Tag Archives: HD

Amazon is updating its Fire 8 tablets

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It has been a while since Amazon updated its tablets, but that’s about to change. The company sort of snuck this by with no post to the official blog.

They have, however, come up with an update to the Fire 8 tablets. In an announcement sent to us the company says it will be releasing new Fire tablets soon. The next generation of its Fire HD 8 tablet lineup, designed with the entire family in mind: the all-new Fire HD 8, Fire HD 8 Plus, and Fire HD 8 Kids Edition.

“The new Fire HD 8 tablets offer the features that everyone in the family wants – great content, more storage, longer battery life — at a price that is incredibly affordable,” says Kevin Keith, Vice President, Amazon Devices.

So what do you get with the Fire HD 8? 32 GB of storage, up to 12 hours of battery life and fast charging thanks to USB-C.  Amazon also states “the Fire HD 8 Plus packs even more power with 50% more RAM, hassle-free wireless charging, and six months of Kindle Unlimited included.”

You can pre-order any of these now, but you’ll need to wait until June to get one. We’ll have one for review and let you know our opinion, but it sounds enticing. Prices begin at $89.99.

SunnyCam Video Recording Eyewear at The Gadget Show

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SunnyCam EyewearGoogle Glass might be du jour at the moment, but it’s expensive, unfashionable and of questionable benefit. Undoubtedly, it’ll get cheaper, less obtrusive and have more uses, but until then SunnyCam‘s HD video recording eyewear might be of more practical use. Simply, these are glasses with a tiny video camera in the bridge that cost only GB£100.

The SunnyCam is very much in the style of sports sunglasses. Although you can’t see it in the photos, the camera is in the glasses bridge and records at 720p to a microSD card, making it very suitable for PoV recording when it’s important to see what the wearer is seeing. The lens are easily swapped out for other tints as needed.

SunnyCam ControlsThe controls and storage are on the legs of the glasses and with only two buttons, are easy to use. Battery life is around 2.5 to 3 hours.

Ben takes me through the SunnyCam at The Gadget Show and its use in several real-life scenarios.

 

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Tablo Takes TPN Award at CES

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Tablo LogoDigital video recorders (DVRs) are commonplace but usually they’re integrated with a cable decoder. Tablo’s offering records OTA (over the air) HD broadcasts that are transmitted from local TV stations, free of charge. Still not excited? The Tablo can stream both live and record programs to any connected device including Android and Apple devices, and set-top boxes like the Roku or AppleTV. Now that’s cool.

The Tablo contains two tuners (with a four tuner option), so can record two broadcasts at once. There’s no built-in storage but there are 2 USB ports for external HDD units to provide whatever space is needed. It’s perfect for cord-cutters. I’d love to see this come to the UK too.

The Tablo is on pre-order for US$219 and will be available in February 2014.

Interview by Daniel J Lewis of The Audacity To Podcast and Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central for the TechPodcast Network.

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Amazon Kindle Fire HD 7” Inch Widescreen Tablet

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Over the Christmas holiday my nephew showed up at my house with an Amazon Kindle Fire HD 7” Inch tablet. My Mom, who just turned 88, ended up playing with it and decided she wanted one. So, we stopped by Best Buy and picked one up.

I spent some time adding free apps from the Amazon Android Market that I knew my parents would like, such as Accuweather, News Hog, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, Fox News Channel, recipe apps, etc.

What followed over the next few days was surprising. Of course my Mom started using it right away, but what surprised me was that my 79-year-old Dad started using the Kindle as much as my Mom uses it. Mom has used a computer for a number of years. Dad has played around with computers but never did much with them. Dad made the observation that the Kindle was a lot easier to use than a regular computer.

I have had an iPad for a long while now and my parents have been around it, but they’ve never used it much. The Kindle is a different story. Perhaps they felt more at ease since they own the Kindle, but I think there’s more to it than that. I believe the Amazon Kindle Fire HD has a better, friendlier user interface than the iPad has. The Kindle Fire HD presents app icons in a very large format on a revolving carousel that the user simply swipes through. It didn’t take long at all for them to begin to remember which of these large icons start which apps.

Another advantage the Kindle Fire HD has over the iPad is better, much louder sound. My parents are a bit hard of hearing, yet the Kindle Fire HD is able to get plenty loud enough for them to be able to easily hear, even in a noisy environment. The iPad isn’t capable of getting nearly as loud.

The $199 Kindle Fire HD 16 gigabyte (as well as the larger 8.9” inch version) comes bundled with a free month of Amazon Prime, which includes Amazon Prime streaming videos. Mom ended up easily figuring out how to stream videos and liked it so well she went ahead and subscribed.

The 7” inch widescreen seems to be just the right size for them. It is easy for them to handle, yet large enough for them to be able to see and manipulate the multi-touch screen.

The Kindle Fire HD has a dual core processor and gives great battery life. The apps are very responsive and there is never any lag.

If I were going to buy a tablet today, I would give strong consideration to a Kindle Fire HD. For $199 for the 7” inch and $299 for the 8.9” inch, Amazon is giving a tremendous amount of value and performance for the money.

The only downside that I can see is that the Kindle Fire HD doesn’t have a built-in GPS chip, nor any native mapping apps, so mapping on it is currently limited. However, for $199, it’s easy to overlook the lack of GPS. The WiFi-only versions of the iPad don’t have built-in GPS either.

The Kindle Fire HD has a forward facing camera for use with apps such as Skype, but no rear-facing camera. That’s not much of an issue for me since I rarely use the rear-facing camera in my iPad, but it might be for other people.

Now, if I can just get my parents to give up their flip-phone for a smartphone…

HD Skype Podcasting Solution with Tricaster

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Over the past 10 years, I have been very successful in incorporating Skype into my various podcasts. Earlier this year I upgraded my windows based 2 channel SD Skype solution to one that is HD Mac-based. I have depicted the solution I am currently using. Be aware that my end goal was to always have the guest appear full screen in my video production and not just filmed on the monitor. For those shows that want to simply focus a camera on the monitor, you can eliminate a large portion of this design.

I have a two-channel solution, so you would need to double the gear shown here to have two people participate. You can easily utilize a different video ingestion system. I happen to use a Tricaster TC1 for my studio.  Some content creators use a Video capture card from Blackmagic design to ingest the Skype video into their system for use with something like Wirecast.

Feel free to copy the design or improve upon it. If you do improve upon the design be sure to leave a comment on what you did to improve the design.

Gear as Shown:
Mac Mini (Base Model)($599.00)
EBTECH Hum Eliminator ($80.00)
Mackie Mixer (Any Mixer with Mix Minus will work)
Atlona HDMI Distribution Amplifier ($299.00)
HP Monitor ($265.00)
Black Magic Design HDMI to SDI Converter ($295.00)
Tricaster 860 or Other Video Ingest Card / System
(New) Magwell SDI – USB Video Capture Dongle

Note: When the Internet connection is slow, and I have two guests sharing the same Internet connection sometimes the Skype Video reverts to SD this is Skype’s way of throttling to keep the video quality up. I  only push SD video back to the guest to preserve bandwidth.


Example of HD Skype Video Recorded on Master Recording.

Update: January 2020 the easiest solution today is using a Rodecaster to integrate with Skype if you are doing Audio only. You can still record your interview with the Video on and just capture the Audio recording.

Sony Releases Waterproof Handycam

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Today Sony announced a new waterproof version of their popular Handycam video camera.  It won’t just withstand a little splashing from the poolside, but can actually work while submerged.  Don’t expect to take it scuba diving, but a snorkeling trip will be just fine, since it’s maximum rated depth is 5 meters (about 16 feet).

The new camera packs a “a high-quality G Lens”, 10x optical zoom, 17x extended zoom, 120x digital zoom, MPEG4-AVC/H.264 AVCHD video formats, 1080p and 720p video shooting, 20.4 megapixel 16:9 still images, built-in GPS, and is Memory Stick Micro and Micro SD/SDHC compatible.

  • Exmor R™ CMOS sensor captures beautiful Full HD 50p video, even in low light
  • G Lens with 10x optical zoom (Extended Zoom 17x) and 29.8mm wide angle
  • Optical SteadyShot with Active Mode for clearer footage when walking or zooming
  • Detail-packed still photos up to 20.4 megapixels
  • Intelligent AUTO adjusts settings for great results every time
  • 7.5cm/3″ Xtra Fine LCD touch-panel

There was no word yet on pricing, but the Waterproof Handycam should be available somtime around mid-May.

Lexar Takes CompactFlash to 150 Mb/s

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Lexar CompactFlash ProfessionalEach year, CompactFlash gets faster and more capacious, despite being one of the older memory card formats around, and it looks like 2012 will be no different. Lexar has announced a new addition to its Professional range with 1000x CF cards that support minimum data transfer speeds of 150 Mb/s, allowing the capture of high-quality images and 1080p full-HD and 3D video from a suitable DSLR camera.

Available in 16 GB, 32 GB, 64 GB, and 128 GB capacities, the CF cards support the VPG-20 specification meaning the card has been tested and guaranteed for professional video capture streams at up to 20 MB/s. To get the video off the card, Lexar offer a high performance USB 3 card reader.

Included with the purchase of a Professional CF card is Lexar’s Image Rescue software (downloadable) which will help recover accidently deleted photos and videos from the card.

The new Lexar Professional 1000x CompactFlash card will be on-sale in February, though the 128 GB variant won’t be ready until April. Recommended prices are 16 GB – $169.99, 32 GB – $299.99, 64 GB – $529.99, and 128 GB – $899.99 (ouch!)

You might be wondering what significance the “1000x” is. The original CompactFlash cards had a transfer rate of only 150 kb/s which itself was based on the data transfer rate of CompactDiscs (CDs). Geek fact for the day.