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Tech News & Commentary
Jeff in Shreveport, Louisiana listens on 710 KEEL asked: “Going on an overseas bicycle trip. Need to purchase a good video camera for interviews and picture taking. What are your thoughts?”
Jeff, you may be a good candidate for a small mirrorless camera.
Cameras like the Nikon 1 series, the Canon EOS M series or, our own personal choice for remotes, the Olympus PEN series will all offer good stills quality, often closer to SLR quality than point and shoot quality, will allow you to shoot HD video, and will be considerably smaller than full size SLR.
Depending on how important these interviews are, you could always just get a point and shoot camera that does video, that will likely save you some money, since compact mirrorless cameras are not cheap at all, they’re high end cameras that often START at $500 or more.
If you don’t care about the bulk, a full SLR may be an option for you too, or a dedicated still camera and a dedicated video camera, but carrying that much weight and bulk on a bike will probably get old very quickly.
Have a look at compact mirrorless cameras, and maybe a small tripod or monopod for the video side of things, that will probably be the best setup for you if you want quality and light weight and, as a bonus, many compact mirrorless systems allow for the use of some kind of external, better quality, microphone that you can take advantage of for interviews.
Let’s also ask the question, what’s wrong with the camera that’s built in to your smartphone? We have seen a LOT of video that was shot using an iPhone 5, for example, and it looks very sharp. Audio can be an issue, but it would be an issue with any small handheld camera. Using an external microphone, perhaps even a wireless lavalier, is the ticket to correcting that.
Before you spend the money on an additional camera, and have one more gadget to manage on your trip, why not try some test footage with your smartphone first? You may find out the camera you want is the one you already have.
Tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast for more details.
“This Week in Tech History” Weekly Feature with Chris Graveline
This week in 1876 – Alexander Graham Bell sent the first clear telephone message — into a nearby room — to his assistant, Thomas Watson. “Mr. Watson, come here, I want you,” were the first words spoken into the invention that Bell had created.
In 1891 – Almon Strowger, an undertaker in Topeka, Kansas, patented the Strowger switch, a device which led to the automation of telephone circuit switching.
In 1923 – A great improvement in radio receivers was advertised. The new models eliminated the need for headphones, which were considered a nuisance because they were so heavy to wear and messed up hairdos. The new radios were also said to have a ‘foolproof’ design.
And this week in 1961 – Sputnik 9 successfully launched, carrying a mannequin named Ivan Ivanovich – along with a dog, various reptiles, and eighty mice and guinea pigs – demonstrating that the Soviet Union was ready to begin human spaceflight.
Jason in Prescott, Wisconsin listens to the Podcast asks: “Trying to create a media server to put my movies on so I can play them on my computer as well as my HDTV. I was wondering if there was any software to help me organize that.
Jason, if you’re looking for home media servers, there are some ready made options you may want to look at, you can always look into building your own, but these may actually save you some money — and a lot of time.
For example, the Iomega ScreenPlay Director HD comes with a 1TB hard drive and it costs $230, it should be able to store a lot of movies for you, and you can just plug it into your TV and enjoy streaming media from the internet as well. LaCie offers the LaCinema Classic HD for the same price with 2TB of storage.
Now, you asked about software to help you build your own, depending on the operating system you choose to use, you can use something like the Ubuntu Media Server, which comes pretty much ready for use after installation, or you may benefit from looking at a third party program, for example, Plex is multi-platform, it looks very nice, and it will let you access streaming services and your media on a hard drive. Both of those options are free, so you won’t have to worry about licenses and they will have you up and running very quickly.
Another idea you should consider is using a NAS drive, such as the Netgear ReadyNAS Duo v2 or the QNAP home Turbo NAS. There are many different brands and prices, but be certain that the device you’re looking at supports being a media server (if you’re using Apples, double check that it’s iTunes). Both of the brands we just named support all the usual DLNA protocols as well as Apple’s iTunes Media Server, so they should connect with just about anything. The value of using a NAS is, if you buy a dual or quad bay model, you can install hard drives in a RAID 1 configuration, meaning that the drives back themselves up and the failure of one or two drives won’t cost you your data.
Plus, NAS units are easily upgradable. You’re really buying a smart network attached box into which you install off the shelf SATA hard drives. For just a few hundred dollars, you’ve got a media server, network backup device, FTP server, shared network file storage, etc., etc. They may cost more than simple media servers, but they DO a lot more and they will allow you the safety of a RAID configuration to guard against hard drive failure.
Tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast for more details.
Foster in Hendersonville, Tennessee listens on WTN 99.7 sends the following email: “My sister lives in an area where they lose power for extended periods of time. In order for her to stay in touch with her daughter and me via cell phone, are there any charging mats that run on solar power that are RELIABLE?”
Foster, there are, but solar is typically very slow, so “reliable” and “convenient” are not necessarily the same thing in this case.
You probably have better options than solar for your purposes. Depending on how long of an “extended period” you mean, she may benefit from a simple battery pack that she can keep plugged into regular power when she has it. Depending on the battery pack she chooses, she may be able to charge her phone fully 3 or 4 times before the pack needs recharging.
If that doesn’t seem like enough, Eton Corporation makes a wind-up charger called the BoostTurbine that features a battery that can charge your phone, and when that runs out, it can also be used to give your phone quick boosts. Cranking the BoostTurbine for a minute should give you enough juice for a 30 second call, or for a few texts back and forth. It’s not super convenient, but you can always crank it up and use it almost instantly, as opposed to waiting for enough solar energy to build up whenever it will.
If you still want to steer her towards solar, GoalZero has chargers starting at $99 that, they claim, can charge their batteries in 5 hours of direct sunlight, and can charge a smartphone in an hour. If there are any other critical devices that need power, GoalZero makes a large unit that can even power medical appliances like CPAP machines, though it costs around $1800.
The question touches upon a pervasive issue nowadays though, what do you do if you’re somewhere without power and you need to use your cell? I would like to see more development in the area of portable power generators that store kinetic energy like the soccket ball. Now the soccket ball was developed as a way to address the need for electricity and light in third world countries but I don’t see why mass production of these type of portable generator items hasn’t already taken place in the consumer electronic commodity market because something like that could be a life saver for people in your sister’s situation.
Tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast for more details.
Guests in this hour:
Lauren Sarno – GSMA
Michelle Brennan – Zagg
Wesley in Nashville, Tennessee listening on WTN 99.7 asked: “I need help in HDMI Areas, the cable specifically. If you can tell me if the more expensive cables are better than the cheap ones or of they have the same thing. I gotta make a decision here soon.”
Unless you’re going to run a very long cable (and we’re talking over 50 feet), get the cheap one.
HDMI is a digital standard, and unlike analog standards there is no picture or audio degradation until you try to carry the signal far enough that it can’t build the image anymore. So, you’ll have perfect picture and audio until you don’t anymore, and when you don’t it won’t look or sound worse, it will just be gone. There is no middle ground, either it’s perfect, or it’s not there.
Since that is only a problem over very long distances, if what you’re looking for is 6 foot cable to connect a TV to a Blu-ray player, for example, then get the cheap one. It will make no difference at all in terms of picture or audio quality.
If you live in an area with high humidity, like we do here in Florida, corrosion on the connectors CAN be a problem. That’s one place where the gold plated connectors on the more expensive cables will come in handy. They will be less susceptible to problems relating to humidity levels and corrosion.
But for many, even most people, the least expensive cable is often just fine for HDMI. We should note that this same advice would not apply in the case of analog audio and video cables. In those cases, the cable can have a profound effect on quality. As we said, HDMI is unique, being digital.
For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
Covington Creations: Earbud yo-yo — A simple solution to tangled earbuds.
Iolo: System Mechanic – Fix and speed up your PC… Automatically.
Magellan: eXplorist 610 – Premium, rugged, handheld GPS with camera, microphone and speaker to record all your actions in the outdoors.
Yamaha: PDX-11 Portable Speaker — Free your iPod and iPhone music for your active Lifestyle.