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Review: WD TV Mini Player

Western Digital WD TV Mini Media Player Model WDBAAL0000NBK-NESN

Recently, for a limited time, Newegg offered the Western Digital TV Mini Media Player for $40 including shipping. It is currently listed for $59.99.

The Mini is the little brother of the WD TV and the WD TV Live. The basic differences between the three is that the Mini is SD, and the WD TV Live includes networking capability.

The device has its pros and cons. It is very small, and can playback media from any USB drive formatted to FAT, FAT32, NTFS, or HFS. This makes it useful as a portable device, although the slightly larger WD TV and TV Live have much more functionality. The maximum resolution is 720 x 480 for most files. It doesn’t support MKV or H264 either. But it does support XviD, OGG, etc and a variety of other common formats.

It can playback not only video, but music and pictures.

This weekend, we field-tested it. It was able to playback everything within its defined parameters that we threw at it, including two movies, several Revision3 shows, and some audio podcasts.

Ultimately, this device is not something we’d have in our house. Quite franky we don’t need it. But it is a great device, for the price we paid, to stick in a bag and use to playback your digital media at whatever place you happen to be with a minimum of fuss. Reading reviews, two popular uses are to playback ripped movies and to hook into a car entertainment system.

We hope, however, that firmware updates bring additional features to this device in the future. Although we are not holding our breath.

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Published on December 15, 2009
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Thinking about Online Backup

Image representing Dropbox as depicted in Crun...
Image via CrunchBase

Earlier, we were reading LifeHacker‘s Five Best Online Backup Tools. We’ve been in the market for an Online Backup solution. Right now, we use Dropbox.

Dropbox offers a free 2GB account that syncs a directory on your computer to their server. It offers a paid option for a monthly charge of $9.99/50GB or $19.99/100GB, which is a bit too much for our needs. It is a great tool that we use every day, but is, in our opinion, for our most used files…ones often changed. It offers clients for every operating system, which is important.

We need a solution that will work with Linux…our primary operating system. Thus, Mozy or Carbonite is not an option. Assuming we’re keeping to the Lifehacker list, that leaves CrashPlan and Jungle Disk.

Jungle Disk will be changing its pricing scheme this week, according to its blog.

  • Jungle Disk Simply Backup: $2/month, with 5GB of free storage
  • Jungle Disk Desktop Edition: $3/month, with 5GB of free storage
  • Jungle Disk Workgroup Edition: $4/month, with 10GB of free storage
  • Jungle Disk Server Edition: $5/month, with 10GB of free storage

The new plan includes a minimum 5GB of storage. Beyond that, you have your choice of cloud storage providers, either Amazon S3 or Rackspace Cloud Files. Both charge 15 cents per GB used, but S3 charges for bandwidth as well.

CrashPlan offers unlimited storage, either an individual unlimited plan for $3.50 a month if you purchase 3 years worth, or a family plan for $5.00 a month if you purchase 3 years worth. It is $4.50 or $8.33 if you buy a single year plan.

At the moment, while we like the idea of online backup, everything we have that is critical fits into the 2GB Dropbox partition and beyond that may not be worth it. Everything else…well, try encrypting it and sending it somewhere safe. Like a safety deposit box…the house of a friend in a different state, or even have your parents store it for you in your childhood home. Mom is certainly a cheap option.

If your friend/relative is willing to trade with you, you can store their emergency backups too.

But what do you think? Should we go for online backup?

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Published on November 16, 2009
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We’re Going to be Trying Epix HD

Image representing Epix as depicted in CrunchBase
Image via CrunchBase

Over the weekend, Epix HD launched. The network is a joint project of MGM, Paramount, and Lionsgate and offers some of their not-yet-on-DVD movies. One of the nice things is their website will offer on-demand 720p streaming to all subscribers.

Of course, Verizon FIOS is the only network offering the channel, which will cost $9.99 a month. Epix had hoped the channel would be on the standard tier. Meanwhile, to try to find out how many people are interested, Epix is offering 72-hour passes to anyone.

We don’t have FIOS. It would be a serious consideration if we could, considering our issues with our current provider. However, we can try out the service, as can you. We’ll be giving it a shot this week and will keep you posted.

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Published on November 2, 2009
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Review: Wolverine F2D100 35mm Film and Slide Scanner

[asa]B002TKMG92[/asa]

Update: The below review was of the F2D100, since discontinued. The link above is to the Wolverine F2D, a newer version of same. Wolverine offers several less expensive models as well.

Recently, a relative of ours discovered a box of old slides in his garage that had been sitting, untouched, for many years. The logical thing to do with untouched media is to digitize it. then, not only will it last forever, but it is suddenly accessible. New prints can be made at any drug store without problem, it can be added to digital photo frames, displayed online, shared with relatives, etc.

As a side note, we love the idea of loading decades of photos onto a digital photo frame. It allows your entire album to be visible to you, as opposed to just a select group of pictures using conventional means.

The cheapest professional slide scanning we could find was 27 cents a slide. With several thousand, that would turn out to over $500. Even though it would require work on our part, a slide scanner seemed a more economical option. We never expected professional quality results, but we aren’t blowing up our slides to poster size. For digital photo frames and prints 8×10 or less, it seemed good enough. And sometimes, good enough just is.

We read the reviews of many different slides scanners and decided on the Wolverine Data F2D100 scanner for many reasons. One, it does not require a computer, which allowed it to be set up on a table very easily. Slides are viewed on a tiny screen, then saved to a Secure Digital Card.

Specifications

  • 6(H) x 3(W) x 3(D) dimensions in inches
  • 5 megapixel CMOS sensor
  • Scan Quality: 1,800 DPI – 2520×1680 pixels
  • USB powered

Now, we have a simple system for the cleaning of slides prior to scanning. The scanner includes a small brush to clean dust off the backlight in between scans, and you can get slide cleaning supplies. We went with a homebrew solution. A bottle of canned air to blow the dust off the slide and a cheap brush used to clean LCD monitors without scratching them to wipe it off. It isn’t perfect, but both were sitting around our office already.

Below, you can see a sample slide, taken in San Francisco nearly 40 years ago. Click to see full-sized images. You can spot a little dirt still left over, but that could be fixed with a more thorough cleaning of the slides. The first image is exactly as it was when loaded from the scanner. The second is with the picture crapped, and an automatic white balance and color enhance function run on it(as opposed to manual fiddling, which might produce even better results).

Ultimately, the hardest part of the process is the insertion of slides into the slide tray so they can be slid into the scanner. However, Wolverine has replaced the existing tray with one that makes this easier, with a new magnetic lock, as of last month. Unfortunately, we got the old one. We may purchase extra trays anyway, as this would speed the loading process.

Otherwise, this is the perfect item for someone who wants a reasonably decent quality slide scanner.

Slide exactly as Uploaded from Scanner
Slide exactly as Uploaded from Scanner
Slide Cropped and Color Balanced
Slide Cropped and Color Balanced
Published on October 25, 2009
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MythTV 0.22 Release Candidate 1

Component video cable with RCA connections.
Image via Wikipedia

Yesterday, MythTV unveiled its version 0.22 Release Candidate 1. It has been almost two years since version 0.21 was released, and the change brings a great deal of welcome changes.

  • Support for the HD-PVR 1212 – The Hauppauge HD-PVR captures analog HD video and digital audio from component video inputs and outputs them over USB using the H264 codec. Since cable companies are encrypting almost all of their content, this device ensures the analog loophole can be exploited. We’ve been using the development version of 0.22 for this reason ever since our cable company shut off our other alternative.
  • VDPAU Support – VDPAU is a feature of certain Nvidia graphics cards that permits offload of processor intensive video decoding, include the H264 codec the HD-PVR uses, from the system processor to the graphics card. Thus a slow system can play back HD content without problem.
  • The User Interface has been ported to a new standard, MythUI. It allows for inheritance and menu animation, and takes layout and behavior away from the program and puts it under the control of the theme. And surprisingly, that simplifies things.
  • Automatic Prioritization, which keeps track of what you watch and uses it to increase the priority of shows watched closer to their recording times over shows that are not.
  • A New Channel Scanner – This is a big one, as instead of adding channels when found, it allows you to decide which channels to select, dividing them into New channels, Old Channels, and several different channel types. For example, every time we scan we find a variety of foreign-language channels. Since we don’t speak those languages, it is pointless to add them. This allows us to tell the system to ignore them on scan.
  • HDHomeRun Multi-Rec Support – Multi-Rec has been supported under MythTV for DVB devices for a while. This extends it to the popular HDHomeRun, which we also happen to have. Digital TV, both cable and broadcast, allows for multiple subchannels to be embedded on the same channel frequency. Multirec allows two subchannels from the same channel to be recorded at once, instead of discarding all but the one you are watching. It means that if your cable system puts the local NBC and CBS affiliate on the same channel, you can record them simultaneously on the same tuner.
  • A score of bug fixes and general handling improvements too numerous to list, but can be checked in the Release Notes.
  • MythBrowser now has support for flash and javascript, which means it could be used for Hulu and other Streaming sites(We have yet to test this feature).
  • MythNews, the RSS reader, now has podcast support(We have yet to test this feature).
  • MythVideo now supports videos stored on the backend. Previously, this required adding the videos as NFS shares. New video metadata grabber scripts are now part of the package, and several other features. The networked option is still in its infancy, and is considered beta till the next version.

There are some additional features that you can review, but essentially, MythTV 0.22 is everything we hoped for after all these months. It can only get better from here. And for US residents, the only possible way this software would not be a great addition to your tech offerings is if the cable company locks down their system so much as to prevent you from using it.

Published on October 15, 2009
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Eee-book on Its Way

Image representing Asus as depicted in CrunchBase
Image via CrunchBase

Asus, the creator of the EeePC, which launched the netbook craze, wants to break into the E-Book market with a product that could be at least $100 less expensive than current offerings. A proposed model would have two screens, more closely resembling a regular book, as well as many more features than the current offerings, including Skype and such.

This isn’t really outside of the realm of possibility. Take the EeePC versus the proposed Eee-book a step further. Picture a device the size of the original netbook at 7 inches, or even the 10 inch size, turn it on its side, replace the keyboard with a second screen, add in an orientation sensor, a few buttons, possibly a touchscreen, and the ability to plug in a USB keyboard, and it would become a small system that could double as a nettop device. Give it a Linux-based OS, with SD expansion, and 3G or Wi-FI options, and it can do anything.

Technology continues to advance. We’ll see what happens.

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Published on September 7, 2009
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Sansa Clip+: Is slotMusic such a bad idea?

Sansa Clip
Image by barron via Flickr

For the record, we’ve never tried slotMusic. But the idea Sandisk tried to push was the selling of microSD cards preloaded with music. These cards, aside from being preloaded, had nothing special about them. The idea of purchasing quick-load music in a pinch at retail outlets had potential. Of course, it would be better if that could be customized at a kiosk, rather than sold in bundle packaging.

Engadget is a bit unfair to claim that the adding of a microSDHC in the new Sansa Clip+ is merely an attempt to get rid of old inventory. We love the original Clip(pictured right). The size is small…small enough we’ve had trouble finding it. It plays OGG, FLAC, etc. Which allows us a better range of playback options. And it is great for quick on the go music enjoyment.

The addition of an expansion slot makes it even more useful. Aside from that, it incorporates a few stylistic changes. A square instead of round control pad, etc.

The Clip, + or not, is superior to the iPod shuffle in every way. It offers a good screen, configurable options, a built-in radio, etc. The one complaint some people have is the 15 hour battery life. But it is rechargeable, and how long do you need or expect for a player this size?

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Published on September 1, 2009
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We Still Want a Kindle – But We Don’t Want To Want It

Amazon Kindle
Image by davidking via Flickr

Last week, Amazon lowered the price of the Kindle to $299, a reduction of $60. We want a Kindle, but we don’t want to want a Kindle. It is still a bit pricey for its limitations.

What does that mean? Well, the Kindle is the greatest e-book reader out there…not because of its hardware, but because of the sheer amount of titles Amazon offers and the ease of getting them through the Kindle. The smartest thing Amazon could do is license the Kindle source to anyone, and we still await that.

Reports indicate that Amazon is exploring ad-supported Kindle books for additional revenue. Publishers are afraid Amazon will force them to lower their profit margins on e-books. Publishers hope new players like PlasticLogic, FirstPaper, ScrollMotion, and Google‘s e-publishing service could help turn the tables in their favor. But so far, Amazon has an early lead.

We are hoping competition does come along. Google plans to sell readers online access to digital versions of various books, and the books would be cached in their browser when offline. This seems like an improved system. A simple browser plugin could handle this. They appear, for their early copyright-free public domain books, to be working with the ePub format, which is an official open standard.

Our fondest dream is to use the Kindle to free up space. We have so many shelves of books. Some of them could be digitized. We’ve done this when we rid ourselves of most of our VHS cassettes and started to replace audio cassettes with CDs.

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Published on July 13, 2009
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Keep Thinking About the Kindle

NEW YORK - FEBRUARY 09: A reporter holds the ...
Image by Getty Images via Daylife

We’ve maintained, and continue to maintain the Kindle is not yet at the price point where the upfront cost is offset enough by the benefits. Endgadget, however, reports that Amazon has dropped indications it sees the Kindle readers and Kindle books as two separate businesses.

This is actually good for us…the people who want e-books to become more ubiquitous. We don’t want the paper book to go away though. We believe there is a place for it in this world. Our concern is that the lowering of the hardware will produce an increase in the price of the book itself. Currently, a Kindle book can average $9.99, more or less. A hardcover book could be over double that. On a $9.95 book, an analysis suggests Amazon only makes 61 cents.

In the fight of Kindle vs. Netbook, we opted for netbook, because it is a multifunciton device, compared to the Kindle, which is good for one thing only. But imagine if the Kindle reader became a software program available for all operating systems? What if Amazon licensed the reader software to other companies to allow the books to be read on many systems? What could that mean for the future?

The latest confusion over the Kindle is its DRM policy. Apparently, there is a limit to how many times you can download the book, even though you have bought it, and it varies from publisher to publisher…even better, no one at Amazon seems to know how to find out what the number is. The limit may actually be on the number of devices you can have the book on simultaneously, but as of now, it is still unclear. Ultimately, we remain curious what limits are put on the free distribution of content you bought amongst your own devices. Since your ownership of the book now depends on a third-party…namely Amazon, supporting your device, how does this effect your life?

So, what are the alternatives? We’ll be looking into them a bit more, as we want to take advantage of them.

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Published on June 22, 2009
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Why you Might Rethink Buying a Kindle

Image representing Amazon Kindle as depicted i...
Image via CrunchBase

A while back, we commented on why a Kindle might not be so cost-effective.

Today, things change. On Wednesday, the Kindle DX was introduced. It will be an alternative, not a replacement for the Kindle 2. It boasts a 9.7-inch display with auto-rotation, high-speed wireless access to 275,000 books, 3.3 gigabytes of storage(roughly 3,500 books), native support for PDF documents, with no panning, zooming or scrolling necessary.

The product will begin shipping this summer and will cost $489. Three newspapers will offer a reduced price on the Kindle DX in exchange for a long-term subscription: The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Washington Post. This is where one might reconsider the Kindle, if the reduction is enough to justify the purchase. However, this apparently will only be offered where Home Delivery of the papers are not. That may be offered through the Kindle 2 as well. Details are not yet available.

The Kindle DX eliminates some of the problems with the Kindle…namely that documents are printed on 8 1/2 by 11 sheets of paper most commonly, and the Kindle 2 is half that size at 6 inches. The DX has 2.5 times the surface area. Amazon has reached agreements with three leading textbook publishers that represent 60 percent of the market: Pearson, Cengage Learning and Wiley(But not McGraw-Hill Education.). Thus, the Kindle DX will be a perfect tool for college campuses, where textbook savings(hopefully) can be applied toward the device. Students will try out the Kindle DX this fall at Arizona State, Case Western Reserve, Princeton, the University of Virginia, Reed College and Pace.

As Techcrunch pointed out, for the 275,000 books that are available on the Kindle, sales are already 35 percent of the same books in print. That is a shocking statistic.  But while we continue to be impressed by the Kindle and its variants, the price tag is still a matter of concern. BusinessInsider pointed out devices you can buy for less than $489, including a netbook, iPhone, AppleTV, Wii, Xbox 360, 22″ LCD HDTV, etc.

Which is our point. When given the choice between a netbook and a Kindle, we opted for the netbook, where we can read the New York Times and most news sources free with a net connection. It isn’t a dedicated device, which has its pros and cons, and it lacks the always-on connection included with the price of purchase(which is certainly an advantage) Web anywhere for life is certainly a pro as well.

On the software side of things, we feel certain a Kindle Reader will come for the PC(although Linux will no doubt take more time), as they already have an iPhone reader and they want to corner the e-book market. Barring that, you can always turn a netbook into an e-book reader with something like FBReader, which supports most non-DRMed formats, and buy your books from non-Amazon sources(More on this in a future post).

What it comes down to is that we love what the Kindle represents, and we are impressed by its continual evolution, but we are staying away for now.

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Published on May 7, 2009
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