The Gadgets Page

We’re at CES and since the exhibits aren’t open until tomorrow, we spent the day watching press conferences. Here are my highlights from today’s Panasonic press event.

Flat Screens

First, they demonstrated a 103-inch plasma TV, the largest one that is actually for sale in America, and made the obligatory jokes about how it won’t fit in anyone’s house. The screen was very impressive, but of course it’s the sort of thing you see at tradeshows and electronics stores, and nobody actually owns. They haven’t announced a price for it yet.

They also announced some smaller plasma screens such as a (still huge) 65-inch model. While flat screens—LCD and plasma—are becoming common in large sizes, CRTs still dominate the smaller TV market, due to the poor viewing angles of LCDs and the high cost of plasma TVs. Panasonic is working on fixing these problems, and VP John Iacoviello predicted that “Consumers will replace their conventional-screen TVs in droves this year.”

Comcast and Blu-ray

Next, the Panasonic executives were joined by Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, and Panasonic announced an alliance with Comcast, who will support and sell Panasonic set-top boxes. They also talked about the dream of having one remote control all of your audio/video products—as long as they’re all made by Panasonic.

They also spent some time talking about Blu-ray DVD drives—Blu-ray is one of the two competing higher-capacity DVD formats, the other is HD DVD. I’m not sure how much higher definition I need DVD movies to be, since I have a mere 27″ TV, but I am excited at the potential for PC backups—Panasonic will be releasing blank and rewriteable Blu-ray discs this spring in single-layer (25GB) and double-layer (50 GB) capacities.

Digital Cameras and Camcorders

I love Panasonic’s digital cameras—between my wife and I we have three of them. They announced three new Lumix camera models. They also emphasized the OIS (anti-shake) feature built into their entire line of cameras. That’s one of the reasons I love these cameras—I couldn’t get a steady shot without it.

We have the LZ2, a 5-megapixel camera with 6X zoom and anti-shake. The new LZ5 improves on this with 6 megapixels, a focus-assist lamp, and an audio recording feature, and the LZ3 is a new 5-megapixel version.

They also announced some new camcorders, including the SDR-S100, which records up to 100 minutes of MPEG video onto a 2GB SD card, and a camcorder that records directly to recordable DVDs.

Batteries and Fuel Cells

Two new innovations for powering portable devices: first, Oxyride Batteries are apparently better than alkalines for uses like digital cameras, although not as good as rechargeables.

Second, they’re demonstrating a fuel cell that can power a laptop for about 20 hours, at half the size of current fuel cells. (I had no idea there were any current fuel cells.) No word yet on when this will become an actual product.

Power-line networking and a Network Camera

I’ve been hearing about power-line networking for years, but it’s becoming better—Panasonic’s new HD-PLC adapter is a small box that plugs into a power outlet and can communicate at an incredible 190 MBPS through power lines within the home.

Another product for the home is the Network Camera, a tiny camera that plugs into your network and streams video to anywhere in the house or to the Internet so you can “see there when you can’t be there.”

Panasonic and the Olympics

Olympic skiing champion Picabo Street made an appearance and showed off her gold medal. Panasonic will be providing recording equipment and TVs to the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Torino, Italy—they’ve been working with the Olympics for 24 years—and apparently Picabo will be joining them as commentator / spokesperson.

She said that “Capturing memories while you’re in the middle of it is hard to do” and that Panasonic makes it easier. We met her after the press conference—it turns out she lives 15 minutes away from us, and she recommended a few local restaurants.

Cheese, Glorious Cheese

Last but not least, Panasonic demonstrated “how the real world meets the virtual” with a 15-minute dance number—it started off as an Irish “Lord of the Dance” number, with half the dancers on the video wall and the other half real, then transitioned to spanish dancers (one on the screen, one in front of it), then a horrendous rap number that wouldn’t have even made it into a McDonalds commercial. Finally, all of the music was mixed and all of the dancers and rappers were together on stage/video, which was exactly as painful as it sounds. All of this would have been very exciting if it had happened at COMDEX 1994, but this year, it was just pure cheese.

Aside from the dancing, Panasonic’s event was impressive—they did have quite a few interesting products, so many that they glossed over some of them, like fuel cells and the new cameras. We’ll get all of the details at Panasonic’s booth this week and write some more detailed reports.

At your typical electronics or department store it’s easy to find all kinds of headphones—in-the-ear types, tiny earbuds, and various strange shapes that don’t fit anyone’s ears. (Are you listening, Nike?) It’s becoming harder to find cheap headphones that are shaped like plain old headphones, but fortunately Sony still makes some nice ones.

Sony’s MDR-V750 headphones are a low-end “studio” model, which means they’re not really pocket-sized. They’re still small and portable compared to my MDR-7506 studio monitor headphones, and much cheaper ($30).

Design and Fit

These are shaped like a smaller version of the larger studio phones, but still fit my ears nicely. The vinyl cushions are circular, with a hole in the middle, which prevents them from being too warm, although they’re still warmer on the ears than lightweight models.

The V250 headphones won’t be winning any design awards, since they’re the same shape as HAM radio operators were using 50 years ago, but it’s a tried and true design that works. The headband is wide and sturdy, and adjusts in size for a good fit.

The earpads can fold 180 degrees away from your ear, which is nice for temporarily opening an ear to listen to what’s going on. Unfortunately, unlike the larger 7506’s, the headphones don’t fold into a more portable shape.

Sound Quality

They may not be as portable as some, or look great with your tiny iPod, but these headphones do sound great. The bass response is very good, and with the closed design, ambient sounds are blocked very well. The high end also sounds great, and there’s none of the mushy midrange tones I associate with cheap headphones. It’s very easy to isolate different parts of complex music.

I’m not an expert nor have I hooked them up to a spectrum analyzer, but the frequency response curve sounds realistic and pretty close to neutral—nothing exaggerated, which is important when you’re using them to monitor music you’re producing yourself.

Features

These headphones have a nice bonus feature: a built-in volume control. Unlike many inline controls, it seems quite sturdy, and the sound is great both at low and high volume. There’s also a stereo/mono switch, which comes in handy when you’re mastering your own music and want to test different listening conditions. It’s also a fun toy to fiddle with while you’re listening to music with a strong stereo separation.

The supplied cord is not detachable, as is standard for cheap headphones, but it is long and unusually thick, and looks like it can take a beating. A 1/8″ standard headphone plug is attached, and a 1/4″ adapter is supplied for plugging into non-portable equipment.

Conclusion

Sony’s MDR-V250 is a great set of low-priced headphones for studio use or casual music listening. The volume control is a nice feature, the sound quality is about the best I’ve heard on headphones under $100, and you can’t beat the price.

I was really excited about these Nike Sport Audio Headphones when I bought them. I have been running and riding my bike for a long time and my sweat can eat through that soft spongy stuff, leaving it in disgusting tatters. I love the behind the neck form factor and have trashed two sets of Sony headphones with my acidic sweat. I thought these Nike headphones would be great because they don’t come with any of that spongy stuff. I was looking forward to many workouts with those headphones.

Unfortunately, headphones are a product that can only be tested after you buy them. Most of the time, they come blister-packed, so you can’t try them out at the store. Other times, you might be able to try them at the store, but the true test is after an hour of sweaty running. The only way to really test headphones is to shell out the money for them. Don’t bother with these ones.

They felt alright when I first put them on, but after five minutes, they were pinching the tops of my ears. They are on a pivot, so I thought they would move out, but they bounce back, squeezing my ears in the process. By the end of my first workout, these headphones were relegated to the “Rejects” box. They sounded great, but they hurt me. I’m not subjecting myself to pain just for good sound.

Mike took them out of the “Rejects” box and tried them for his workouts:

Mike Moncur’s Additional Review: These headphones sound great with particularly good bass. After an hour or so of wear, they started to hurt my ears and they never really felt comfortable.

We wrote about the My Musix MP3 player a couple of months ago. It’s a 1GB player made exclusively for Radio Shack and priced at a cheap $99. This year’s holiday season will probably be remembered as the time when cheap but usable MP3 players started showing up all over the place, starting with this lovely model made exclusively for Walmart.

Like Radio Shack’s entry, the ilo 1GB MP3 Player has 1GB of memory and costs $99, but while the My Musix player takes SD cards and comes with a 1GB card, this one has 1G built-in plus an SD card slot. Also, unlike Radio Shack’s model, the ilo comes in red, white, blue, yellow, and Pepto Bismol ™ Pink. It runs on one AAA battery.

It also comes with twelve preloaded tracks from Alien Crime Syndicate, The Fitness, Maggie’s Choice, and The Grift. I had assumed these would turn out to be unknown bands chosen because they could be included without paying royalties, but was surprised to find that Amazon carries albums from all four—so I guess I’m out of touch. But regardless of popularity, kudos to Walmart for including some songs. One of the barriers to MP3 players becoming mainstream is the fact that you have to install software, rip CDs, and so on before you can listen, and the default songs will make it easy to try it out right after ripping off the wrapping paper.

One more thing: this player supports Microsoft’s PlaysForSure DRM, which means it will work with downloaded music from Yahoo Music or Walmart’s own music store. I don’t believe it works with subscription music, though.

[via Engadget]

[Update 11/30/2005: This player does have an SD card slot. It’s also out of stock at Walmart.com, but maybe your local store has one.]

Scosche has created the ultimate iPod remote control aptly named, The Schoche Remote Control Your iPod From Your Wrist. I can’t imagine using this with the Nano, but larger iPods could benefit from hiding in the backpack and being controlled by a remote like this. At the price, however, I think I’ll just get my iPod out and change the song.

Via: Engadget – Scosche remote puts iPod controls on your wrist

Applies to GZ-MG20U, GZ-MG30U, GZ-MG40U, GZ-MG50U

• Read our original review

Well, I’ve been using the JVC Everio as my primary camcorder for a month now, so it’s time to update the site with my experiences.

The camera startup time is about five seconds—pretty much the same as any modern camcorder. You don’t need to worry much about getting setup in advance.

Video quality is fantastic. While you can observe some video artifacts if you pan the camera rapidly at basic quality, the video is essentially perfect at medium, high, and ultra quality. You can’t see any defects on an NTSC television at these resolutions. The Ultra-resolution mode is 9.8Mb/sec, the maximum standard for DVD and MPEG-2. At this quality, the video is very close to raw uncompressed DV in quality. I’ve been very happy with the video quality—the real-time MPEG2 compression engine in the camera is superior to that of my Sony DVD Handycam and my Phillips console DVD burner—and better than any of the software compressors I’ve used. It’s as close to professional as you’re going to get.

One negative: The auto exposure mode frequently seems washed out. I’ve found that I have to use the spot exposure mode to be happy with the exposure settings–Auto exposure and the varous fixed modes (cloudy, sport, etc.) don’t seem to be well calibrated and they vary too much while you’re shooting.

Editing videos is pretty easy. Both the Mac and PC packages are easy to use and relatively powerful—CaptyEx for the Mac is the best non-linear MPEG-2 editor (i.e., no wasted time transcoding) I’ve seen for less than $1000. Since you’ve got to use your PC to burn the video anyway, you might as well spend some time cutting out the garbage. I’ve actually been using the included software to edit commercials out of DVDs burned on my TiVo.

Erik Dp asked “Can material stored on two separate discs be merged into one disc with the editing programs? (I don’t want to store too much raw material on my computer if a “best of”-disc has to be created.)”. The included editing software can be used to edit existing DVD material, if that’s what you’re asking. So if you’ve already burned your video to DVD and you later want to create a compilation disk, that’s no problem. You will have to copy the .VOB files back onto your PC and rename them to MPG in order to edit them, but that’s easy to do. The editing programs will allow you to cut and paste video pretty much however you want. You can keep many hours of video on the camera depending on the hard disk size and the quality of video you are recording (Generally a full day of ultra-quality or a week’s worth of basic quality) , before you have to start moving it off to DVD.

Not having to worry about changing tapes or DVDs is fantastic! It makes this camera considerably cheaper than tape or disc based cameras because you don’t have to buy media. With DVDs blanks down to about 0.50/each, this camera costs far less to operate than MiniDV or Mini-DVD camcorders—and it’s future proof: Current dual-layer 9GB DVDs and future ultra-high capacity Blu-Ray or DVD HD burners for PCs will work with MPEG2 video from this camera.

Turning the camera off before unplugging the USB cable reliably solves the disk corruption issue that I mentioned in the original article. When you turn the camera off, you can see that it accesses the hard disk for a few seconds, probably to flush an internal hard disk cache. Never unplug the camera without turning it off first.

If you’re a Mac user, Don’t bother purchasing CaptyDVD to author. Just use Toast 7 Titanium. Rename your VOB files to end in MPG and drag them into the Toast video window. Click burn, and you’ll have your DVD in about 20 minutes. Plus, unlike CaptyDVD, Toast 7 is useful for a lot of other burning needs.

Buy a JVC 1400mAh battery (BN-VF714U). The battery that comes with the camera only lasts about a half an hour. This one lasts about five. The Cellboost disposeable camcorder battery for JVC also works well as an emergency power source (it plugs into the DC adapter port) and costs about $12 at Fry’s/Outpost Electronics.

Lenmark aftermarket batteries do not work in the camera. They lack a security chip that JVC builds into newer cameras to force you to use JVC batteries. Sony does the same thing, and they both claim that it’s necessary for their smart battery power measurement to work, which is simply not true.

In summary, this is the best casual use camcorder I’ve ever used. If you’re a PC user and not afraid of burning DVDs, this is definitely the camcorder for you.

The iPod Nano is “Impossibly Small.” It’s so impossibly small that you can’t even feel it in your shirt pocket when you throw your clothes into the wash.

• MacMerc.com: iPod nano vs. washing machine – by Jon Gales

Fortunately for him, his Nano completely recovered. The damage seen in the photo eventually evaporated and the screen is fully operational.

Those little guys are tougher than I would have thought. I wonder if it would have faired as well if it had fell in the toilet. I guess only time will tell until someone makes that error.

Logitech has released a series of Bluetooth wireless headphones for iPod, PC, and MP3 players. The three types are essentially the same stereo Bluetooth headphones with three different adapters; the headphones are also resold by HP and Toshiba—we haven’t figured out who actually makes them yet. We tested them with an iPod, Archos 420 video player, and Powerbook.

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The iPod nano may be “Impossibly Small,” but this little player costs less than half the cost of the cheapest Nano. I bought the My Musix MP3 Player about seven months ago. After dropping it several times and using every day on my hour long bike ride to work, it still plays perfectly. It is a player that comes with a 1GB Sandisk SD card. You can swap out the SD card for any other and it will run just fine. You can have four little cards and have as much memory on hand as the best iPod Nano if you want. When I bought this, 1GB Sandisk SD cards cost over a hundred bucks, so I essentially got this player for free with a 1GB card. Now, you can get a 1GB card for much cheaper, so it isn’t as great a deal as I got back then.

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A local CompUSA had the iPod nano in stock last weekend, so I got my first look at one in person. A few first impressions:

• This thing is thin and small, much moreso than I imagined. It’s as thin as the iPod Shuffle, and only a bit wider. It would easily fit in a pocket.
• The black finish is beautiful, as is the tiny color screen—the screen is very sharp and readable, and the tiny thumbnails of album covers are recognizable.
• The clickwheel and buttons are easy to use. I personally prefer the moving wheel on my ancient iPod, but it’s hard to imagine a better interface for something this tiny.
• The headphone connector is on the bottom of the unit, which seems odd, but won’t be a major inconvenience.
• The dock connector on the bottom should work with many of the existing iPod accessories, but the nano’s size might make it fit poorly (or look silly) in some docks. Make Magazine tested a few accessories and reports on what works and what doesn’t.

We’ll have a full review when one of us gives into temptation and buys one. In the meantime, Time magazine has an interesting article on the development of the nano. Apple certainly made a bold decision to discontinue the iPod mini and focus on the new nano, but I’m sure it will pay off.