We’ve been salivating over the Canon 5D Mark II dSLR since details started leaking about it.
Now we’re starting to see the quality of video it’s capturing, we’re in overdrive.
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Category: Video Hardware
VCR2PC: USB VHS Player For Digitising Your VHS Tapes
Remember when we broke the story of the USB tape deck?
The latest bit of USB kit for digitising your media from Firebox is a USB VHS machine.
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Optoma Pico Projector: Handheld Midget
Projections company Optomo has announced a pocket-sized video projector.
A long time back, Texas Instruments, or TI as it’s commonly referred to as, made the decision that they’d be a big player, if not the largest, in the world of video projectors.
Virtual Trainers In A Virtual Mirror: Video
Here’s an interesting video that we grabbed at IFA last year.
The concept? Rather than shops needing to have huge stock of every trainer available, all that would be needed is for a stock of virtual trainers.
This gives the shops a number of advantages. The shops can be considerably smaller, saving money on expensive ground rent; they’ll be able to sell trainers that they don’t have in stock; trainers that don’t even _exist_ can be sold – how good is that for a business?
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Canon XL-H1S and XL-H1A HD Video Cameras Revealed
Canon’s XL-1 camera range has been a fave with the prosumer video camera market for years … actually stretching as far back into the previous millennium.
Today they’ve announced an updated version, the XL-H1S and XL-H1A HD – both capable of shooting in High Def.
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Sony Handycam HDR-TG3E: World’s Smallest HD 1080 Camcorder
Sony has announced the Handycam HDR-TG3E, claiming it to be the World’s smallest HD 1080 Camcorder – and judging by the photos we’ve had through, they’re more than likely right. The thing looks tiny.
Sized at little larger than a mobile phone (33 x 119 x 63.5mm and 283g), Sony say it’s the smallest, slimmest, lightest camcorder ever to feature 1920×1080 Full HD recording with crisp 5.1ch surround sound.
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Skype HQ Video: The Logitech Cameras
There are three Logitech cameras to choose from to get Skype HQ video running, each equipped with Carl Zeiss Optics and RightLight – which makes the most of the light available to create the best image – but with different strengths.
The Quickcam Pro 9000 is primarily targeted at desktop machines with the benefit of autofocus and the ability to take 8Mpx photos.
Retail cost £70.
QuickCam Pro for Notebooks also has autofocus, comes with a 2Mpx resolution, not surprisingly is aimed at mobile users and comes with a travel pouch.
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NXP Nexperia PNX5100: HD TV 2 Is Coming: Podcast & Video: IFA
If you thought that HD TV was the best picture you’re ever going to see, think again. The release of 100/120 Hz Full HD TVs gives you a pretty clear idea that the market is moving again.
NXP showed us a chip the Nexperia PNX5100 which really ups the game for HD. Lower down you can listen to the interview with those involved and watch a video of it working.
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Creative Zen Release Credit Card Sized Player
Shinier than the beady eye of a well groomed Magpie, Creative’s new Zen looks a snappy number in its all-black suit, weighing just 65g and sporting credit credit card-sized dimensions.
The 11.3mm thick mini-player doesn’t shirk when it comes to storage space, with three models offering 4GB, 8GB and 16GB options, backed by a SD memory expansion slot. According to Zen’s calculations, you’ll be able wedge in 4,000 MP3s at 128kps on the 16GB model, which converts into 266 hours of non-stop music listening action/.
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Apple TV Starts Shipping
After weeks of speculation and one official delay by Apple last month, Apple has now announced that they are shipping the Apple TV unit from today.
From its name, you’ll guess that it’s an Apple unit to be connected directly to a TV, giving the chance to listen and watch content via the iTunes software. The WSJ, who have had it for the last 10 days, is reporting that the unit can only be used with Widescreen TVs, as there isn’t support for 4:3 screens – a surprising limitation. They also report another limitation – the screen can only be connected to the Apple TV via HDMI cables or component jacks.
To get the most out of it, the diminutive Apple TV (it’s only 8 inches square) cannot be used as a stand-alone unit, but must be used in conjunction with either a Mac running OSX, or a PC running XP – both of which need to be running iTunes 7.1 or later. The direct to Internet connectivity is currently very limited, only giving access to film trailers and the like.
(We wonder if the lack of support for Windows Vista is a deliberate move).
Related to that, we recently noticed when we installed iTunes on our latest PC, that it already has support for Apple TV built in to it in the Preference settings (see image).
Getting around the different forms of content is done by the Apple Remote, so a keyboard/mouse combination is not required.
The content gets to the Apple TV via cabled-Ethernet, or WiFi, running at the yet-to-be-ratified 802.11n, which has a theoretical maximum speed of 540 Mbps.
The unit has a 40Gb hard drive that Apple says can “store up to 50 hours of video, 9,000 songs, 25,000 photos or a combination of each and is capable of delivering high-definition 720p output.”
It’s with some amazement that we’re seeing official Apple comments about a product coming from someone apart from The Steve, to that end Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing enthused that “Apple TV is like a DVD player for the Internet age—providing an easy and fun way to play all your favourite iTunes content from your PC or Mac on your widescreen TV.”
Apple tell us that it’s shipping from today, priced at £199 in the UK and $299 in the US.