Audio/Video, Home Theater

PCTV HD Mini Stick

Audio/Video, Home Theater, Gizmo of the Day / By /

PCTV Mini Stick

The PCTV HD Mini Stick is an amazingly compact innovation to allow you to watch HD TV on your computer. Perhaps most suited to stylish laptops with its sleek styling, it will really complement your multimedia set-up and take your computer to the next level.

Even if you don’t live in an area that has a strong TV signal, you should find that this device picks it up nicely with its integrated signal booster, and then allows you to watch it in full screen or via scalable window, if you’ve got something else to keep your eyes on. But watching TV isn’t all that this little stick is capable of; you can also record your favorite shows with the built-in recorder, and then transfer them easily to your hard drive or DVD.

Finally, the device has a built in video-editing suite that allows you to edit what you’ve recorded, and even has a one-click upload service to get it onto YouTube. What are you waiting for?!

Buy Now!

Price: $109.99(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Memorex MKS-SS1 SingStand Home Karaoke System

Audio/Video, Home Theater, Gizmo of the Day / By /

The Memorex SingStand revolutionizes the way you can interact with your music allowing you to become a star! The SingStand microphone speaker system allows you to sing along with music from iPod or any MP3 device with a headphone jack (although the iPod Touch’s look pretty darn cool sitting in the SingStand). Impress your friends and family with voice control and echo effects, giving them a stellar vocal performance, then connect your own musical instruments for a truly amazing show. The full-range speakers, built into the base, offer quality sound, and if you feel like sharing the spotlight, SingStand comes equipped with dual microphone inputs for duet performances.

Buy Now!

Price: $69.99
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is
correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

McIntosh MT10 Audiophile Turntable

Audio/Video, Home Theater, Gizmo of the Day / By /

Known for their expensive, and amazing audiophile equipment, McIntosh has a turntable (yes, a turntable that plays vinyl records) that promises to faithfully recreate the audio encoded on your precious albums.

The MT10’s belt driven motor is balanced to spin smoothly, and the arm and cartridge are matched to work together. Other improvements to minimize vibrations and make the whole enchilada operate smoothly include sapphire and ceramic bearings, a magnetic bearing that levitates the platter, and the platter itself is made from a special silicone acrylic material to a weight of twelve pounds and a thickness of two and one-half inches.

At almost $10k, you’ll need to go to a dealer to snag one of these, but if you’re into music, it is probably worth it.

Buy now!
More info from the manufacturer

Price: $9,950
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Powered TV Mount – Programmable & Remote Controlled

Audio/Video, Home Theater, Gizmo of the Day, Home Automation / By /

The T2 powered TV mount is not only programmable and has a remote control but will automatically tilt to your desired angle when you turn your TV on. It can tilt from 0° to 13° downward, fits most flat panel TVs from 40″ to 60″ weighing up to 150 lbs.

If your TV is mounted higher than eye level, then you’ll need to have it tilt downwards to reduce the glare and reflection, especially if you’re reclined while watching TV. And when the TV is turned off, it retracts and tilts back to just 3.3″ away from the way.

Buy now!

Price: $249.99
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Congress extends Digital TV switchover to June 12 2009

Audio/Video, Home Theater / By /

Now that both the US House and Senate have voted in favor of similar bills to extend the DTV cutover by 4 months, it’s just a matter of the President signing off on it (and he’s in favor of it).

The argument in favor of extending the deadline goes something along the lines of TV stations and consumers not being ready. Guess what? Come June 12, they’re not all going to be ready either.

Pull off the bandaid already. It’s gonna hurt now, or in 4 months or in 12 months. But if the frequency spectrum being used for analog TV isn’t freed up, then it can’t be used for newer, better wireless technologies. Sometimes leadership involves pulling some of your population dragging and screaming forward with you. Don’t worry, when they get there, most of the reluctants will grudgingly change their mind.

In case you don’t know about the Digital TV Transition, there’s a .gov website covering the subject.

Microsoft to produce original video content for Zunes

Audio/Video, Home Theater, Portable / By /

In what seems to be a strange move to me, Microsoft is going to produce original video content exclusively for Zune owners. The first series will be an 8-episode comedy called Cinemash starting in May. Each episode will be 3 to 5 minutes long.

Considering there are only 3 million Zunes but opver 170M iPods, why wouldn’t MS make this content available to everyone? After all, profit margins on content can be way better than on hardware, especially in a down economy. Yeah, we all know why – they want to sell more Zunes; can’t let Apple keep beating them there.

My prediction – this will fade quietly, and there will be no more MS video next year.

I dub thee iPencil… DIY iPhone Stand

Audio/Video, Home Theater, Miscellaneous, Phones / By /

Fatgadget from Geeky Gadgets had a problem, and as all good Geeks do… he solved it.

While working on his PC, he wanted to watch some video but just could not get his iPhone properly propped. Looking around his desk in MacGyver mode, he found 5 pencils and some elastic bands which were crafted into a simple but effective iPhone prop-per we think is brilliant so we dubbed the “iPencil”.

Check out the Geeky Gadgets quick but simple how to.

Analog to Digital Converters – Round Up

Audio/Video, Home Theater, Books, Music and Movies, Cameras and Photo, Computers, Gizmo of the Day, Recommended, Software / By /

Slide and Negative to Digital Converter

Here we have a furious round up of some of the many analog to digital converters we’ve featured over the years to persuade you to digitize your precious analog collections of audio cassettes, vinyl records, photographs, slides/negatives and VHS tapes. Let’s go!

Audio Cassettes

With CDs looking like they’re being overtaken by new performance discs and music simply being downloaded and stored on computers, it’s amazing that some people still have audio cassettes – we’ve said our goodbyes, now it’s your turn. The Ion Tape2PC USB Cassette Deck lets you do that by sticking your tape into the slot and transferring it to your computer in MP3 format. Audacity and EZ Tape software suites are included to make make everything run smoothly and is compatible with PC and Mac.

Buy now! – $125

Slides, negatives, photographs, vinyl records and VHS tape still to come. Read on.

…

Analog to Digital Converters – Round UpRead More »

#CES09: Ten One Design’s Gadgets Fix Fustrations of Capactive Touch Screens

Audio/Video, Home Theater, Cameras and Photo, CES, Computers, Gizmo of the Day / By /

Ten One Design launched several products lately including the Pogo Stylus in September and the Pogo Sketch less than a month ago.

Ten One Design’s gadgets help consumers that are frustrated by the capacitive touch screens of the iPhone, iPod touch and MacBook due to consumers with fingernails that are a bit too long to accurately use the touch screens or due to fat-fingering.

Pogo Stylus is the world’s first iPod touch- and iPhone-Compatible Stylus while the Pogo Sketch provides drawing capability using the latest multitouch MacBook trackpad. The trackpad is actually transformed into a pen tablet for premium drawing programs and other artistic applications.

The Pogo Sketch’s tip is made of advanced material that acts as a bridge by transferring the signal from the display to the user’s hand.

Both the Pogo Stylus and Pogo Sketch are available from the Ten One Design website for starting at $14.95.

#CES09: Dish 922 HD DVR with SlingBox embedded

Audio/Video, Home Theater, Books, Music and Movies, CES, Gizmo of the Day, Networking & Internet / By /

Excellent – this is what we want to see – more convergence of media devices. Following the purchase of Sling Media by EchoStar, the 2 have worked together to come up with a Dish Networks receiver that essentially embeds a Slingbox. They’re calling it a SlingLoaded player, but the bottom line is that you now get place-shifting built into your DVR and Satellite TV receiver. Nice.

The 922 is a sleek looking box with a 1 TB drive for up to 1000 hours of storage (in SD), can support 1080p, 1080i, 720p, 480i, and 480p formats, and has a new touchpad remote control that has half as many buttons as a standard remote control, and that can function as a universal remote. Of course, it includes all of the SlingBox features and be controlled via the Web using SlingGuide.

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