appliance that your sibling and friends have back home is most likely already multi-region enabled. TV in Singapore has always been multi-region enabled for as long as I know. But on the reverse, if your friend send you a PAL encoded video to the US, chances are that you might not be able to play it back. Coz your TV is not PAL enabled..

EUROPE'S ELECTRONIC PRICING OVERKILL:

So now its a different war altogether being a pro-sumer. I've learnt my ways going about the video formats. But what about pricings when living Europe then??

With my camcorder purchase in the US, I saved about EU500 if compared to buying it here in Netherlands. With the package offered by 42nd Street Photo in New York, it was an obvious choice. At a price tag of about US$1500 inclusive of the Pro Shooter accessory kit with extra 4 Year Extended MACK International warranty, I took the leap. It comes down to about EU965 with the exchange rate when the camera alone would have costed EU950 easy in Holland. Just comparing those prices between Dutch and US electronic retail pricing, it was a no brainer to get it while in the US. Think about the currency exchange rates.

GZ-HD7 BUILD, CONTROL AND USABILITY:

Technically the GZ-HD7 gives me much more custom handling as compared to the rest of the HD camcorders available on that same price range. Period.

Out of the box the camera feels solid in your hands. Definitely not a toy! Its really well built. Not plastic screwed together like the competitors make. There's no rattling parts. You get the solid black metal gear you payed for. The main chassis enclosing the lens mechanism is made of solid brushed metal. The Hard Drive housing on the right where your hand would be at most times is made of rough-textured plastic for non-slip handling. The flip-open LCD on the left is also encased in plastic. This time in well-polished black encasing the 16:9 widescreen LCD inside. The Fujinon lens is complimented with the lens hood that helps cut out glare and ghosting when shooting in bright light. The Manual Zoom focus ring is smooth and absolutely a plus for creative shots when in Manual Mode.

The manual flip-up lens cover is great help especially when changing lenses and filters keeping the dust out. My only wish here is for improvement on the viewfinder, that it should have been flip-able upwards at an angle when shooting in bright light for better focus. Its an awkward position to have it upright perpendicular while shooting with the LCD closed.

continue to... CONTROLLING THE SHOTS

Meanwhile you can see some of the videos I've made with the HD7 on Vimeo. You'll notice too that most of the FullHD posts in Vimeo is prominently sent by HV20 users. Make your comparisons? And let me know what you think.

I'll tell you more soon. Be right back!!

Clarke-Tech 5000HD-Combo + TechniSat Multytenne TWIN with 4 Satellites reception (Part 4 of 4)

2007-12-15T11:55:00.002+01:00

After 2 months of using this setup, I have to say that I'm pretty content with it. But just like any other consumer we can never be content comparing to what's available out there for best experience possible with a digital satellite setup. The quality out of the 2 units used side by side has been a great one.

There is nothing more to say about the Multytenne dish. Besides the easy assembly along with proper guidance as to which direction to point the dish to, its one of the best value-for-money dish today. Thus the weakest link (possible) in this setup is clearly the Satellite Box which is key for ultimate experience.

External Hard Drive recording:

I've attempted plugging in all kinds of external Hard Drive in the CT and as long as its formatted FAT16, it will be recognized and thus recordable via the available USB port. USB Sticks, Self-Powered USB 2 HS Hard Drive, Micro Drive all works with this. But the time it takes the hard drive to be recognize by the CT depends on the (initial buffer) size. Thus a 2GB stick will be more instantaneously recognizable instead of a 500GB Lacie HD like the one I use. But to overcome the delay, you simply need to initiate the drive earlier to prepare the drive for instantaneous recording. And then you're sweet to go.

The inability to Record one channel and watch another simultaneously really is starting to bother me. How many times within the family has it happened that you want to watch football or Top Gear and the family comes around and asked for NCIS? OK I want to watch both if possible and here's where the squeeze comes it. You can only watch one with the current CT.

There is however an option out there that enables the Recording of one program while watching the other. In fact you'd be able to watch both at once since today's TV enables PIP viewing!! And I want this new box. How unsurprisingly, its made by TechniSat and was just released weeks after I bought my setup.

TecniSat Digicoder HD S2

This will be the next acquisition I guess. While the CT can go up into the bedroom for a smaller HDTV that we plan to get to be mounted to the wall. It does all the CT does and even more with it's built in 160-500GB option of internal HD along with an external USB connectivity. And of course the much yearned for Twin Tuner.

The only difference I see since its release is the placement of the USB slot. Some images has it placed in the back where as newer ones have it placed under the flip-open faceplate of the HD S2. I would highly recommend the one behind. Based on experience with the CT, its not a nice sight having cable sticking out from the front face plate. You want to possibly keep it well stream-lined and clean on your entertainment deck.

The only let down will be the asking price for this unit. At EU500 to EU600 depending on the internal storage size is quite another bullet to consider. Guess I will wait til there's more of the same kind of box designed by other companies. But looking at the specs from the HD S2, I rally think there is nothing more to be improved unless if they start recording compressed video in H264 instead of the current 'alien' format in the storage. Imagine what you can do when its in a recognizable format. YOu can then transfer it to your iPod or burn it to CD or DVD in a format more transferable for other medium playback. Now THAT would be hot!

Clarke-Tech 5000HD-Combo + TechniSat Multytenne TWIN (Part 3 of 4)

2007-10-30T10:06:00.006+01:00

The HDTV Satellite tuner

Face it. If you're gonna place an HiDef SAT Receiver under your TV, it better look as good as your (probably) brand new HDTV. And I gotta say, right out of the box, I love the design of this Clarke-Tech. The buttons are well placed with no distracting dials. The CI Card slots are well covered behind a pull-down plate. The USB port is at the front for easy access. And heck, its slick shiny black!

If you're a sci-fi fan you'd have known that Clarke Tech is the author of the 2001 Space Odissey.

A tribute to a great dreamer

It was during the late 40's when writer C.Clarke (Author of 2001 Space Odissey) had imagined that, if a television transmitter could be placed at a certain distance from the earth, it was possible to cover with its signal an entire continent. To achieve this intent, those transmitter would have been placed on satellites orbiting at 36000Km from earth at equatorial line level. An ingenious system seen the fact that in this way the satellites would have followed exactly the earth rotation. The satellite, viewed from the earth would have appeared as a fixed point in the sky. With three of these satellites, Clarke thought it was possible to let the television signal cover the whole globe. The vast majority of the scientist back then was laughing at this proposal, defining it science fiction.

Many years needed to pass before the first radio/television comunication satellite was launched during the cold war at the end of the 50's. The president of the United States of America Eisenhower was able to irradiate his Christmas whish speach to the whole world through the satellite Score.

The belt at 36000Km positioned right above the Equatorial line, where the satellites are orbiting has been nicknamed Clarke's belt, in honor of the guy that first thought of making use of it.

It was the beginning of a new era.... ~ Quoted from ClarkeTech.com

Blue LED light indicating Standby Mod.
This option is can be turned off if you think its not your thing. But after a while using it, it served me as a quick indicator to let you know if the box is turned on or off.

Unlimited USB external Hard Drive recording enabled.
I tried this with my Lacie Porsche 500GB USB2.0 drive and it records without a problem. In fact if you're format savvy, you could easily open the captured video and watch the recorded program in your laptop / computer. Sweet! By the way, the captured format is in MPEG4 which I will elaborate on.

Hi-Definition Multimedia Interface output.
Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) in MPEG-4 means you have Tomorrow’s Media Today.
MPEG-4 is designed to deliver DVD-quality video (MPEG-2) at lower data rates and smaller file sizes. And the same folks who created the popular .mp3 file format — a.k.a. MPEG-1 layer III — developed the new Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) codec, providing much more efficient compression than MP3 with a quality rivaling that of uncompressed CD audio. If you're an Apple Quicktime fan, this is great news!

MPEG-4 is ready to stream incredible-quality audio and video today in QuickTime. With the free QuickTime Player or browser plug-in, you can play back any compliant MPEG-4 file.

STAB® Universal Satellite Automatic Location System
Digital Satellite Equipment Control 1 & 2 (DiSEqC1.2) for motorised enabled dish
I don't use this option since I have TechniSat's 4LNB auto align system on my dish. (See my previous input on TechniSat Multytenne.) But if you use a motor-controlled dish, you're well prepared for an auto locating system.

Intergrated Card Reader and 2 additional Common Interface slots for various additional channels subscriptions. For the Dutch users, this box can be used to receive Digitenne TV channels if you slide in a KPN Digitenne card into the CI interface. This is possible since this system is DVB-S/S2 and DVB-T compliant. Yep you read that right. It has 2 tuners built in. The USB slot being behind the face plate do kinda bother me a little. If you plan to leave a USB Drive there permanently, there's no other option but to leave the plate down thus ricking dust gathering on your CI module slots. Other than that, its good for easy access I guess.

CONTINUE TO PART 4 (FINAL VERDICT)

Clarke-Tech 5000HD-Combo + TechniSat Multytenne TWIN with 4 Satellites reception (Part 2 of 4)

2007-10-20T10:29:00.001+02:00

Multytenne Installation

Did I tell you how easy it was to install this dish? Incredible that dish installation would have costed EU150 for 3 hours work. That's more than enough time when they have proper tools ready for the job. I've never ever handled one! But I thought I should be able to do this. It took me about 6 hours altogether over period of 3 days.. But I did it clean. Real clean. Right down to concealing the lose cables that runs from the shed right to the home interior.

Technisat Multytenne

Its small and compact enough to bring with me in my next camping trip. The ones that they use for camping is no smaller than this. The whole unit is made of light aluminium. Light but strong and not flimsy in anyway. Handling the dish and the frame tubing, you can see that its all been molded or bent into shape. The double barreled aluminum hollow tubing that attaches the LNB is really lightweight and non-corrosive to withstand long weathered exposure.

I got the TWIN Multytenne which costed me EU 239. The box includes the following:
• an extended wall mounting aluminum bracket - good for balcony montage specifically in good open space or high rise buildings
• the LNB unit
• 10 meter coaxial cable
• an F connector and the dish itself.

From the dealer in Ziezotec themselves, they gave me spare F connector for the twin connection and a F-connector Terminator in case I am not installing the 2nd unit right away for free. I also asked separate a coupling connector and a longer cable since I'd be running the cable up to the 3rd floor of the building. 10 meter is just about enough to run one signal from the dish to the decoder. I got the RG6 cable which is 100 meters long which sells for EU 29. Better longer than too short. Last not least I also got the floor stand which I will place flat on top of the roof of my shed instead of the side walls to reduce eye sore. I want it to be tucked away as much as possible instead of the regular jarring sight of ANTENNAE or SATTELITTE IN YOUR FACE norm.

Tools I used:

• Concrete drill (to bolt the floor stand to the concrete floor if you want to secure your investment)
• Wire cutter & scissors (Coaxial wire stripper if you want to spend even more money)
• Electrical tape (waterproofing and sealing F connector joints)
• Mirror* or partner (YES those reflective glass. a Big one if you have.) If you have partner helping you then trash that mirror.
• Cabling PVC Pipe 10mmø ( Since i want to conceal the cable later under the garden earth.)

Location! Location!! Location!!!

My house is built in such an angle that's awkward for satellite dish placement. Not a big deal. But it would have been nicer if I didn't need to run a 12 meter coaxial cable out from the Clake-Tech across the garden to the dish! Double that, since I'll be running 2 cables from the TWIN receptor to the main home building. One for the living room, the other to the bedroom.

What you need to understand about dish placement is that it needs to have a clear line of sight / path between the reflected LNB line to the Satellite in orbit. Since Astra 1 is in 19.2˚E orbit and I have buildings from the front face of the house in that direction, it now becomes a big obstacle. The alternative was either to cimb up the roof and place it there (hell no way I'm doiing that!!) or the most obvious and safest, will be on the shed behind the house. Of course.

How I put it all together:

You basically have to connect the Decoder Box (in my case the CT5HD*) to the dish (TechniSat) with one coaxial cable. Work on the satellite dish first.

• After finding strategic place to place your dish. Align and mark the floor stand to where you want to have it bolted. I used only one 10mmø Bolt Screw that is about 35mm deep into the ground. You can also choose to have 4 on each corner of the floor mount if you think Twister is coming to town. Dutch winds max was about 6 Knots so that one screw for me should hold the stand. I hope to wait and see..

• When stand is solidly fastened to the ground, mount the dish up! This should be pretty easy until to the point where you need to have compass reference to where you need to point the dish to. Do not tighten the bolt holding the dish on the pole just as yet for you'd need to adjust its direction to the proper satellite. In our case being in Europe / Netherlands to the Astra 1.

• Roll out the cable and connect the Box to the Dish. I had to drill a 7mm hole for the coaxial cable to be able to run out of the house. In fact I had to drill 2 holes to run 2 cables in. (I have Twin Multytenne dish for 2 room separate use.) Remember to drill the hole in a downward angle from inside the house. This will help to reduce any possible condensation that will creep into your house in winter. But also don't forget to seal it in case you get ants crawling from the garden to get food from the fridge.

• With a compass look for the right azimuth on which it should be angled to. The way the TechniSat is designed makes this rather easy to accomplish. The elevation is also easily adjustable with the use of 2 allen keys that locks the angle into place. This would be the up-down adjustments. I lifted mine to the max just to overcome the home building right ahead of the dish. But this proofed not to work.

• Find out what direction you want your dish to point to. For ASTRA 1 I need mine to face Elevation of 29˚, Azimuth of 163.6 (magnetic North) and Polarisation of -10.6. My advise will be to get the elevation right first and then the L-R Azimuth tweaking. But here's also where my mirror worked for me. See, you need to know the level of reception as you tweaking for the stars!! And since I did not get the Satellite Finder tool, I thought I should just be able to view it directly on TV while I aim the dish around. Simple right? Well yes if your TV is in line of sight. But of course its not - for me. If you have a partner to give audio hints of good level that would be handy too. I placed the mirror in such an angle that I can see the TV screen with the real time level gauge on the Satellite set-up screen. Green means its good Red meaning you're a clown. I got mine to a level max of 85 percent on Astra 1. And then I locked all the bolts and allen keys to have the satellite LOCKED ON. The rest of the 3 LNBs should allign when you have accurately got the 1st LNB to Astra1.

If all cables are stripped correctly and connected right, you should be able to enjoy your 3000+ channels in a few minutes if not hours.

I had a couple of issues with the manual on the ClarkeTech but I figured it out after some trial and errors. Hey who said everybody could understand Schwarzenegger when he writes eh? I'll explain some of the tricky bits on my next post.

CONTINUE TO PART 3

Clarke-Tech 5000HD-Combo + TechniSat Multytenne TWIN with 4 Satellites reception (Part 1 of 4)

2007-10-10T06:40:00.001+02:00

Before I even begin with this review, I'd like to say I've never handled or even programmed any satellite dish or satellite receiver of any kind in my life. Thus what you about to read here is all a 1st hand experience from a SAT NOVICE! But I think for a 1st timer, I think I should have no problems doing it again. And believe or not, they were going to charge me EU150 for installation if I did have a technician set up the dish and apparatus for a 2hr job. Ha!! Well, but I did take about 2 days to tune my dish and understand the whole setup to a certain perfection. So here's my experience with this.

Satellite is definitely much better.

For the last 4 years since being in Holland, I have only either choice to use cable or terrestrial for TV connection. In the area where I live we had only two choice of providers;
• KPN Digitenne with DVB-T antennae that claims to be "Always There" with its dutch quote Altijd Dichtbij.
• Casema which I would presume to be cable TV from line laid on the ground.

*These 2 company almost monopolize the whole TV network in this region of Noord Holland. There is also UPC but ther network does not cover this newly built area where I live. Terrible. I would have loved UPC with its Dgital Twin Tuner capability. But no choice.

On either KPN or Casema's network, consumer is fixed with 32 channels tele at max. Out of that 27 tv channels and 20 Radio station, I only watch about 5 which we subscribed from KPN. They'd be CNN, BBC, National Geographic, Animal Planet and the only MTV available. The fact that I live is a newly-built suburban area in between The Hague and Utrecht means real low reception for Terrestrial TV to work. Oosterheem is seated right in the middle of 2 big cities thus in a fractal void. Some folks say we live in some Twilight Zone of Holland! And its no joke. Somebody needs to safe us Zoetermeer Hobbits! : )If you're a KPN engineer reading this. You should be the first one to react to that! Digitennes network is too weak to be used indoors here. After horrible months of follow-up complains, KPN's support staff admits acknowledging the problem in that area. They've placed a special order of an chunky external antennae for me as a final courtesy. To me that's about as good as having a satellite dish instead of just the limited channels. If I were to install anything outdoors creating a hole through my wall, it will very well be a satellite dish!! Plus on satellite, I would get more than 2000 free-to-air channels here being in the middle of West Europe. No thanks KPN. You can strike me out. I'll be on my way to Astras and Hotbird from here on. Thanks for all the interference programs. And thanks for NOT warning us about the bad reception too.

1st up. CHOOSING THE RIGHT DISH

Small. That's key.

I consulted Google to where I can get hands with satellite dishes in this country. It showed me that I have one of Holland's most respected less than 5 km from where I live! Awesome. The renown company named Ziezotec supplies its products to the Benelux. I'd say they're definitely seated in a pot of gold.

I quickly got recommended to TechniSat as one of the most sold. It also got recommended based on performance. The shop assistant, a young guy probably about the age of 20 was kind enuf to struggle his English to explain to me the differences between newer dish compared to the old chunky grey ones. I definitely don't want those. They look like they dropped off from NASA shuttle plane. Considering the wind factor in Netherlands, many probably lose their dish after the notorious wind storms. I will not take the chance.

The dish on the TechniSat is way way smaller than any traditional sat dish I've ever seen. Its even smaller than a children's umbrella at a mere 45cm width. Better yet it has 4 LNB installed! The surface diameter is smaller since these 4 LNB utilise smaller surface area creating a line of path which is somewhat parallel before being bounced off into space to its respective 4 satellites.

The way the Multytenne DAS Original was designed is definitely based from fine tuning technique that's been perfected through time and painstaking experimentations. Material wise, its made with high grade aluminum. The 4 LNB has been strategically placed in the ABS weather proofed casing in such a way that there is no need to tweak its angles. All you need to do is align the 1st LNB as accurately as possible to Astra 1, which is ASTRA 19.2° East and the rest of the LNBs will be almost on its right line of direction direction for EUTELSAT 13° East, ASTRA 23,5° East and Eurobird-ASTRA 28.5° East.

Easier said than done? I'll tell you all about in the next part of this system assembly. And you'd be surprised...

END of part 1 of 4
Continue to Part 2

Samson Zooms forward with the H2

2007-09-30T02:46:00.000+02:00

Its been a while, since I last wrote a review blog. But since Zoom made something that I fancied, I thought I'd spend some time on this. The last hardware gear I remember having from them was my very first affordble guitar FX. It was grey and clunky and very plastic. And even sounded like the description down to the audio core. But I loved it. It costed almost nothing and it worked for my teen spirit. In fact I still have it til today. Some issues with the 9V battery cable but those things are notorious to have corrosion issues. This my friends was the late 90s with the Zoom 505. Check it out, and you'll see where I'm coming from.

Once again today 2007 Zoom has hit my limelight. Much have been mentioned about their H4 handheld field recorder. Its been compared against Marantz PMD660, Boss MicroBR, M-Audio MicroTrack and Edirol R-09. And now enters his little brother the Zoom H2.

There's way too many incredible reviews on this new little devil and the late release in Netherlands gives me no reason to make any further repeated reports on how incredible the Zoom H2 is in real life. But before I go further into my insight of this new gear, I'd like to get you leveled - to have you understand that you're paying US$199 / EU199 for a gear that can do so much more than ones that you probably would pay multiple times more. So here's my verdict on this lil' baggah...

David Stewart of Sweetwater has this basic review on handheld recorders. Compare them with Zoom H2. And then the price tag.

DATA TRANSFERS from the Zoom H2 is slow with its USB interface. Its not built with Hi Speed USB2.0. But easy solution is just to stick your 8GB SD card (yes it takes SDHC cards!!) into an external card reader. USB2.0 transfer speed is 12Mbps while USB2.0 HiSpeed goes at blistering 480Mbps. Go do the maths. I'm not going to the drawing boards to calculate how the H2 would perform as a USB mic. And seeing that its a stereo mic having to rush a 2 channel data onto its A/D converter is more of a mystery right now. Maybe I'll do further research on it. But that's a good quick reason to why we're limited to record at 44.1/48 KHz and not higher.

But there's a good thing to this. Almost all the reviews on the H2 didn't highlight the fact that you don't need either batteries or A/C Power to use it as a USB Mic or a Card Reader! A $200 card reader that is. As I'm writing this I've booted up Garage Band to try out the mic. Well, just to check if I am right about the point I just mentioned earlier... And indeed it does.

It does record 2 channels of audio. You can set it to 2 Mono tracks and record separately when using the H2 as an Audio Interface. But here's the other sweet thing that you can do now. Since it allows 2 channels at once, you can still switch options on using it as Stereo Pan 90˚, Stereo Wide 120˚ and (voila!) as 2 separate mics on each front. Thus in theory, if you record with the 2CH SURROUND mode, you can pan the source anyway you want. If only it was true 180˚Figure 8 polar pattern condenser, I would love to try doing a MidSide recording with it. But we know its not. So I won't bother pulling out a cardioid.

Audio Interface? Sure. 2 ins 0 outs. It works great as a stereo mic. In other words with the USB plugged in to your DAW of choise. Its functions as a 2 channel mic. AWESOME.

But there's MORE... Which USB mic (stereo mind ya) do you know in market that comes built in with Lo-Cut filter, Compressor/Limiter and hey, Tuner! for your instruments. This is all possible with the H2 when its USB-powered. No need for internal batteries. No need for phantom power! Record Level or Gain is adjustable with the REW/FFW buttons as per normal use.

I'm already looking to modify a broken shock mount to adapt the H2 in its web. I think as of today we will hear and see enough blogs and reviews about this little gadget. The fact that you can throw in Markers while recording the .WAV (BWF) is an advancement for Zoom for more professionals considering the H2 for broadcast use. This means as you import your audio into DAWs like ProTools or Logic Studio, you will see the markers on the timeline which makes work handy if any quick edit points is necessary. Albeit the fact that maybe there should have been a remote device to trigger REC, MARK, STOP on the H2 would be da bomb. Is this not implementable with the available USB connection? Any Tech-Hackers reading this?

In summary, here's what I think about the Zoom H2 :

• Its my iPod with Surround Sound capture capabiity! You can throw in mp3 and wav files into the pre-designated folders when you insert SD cards up to 8GB thus use it as a Flash Audio player. And at the same time be able to record is PRICELESS.

• At the price point that Zoom allows it to be in the market, its literally a steal! This will only lead to more good stuffs I'm sure. Competitors will be forced (maybe) to lower down pricing for their goods in future to meet pricing criteria.

• As for Samson, they gotta work on a USB 2.0 Hi-Speed connection.

• A matched custom shock mount that would fit standard mic threads would also be great to go in Xmas socks. Not Camera tripod threads please. You built an awesome audio gear sir, you stay in the standards.

• If there's a quieter pre-amp coming in forthcoming production of a Zoom H1 1-bit recorder (maybe?), I hope we won't see a shocking price bump on that one!

• USB remote adapter to Trigger REC, MARK, STOP and probably control the Mic Gain would be da bomb. I can really see the 5 way remote button function being used in the field. This will eliminate handling noise of course.

• DC Battery pack adapter if we looking at full 8GB or more with SDHC recordings. Despite the 2GB limit today. 4.5 hours is good. MORE is always better.

• I'm in love with this thing. For $200 bucks!? What! Yes way...

• I'll say that again. You will have fun with it.

H2 fits handsomely both in the studio and in the (football) field

So before you flash your card for the Marantz671 or a KORG MR-1, maybe you'd like to give this little kid on the block a try. I sure hope it will fit your purpose and your pocket too. And then have your wife and kids some better toy too with what you've just saved! LOL.

To the design engineers in Samson Technologies, Thank You! Nevermind the bollocks coz its been a while that I smiled and laughed like a kid with my new toy. You've definitely brought mobile (surround) recording to another level. And that's sure a big leap since the 505!!

For more information on the Zoom H2. Just google on it. Eitherwise you can Zoom here.

N95 with Philips VOiP VP6500 Video Calling

2007-06-30T09:13:00.000+02:00

Just received this VOiP phone in the box after a long 6 months wait! Yea six freaking months! Huge demand I guess. Popped the included 2x AA sized 1800mAh NiMH batteries in and it fired up with a soothing chime. Here in The Netherlands, the phone is set to work with KPN's Experia Box with subscription called Internet-Plus-Bellen via KPN, Holland's leading phone service provider. This is internet+phone in one. Right off the box, after turning on the phone (following the included instructions) all I had to do was reset the wireless Experia connectivity box with a safety pin and the rest was easier than setting up my Airport Extreme box! No joke. No disc to install, just a one page instruction and the only thing you need to plug in is the power adapter. After the Experia box reset cycle was done, WP6500 instantly picked up the encrypted WPA networks including my Airport Extreme network. On first try I thought I'd try to connect with the wireless N from Airport Express since its got a further reach - it connects on WiFi but states that there is no phone service connectivity. Clear and simple. So I did as instructed - connecting it with the Experia unit.

The connection was incredibly easy. And even user friendly. If you know another friend has the same experia box in their house, you could just take this phone and set it to their unit and have video conferencing without cables LAN to LAN or LAN to Mobile. Whichever way you choose. Hey you're the paying consumer. Versatility in hardware product you pay for is key!

Accessories includes an output cable that enables you to view both you and your caller on your new TV. And that same 3.5"mm jack functions also as a headphone port for you to use regular earphones to have best audio while you chat on its built in mic. We attempted the call with my girls screaming and yelling at me from the Philips VP6500 and I have to say, audio coming in through my Nokia N95 is absolutely incredible. No hiss, no back masking, no echo, no reverb whatsoever. Just good clean audio and of course acceptable video with no lag. I just realized that on the N95 while having that video chat that I can click on Option and choose to have Smoother or Sharper looking video. The default was already good to me. Sharper captures a brighter looking video while Smoother renders a better telecast with slightly lower quality but pretty in-sync audio. AWESOME!!!!

So while some particular part of the world is getting hyped up about a 'revolutionary' iPhone release, I'm here enjoying what's going to be the far future for them which took to hype to get to reality. The two phones or rather fast developing companies in conjunction here, both unsurprisingly Dutch owned KPN and Philips, is a perfect example to what future communication is going to be. You don't need to pay extra to call from home to SEE AND TALK to your beloved while he/she is on the road and you get to show yourself in true form of communication. This time, we can smile to each other while the rest of the world is only complaining over a $500 overpriced sing-along phone.

Next product coming up from Philips is rumored to integrated Skype, MSN and other VOiP chat into the already available hardwares. Its only time before it all gets intertwined to be the most definite communication device. No hype needed. Its already here.

Nokia N95

2007-06-23T07:51:00.000+02:00

And look what computers have become. May I correct that, more accurate should be "And look what mobile phones have become." Its still a phone, it should be a damn good phone for that's what the consumers go out to shop for. The whistles and bells just makes it a better phone.

So before I blabber my comments about the phone. I'll tell you WHY I bought the phone. Of course these are points that I already looked for / against before I burnt the hole in my pocket. :

The N95 is Nokia's first HSDPA (3.5G) device, but also boasts Wi-Fi, WCDMA, quad-band GSM, Bluetooth (including A2DP), IrDA and USB 2.0 connectivity (via mini USB connector). Other hardware features include a 5 megapixel camera, a built in GPS, TV-Out, 3.5mm audio jack, FM Radio, a MicroSD memory card slot and 150MB of internal memory.

Nokia's the bomb with HSDPA (3.5G) thats almost ADSL speed! Built-In Wifi, Quad Band makes it a world, Bluetooth with A2DP, InfraRed and USB2.0 with included USB cable. A whoopping sharp auto focus 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss Optics, an awesome media player, built-in GPS, and PDA functionality. Its enough to make me praise it to be better than the iPhone. But what is Nokia thinking..? Here comes the missing points to the N95...

With a device that has built-in GPS, they've forgotten to add in a car charger. Nokia should have added that in the box at least. And for the price point, probably even include a Bluetooth ear piece. I don't see any kind of support from Nokia's global website on this. Absolutely no mention of a carkit for N95. I was hoping there would be an upgrade option for my current Nokia 6310 carkit. Nada.

The battery is a separate issue. If I'm gonna use the phone as a walking GPS, I guess I'd have to go around carrying this DC adapter that I got from Singapore. That way I don't have to fear getting lost in middle of Rome if built-in battery shuts off. Maybe they should have an option of shutting off the rest of the applications but just let GPS Navigation running to save the battery power. The eCharge Easy adapter gives my N95 an extra 5 hours of use with 1x AA battery. And is able to charge the device to a good three bar gain after having a dead battery. Not bad for backup juice eh? I'm sure you'd be seeing this thing popping up in eBay in due time. Cost? Approx US$9.

Symbian OS. What can I say, either love it or leave it. I have a 4GB Sandisk II card installed in mine. When too many apps is caught running at once, it is most likely going to run out of memory. And the phone stalls. Only way to recover this symptom is to Reboot! I read somewhere that the previous N73 has more Ram installed in it than this more expensive unit! How could you Nokia!!?? With the pricedrop on RAMs these days, you have no excuse. But the rule of thumb is to EXIT any applications that you not using before switching on to another app. Like any other computers, it will mean that you're conserving CPU power. CPU in this tiny device definitely equals RAM. Which is insufficient with all the programs applicable in it.

rastAsia reviews!

2007-06-23T07:35:00.000+02:00

How many times has it happened to you. You buy some new electronics and then realize that it didn't meet your expectations. And so why did you buy it!? Coz the adverts made it look so that good of course.

I've been tagged by some friends and neighbors to be the gadget man. Very often, before they go out to buy some new electronics they would gimme a quick call to see if it was worth buying. It sometimes gets pretty crucial, just worrying if I may have suggested them the wrong decision then they would come with their pots and pans up in my head. Its a figure of speech. I hope.

So thats what I'm just going to do on this page. Talk about electronics (and maybe even non-electronic) gears that I already own and tell you my views and feedbacks on products that I have. There's of course a huge range of products when electronic is mentioned. I'm most interested with audio gears, communication tools, and maybe some housewares like those that my wife is always grumping or boasting about. And so here we go... I'm going to start with something that is bothering me the most to date. Lets see which one that will be.