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Tech News & Commentary
Isaac, calling via the app asked: “Do you guys have any suggestions for a memory card for a video camera? I’m looking for an SD card and I didn’t know as far as the speeds for HD video camera shooting. I don’t know if that makes a difference and if so what level should it be.”
SD cards are categorized by “classes” — Class 2, Class 4, Class 6 and Class 10. Class 2 will give you transfer speeds of 2 MB/s, Class 4 will get you 4MB/s, Class 6, 6MB/s, and Class 10 will deliver 10MB/s.
A Class 2 card is fast enough for standard definition video, but since you’re interested in HD video, you should buy a Class 6 card or above.
The truth is a Class 10 card will probably be overkill, in fact even a Class 6 is capable of a little more speed than you need.
Even if you have more speed available to you the camera won’t use it, so a Class 10 will cost you more and you won’t see any benefit, so we’d say stick to the Class 6, it will get you the speed you need and then some.
For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
“This Week in Tech History” Weekly Feature with Chris Graveline.
Shawn in Shenandoah, Iowa listens online, called in via the app and offered his experience regarding rescuing wet electronics, and using a USB adapter to connect multiple displays to a computer.
For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
Robert in Fairbanks, Alaska listening on KFBX 970 AM called and asked two questions: “I’m looking for devices to stream video to HDTV, my little laptop works really well, but I’ve looked over a few items, the Roku and other devices like that, but I don’t know if there are any specific items that you might like that stream video to the TV. Otherwise I’ve been looking at a few things that only works with certain laptops which I think is really silly.
Second question: What is DLNA? does my TV need it or my laptop need it? I’m not sure what it is, so if you could tell me what DLNA stands for and what it means I’d appreciate it.”
If you want a dedicated box to play internet videos from, there are many, we’ve tried the Roku, and Boxee boxes, both can play web content without the need for a computer, both will give you access to popular sources of online video, like Netflix, Amazon on Demand, Vudu, Hulu Plus, YouTube, etc.
The cheapest Roku box will cost you just $49, and you can run Boxee for free from your laptop, if you don’t want to spend any money.
You can also look at GoogleTV and AppleTV. AppleTV will offer you fewer choices, in terms of full length content you’ll be restricted to Netflix and iTunes, you’ll have access to YouTube, Vimeo, MLB and other sources, but not for movies and TV shows.
Now as for your Follow-up question: DLNA stands for Digital Living Network Alliance, and is a wireless standard to connect different devices at home, for example, you could transfer your pictures wirelessly from your DLNA camera to your DLNA TV or printer, or wirelessly transfer music from your DLNA laptop to your DLNA music player.
DLNA is probably not something you need for your TV or laptop right now, it’s probably something that’s nice to use if you happen to have it, but not many people or devices are using it yet.
For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
Doug in Miami, Florida listens online asked: “I was checking your “Top 10″ and saw the C. Crane US3 Super USB WiFi Antenna 3 and was wondering if you have any thoughts about it. I purchased a DAP1522 Dlink adapter which Dlink told me would boost my wireless signal so that my wireless printer would get better reception. But it did not. Do you think that if I got one of theses and connected to my Epson Workforce printer it might get a better signal from my wireless modem on the other side of my house?”
Unfortunately connecting the antenna to your printer won’t help, this particular antenna has hardware inside of it that needs to be controlled by a driver, and you won’t be able to install that driver onto your printer, you will need either a Mac or a PC.
You could turn the setup around and connect the antenna to your computer if it’s stationary, and move the wireless modem closer to your printer, assuming that’s an option, or you could get a wireless access point to act as a repeater and place it somewhere far enough from the main wireless modem that your printer will be reached by it’s signal, and close enough that it will be able to get a good signal from the modem.
The good thing about this last set up is that it may end up costing you even less than the Super USB WiFI Antenna 3, and it will boost your signal on that side of the house, not only for one device, but for everything that uses WiFi.
For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
Group Discussion: What can we expect at the 2012 CES in Las Vegas? What would we like to see?
Trevor in Fairbanks, Alaska listening on KFBX 970 AM asked: “I have an old Dell Inspiron 6000. It’s been a good little computer. But in computer years it’s like a bazillion years old. I’m thinking it might be nice to try and get one of those high speed fancy pants Mac computers. It would be used mostly for editing photos and watching videos. I would like a big screen to go with it. But I’ll take what I can get. Does it make a difference if it’s new or used? I haven’t really set a price range just yet. Something in the 500 gig range would be nice. Happy NewYear to you and the gang.”
If you choose to go with a new Mac, the cheapest you can get right now is a $599 Mac mini. But, it will come without a screen and without a mouse or keyboard. So, if you can reuse your current computer’s keyboard and mouse, and use your TV as a monitor, that might give you a solution for a somewhat cheaper Mac with a big screen. About the hard drive, 500GB is the smallest hard drive you can get with any of the Mac minis, so that shouldn’t be a problem.
If you want to go with a computer that comes with all it’s parts, the least expensive iMac will cost you $1199. So you’ll be spending considerably more money, but it comes with a 21.5″ screen.
As far as does used or new make a difference, it probably makes about the same difference it does with any other used product. It depends on how it was treated and how old it is. Sometimes it will be just fine and it’ll be less expensive, and sometimes it will have been mistreated and bring with it more problems than you want to have.
For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
Brad in Miami, Florida asked: “Has anyone used Adobe Premiere for video editing? If so, opinions please. If not, what are you guys currently using that is cost effective?”
If you’re looking for professional results, then Adobe Premiere is a very good option. It’s not hard to figure out how to use it. And, there are a ton of things you can add to your videos that you wouldn’t be able to do with a basic video editing program like iMovie on Macs. One of the things I like is how you can customize name tags — also known as “supers”. I also edit my videos on iMovie and wish it would give us more options for name tags. That’s an advantage on Premiere. Also, you get more video formats to export. However, like Dave said, it is a memory hog. I’ve got a Core i5 on my MacBook Pro and Premiere runs well on that. Sometimes I have to close other programs, so I can get a smooth editing session. On the other hand, my iMac has an Intel Core 2 Duo processor and it takes forever to edit. I end up using iMovie more on my iMac than on my MacBook. And, I always have to keep other programs or apps closed while I edit.
In answer to your question about what we use currently to edit our videos … we use Adobe Premiere on a powerful PC workstation. We’ve used other programs like Avid in the past, but mostly Premiere.As far at it being cost effective, hmm, not really. It’s an expensive program. But, it’s expected with professional-grade video editing software.
If you end up getting Adobe Premiere, we recommend you take a course on Lynda.com (that’s Linda with a “y”). They’ve got a ton of tutorials on Adobe products and have helped both Chris and Rob learn hidden features.Of course, a free tutorial option is YouTube. You’ll find a lot of helpful videos there, too.
For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
Sandra in Columbia, South Carolina asked: “Can you install Apple’s FaceTime on an Android phone? If not, what can I use to video chat?”
Unfortunately, you can’t. It’s an Apple-only video chat application that a lot of Android users wish they could have. But, there are other apps you can try. We can’t promise it will perform as well as FaceTime does, but it can do the job on a solid WiFi Connection.
We’ve tested Skype in our studios with a video chat between my iPhone and Dave’s Droid RAZR. We have a really good connection in our new studios, but it crashed a couple of times. However, with the short time of live video chat we did, Skype worked for us.
Another video chat app we’ve used is Fring. And, now it supports group chat, so up to 4 people can be in the same video chat.
What app are you using to video chat with your Android devices? 1-800-899-4686 or call from our free “Into Tomorrow” app.
For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
Murray in Japan listens to our podcast asked: “What is the best way (and the easiest way, in case they’re different) to backup a Kindle?”
If you want to back up your Kindle to your computer (as opposed to Amazon’s servers), you can connect it to your computer using a USB cable and it will show up the same as an external hard drive or a flash drive would. After that, just open it and copy the files to whatever folder you want to store them in on your computer, it’s as simple as that!
Or, you can add them directly to whatever external hard drive you’re currently using. We hope you keep your computer backed-up as well. Having said that, it’s not that simple for Amazon! If your Kindle is a second generation or newer, it should have “Whispernet” built-in. Whispernet and Whispersync will just work in the background and make sure that all of your content is available on all of your devices. For example, if you have the Kindle app on your phone and buy a new book there, your book will also instantly be on your Kindle, and that all your content is synchronized. So, if you have a Kindle and the app on a smartphone, if you read the first page on the book on the Kindle and go to page two, when you open the same book on the phone, it will already be on page two.
To connect to Whispernet you need a network connection. If you have a Kindle 3G, it’s already happening without you noticing. If you have a WiFi Kindle, just connect it to a WiFi network and it will happen without you having to do anything.
For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
Steve Jobs Action Figure
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
Honestech: Film Scan&Save — Digitize your old photo negatives and slides. Supports both color and black & white photo negatives and slides. Convert them into high-resolution images.
McAfee: Download keys for “McAfee All Access” — Secure your PC, laptop, and netbook against hackers and identity theft; Protect your smart phones and tablets.
Moola Street: $25 Gift Cards. Of course, Moola is slang for money and this is a unique way to give Gift Cards that cost you only 10% until the recipient redeems it!