Yesterday, I posted about how to jailbreak your iPhone running firmware 3.1.3 in 60 seconds. After jailbreaking, I tried playing with ScreenSplitr and saw other apps that let you see your iPhone screen on your computer. The problem is that most require you to be tethered to a computer or have both your iPhone and the computer on a wifi network. I found something much easier for creating videos of your iPhone screen.
After jailbreaking, I installed Backgrounder on my iPhone. It lets you run things in the background, which the iPhone still doesn’t do (until 4.0). What I found was that some video recording programs will still record in the background and others will not. Of those that will, a couple will record everything displayed on your screen. Below is a video I made showing regular video, then my screen, then back to regular video. The whole thing was recorded using a iVideoRecorder ($0.99 in the app store) and Backgrounder. It was not edited at all and was uploaded to YouTube right from the phone.
As you can see, it was pretty simple to share my iPhone screen activity with you without the need for a computer. This is great if you want to, for example, show people how to take and edit iPhone photos on the beach or how well a navigation program works with a live demonstration. Give it a try and let me know what you think.
Having a computer dedicated to your entertainment center is fine, but what if you don’t want to dedicate a computer just to that? That’s how I had things set up for a long time. I used the computer less and less after we got a new cable box that included a DVR. With HULU, I contemplated setting it all back up, but then I came across a device that promised to save me all the trouble.
The device pictured above is a USB PC to TV audio and video adapter from a company called Warpia and it’s designed to transmit the audio and video signal from your computer to a receiving unit attached to your PC.
Setting It All Up
The setup for this device really couldn’t have been much easier. Following some simple instructions, I installed the software from the included CD and then plugged in the USB PC adapter. After looking over the settings, I plugged in the A/V base adapter and hooked it up to the HDMI cable I borrowed from my DVD player (will connect via VGA, too). After a couple seconds, everything on my laptop screen was being displayed on my 42 inch TV as well. Check out the video of everything in action:
The refresh rate for video was pretty good, but could be a little better. Other than that, HD video came across as true HD and looked really good. All my applications refreshed seamlessly and I had a very clear picture.
Features and Flaws
One of the things I liked about this was that it’s treated as an additional display, so I can tell Windows to either Duplicate the display or Extend it. When I extend it, I get to keep my normal laptop screen just on my laptop, and a second desktop for the TV. A great example of how that’s beneficial presented itself the other night. I purchased a movie online for direct download and watched it on the TV over my wireless A/V connection. At the same time, I was able to tweet, read and respond to email, etc. from my original desktop. Pretty cool.
The SWP100A also comes with mounting screw slots on the bottom of the TV adapter and that end’s USB stick can plug in horizontally or vertically in case you want to wall mount it and keep it as flush as possible.
The only real concern this device presented was the heat it generated. The USB adapter can get pretty warm and the TV adapter gets downright hot. I’d have loved to see an on/off switch on the TV end of the setup. Not only would this help with the heat problem, but it would be a lot easier than having to unplug it and plug it back in every time I want to use it.
Conclusions
At $179.99, it’s not my cheapest device, but it’s cheaper than setting up another computer just for the TV and a lot, I mean a LOT easier. I went from sealed box to completed and in use in about 5-7 minutes. If you can handle the price, it’s a decent solution to get your audio and video from PC to TV in a snap.
Like many people, I use videos in some of my posts and those videos are almost always on YouTube. For me, I use the video to compliment the post and help show things that just can’t be shown in photos or described in text. But I also want those videos to be discovered independent of the blog post and bring people to my site. I’m sure almost everyone posting videos on YouTube would love their video to go viral, but that’s no easy task. Recently, I was asked to review some software to help with this task.
I was given a link a website about how to get views on youtube, where I could get YouTube Jump Start, software that promises to get you tons of “quality views” to your YouTube video without doing anything that could put your YouTube account at risk of deletion. Here I am a few weeks later, and I have some real numbers from a real video I submitted (mostly) just to test this out.
About YouTube Jump Start
As mentioned above, it’s designed to boost your YouTube video views, but how does it work and how much is it? The details about exactly how these views make their way to your video aren’t really clear, but the sales page promises “no bots” and “no proxies”, so we’re left to assume these views are all real people seeing your video. Today, I confirmed that these are, in fact, “real people”.
The program includes a couple different packages, depending on how many videos you want to promote, from $70 and $15/month (4 videos a day) to $100 one-time for 25 videos ($4/video). The upside is that this is for 200+ views per video, per day, “forever”.
When you fire up the program, you just pop in a video URL and it submits. It was a lot easier than I ever anticipated. It might have been a little too simple for my liking, actually, but as long as it does what I want it to, that’s fine.
Tons Of New YouTube Views
I’ve been on the web a long time and I’ve seen a lot of programs, scripts, and sites that offer to generate non-organic traffic for you. Organic traffic is the stuff that just happens when you have good content and people feel compelled to tell other people about it. This traffic is the stuff you have to help yourself get. There’s no shame in going after more traffic. In fact, you SHOULD be doing this if you’re serious about people seeing your content. In any case, I’ve seen a lot of promises to deliver traffic and a lot that have failed to deliver. This was not the case here.
For the first week (maybe a little less), I let my video ride on organic traffic and a couple tweets I sent out and it did pretty well on its own. As the initial views slowed down, I decided to kick in the Jump Start program, represented largely by the brown in the graph above. As you can see, it started delivering right away. Not too bad. It actually shows a couple points where it almost doubled my organic peak. That brown part of the graph is truly traffic YouTube can’t identify the origin of, so it’s not ALL from this program, but I think it’s a safe guess to say that about 95% or more is.
The graph above shows that the viewers seem to come from all age groups, and I also looked at the geographic location graphs, which seem to indicate mostly United states traffic, and that’s important to me. After a few weeks, YouTube Jump Start delivered about 4,000 to 4,500 views to my video.
Is This Valuable Traffic?
That’s debatable, really. First off, let’s think about what good non-organic traffic is. They sum up what I was thinking almost word for word:
If you have more views, your video will not only show up on earlier search pages, but will be recommended to others via YouTube’s related videos function. Your video may even be featured on YouTube’s Global Homepage! (if its worthy enough).
This, of course, is why I did my test. My video, as indicated in the first graph, did pretty well on its own, so it’s safe to assume that the video didn’t totally suck. Sadly, out of 5,000+ views, only 456 were “related content” views and 114 were from YouTube search. 261 and 69 (respectively) of these were from before I ran the program. What this says to me is that although I saw a ton of views to my video, I haven’t realized the benefit of the software in the ways I had hoped. Ideally, The software would get tons of people viewing my video and those people would share and rate at least a little. This doesn’t seem to have happened much, if at all. As for it boosting organic traffic within YouTube (related videos and search), I think almost all 250 or so organic views were as a result of the added traffic Jump Start gave the video. This isn’t what I’d hoped for, but it’s a lot more than I’d have without the software.
Conclusions
Everything really boils down to this question: Is the return on investment good enough? If you produce videos that are good enough and just need some help, this could work, but I don’t know if it will really generate the organic traffic that is most critical to success on the web. Ultimately, the best plan is to create killer content regularly for the best organic traffic, but this could give you a good, well, jump start.
Earlier this year, it seemed that every television manufacturer was announcing a unit with either Skype built in or 3D functionality. Last week, I received an email inviting me to come check out Panasonic’s latest and greatest at their touring presentation that was coming through Scottsdale this week. The draw for me was the 3D, but I found a lot more when I arrived.
3D TVs With Skype
Maybe you’re thinking what I was thinking in the car on the way there… Can 3D stick around this time or is it just going to be hot for a while and die out again? It’s hard to say, but Panasonic is not only betting that 3D is here to stay, but they’re throwing in everything else just in case.
One of the VIERA CAST HDTVs I saw today, the VIERA TC-P50G25 Plasma (seen above for $1,499), included the ability to make video calls with Skype (requires an add-on camera), view YouTube videos, browse through photos on Picasa, view and stream movies instantly with Netflix or Amazon Video, and even peruse and update Twitter. To top it off, they threw in a weather screen with forecasts, Pandora radio, Bloomberg, and Fox Sports. You can even browse the web with it, which is probably why you can hook up a keyboard to one of the USB ports. Unfortunately, the demo played from a Blu-Ray disc, so it’s hard to say how the video streaming is and Skype won’t be available for use on VIERA CAST until June of this year. Regardless, it looks very promising. The geek inside me yearns to make a video call on a 50 inch screen without a lot of effort and that is a reality within reach. This model does not do 3D.
The PxxVT25 models, on the other hand, offer 3D and it looks awesome. To be fair, I haven’t seen any other 3D televisions first hand, so my basis for comparison is my 2D LCD and 3D at the movie theaters. That said, this blows my 2D away and makes the movie theater 3D seem a bit lacking. The first demo was with a movie, which looked great, but the real treat was the second demo I saw with some game playing in 3D. It looked incredible and the best part is that the games don’t all have to be made in 3D. There’s software that will make them work in 3D as long as you’re displaying them on one of these 3D TVs.
How To Watch TV In 3D
The televisions mentioned above display a 3D image, but where does that come from and how do you view it? Panasonic tells me they’ll have three channels loaded with 3D programming on DirecTV, and it sounded like 3D programming from other vendors will still work. All that’s left is those paper 3D glasses with the plastic red and blue lenses, right?
Not this time. This time, your 3D experience makes use of their special 3D glasses (TY-EW3D10). While I’d like to try the old paper glasses, I’m afraid these are the ones needed to make it work. They’re pretty cool and although the video doesn’t do the experience justice, you can see how they work below.
The problem is that the $150/pair price tag can be prohibitive, especially if you’re thinking about a family of four or five. They’re cheaper than some competitors, but still a bit up there. They definitely look $150 cooler than the old paper 3D glasses, though. I asked if Panasonic planned to bundle family packs of the eye wear and was told that it wasn’t planned yet but could happen as the consumer market accepts 3D more and more.
Cameras and Camcorders
In addition to all this 3D business, the tour included some new cameras of varying levels as well as video cameras. I honestly didn’t spend quite enough time with the video cameras, but it may have been due to all the time spent playing with the DMC-GH1K 12.1 MP digital camera. I’m not about to say I don’t like my Canon Rebel XTi because I love it, but the GH1K was wooing me with features I’ve been missing out on like 1080P HD video, a larger screen that swivels around, Live View, a more compact design, and a more widely used SD storage format (compared to the Compact Flash I use now). At $1499, it is almost twice what I paid for my camera, but still attractive.
Also attractive was the $399 DMC-ZS7K which more than a point-and-shoot, but not quite a DSLR. Every time I thought it had a lot of features I was shown one more. Personally, I’m looking to spend about half that on my next point-and-shoot camera but the feature list is enough to loosen up most any wallet. There’s the basics like auto focus and face targeting, but it also knows the difference between a face and, say, a cactus and adjusts photo settings the moment it makes the distinction. Better still, it can recognize specific faces and remember who it’s taking a photo of and label the photo properly. The 16X Intelligent Zoom was a nice surprise, too. The zoomed image wasn’t pixelated at all until zoomed all the way in and even then, it wasn’t much. Finally, the ZS7K records HD quality video as well, so I could replace my digital camera and my video camera with this one device.
The Touch The Future Tour
What I went to today was called the Touch the Future Tour. Panasonic is wandering around the country with all this cool stuff and showing people what all of it does. If you get a chance, the 3D is best seen in person. They’ll be dragging all their electronics to these cities next:
3/25 – 3/27 Philadelphia King of Prussia Mall – North Gulph Road
3/29 – 3/31 Minneapolis IDS Tower – 80 8th Street South
3/29 – 3/31 San Francisco One Market Plaza – 1 Market Street
3/31 – 4/2 Washington, DC Union Station – 50 Massachusetts Ave, NE
4/6 – 4/8 Dallas Grapevine Mills Mall – 3000 Grapevine Mills Parkway
4/6 – 4/8 Seattle Top of the Market – 93 Pike Street, Suite 307
4/7 – 4/9 Atlanta 595 North – 595 North Ave, NW Atlanta
4/12 – 4/14 Houston The Warehouse – 4108 Dupont Street
4/15 – 4/17 Miami Ice Palace – 59 Northwest 14th Street
Final Thoughts
Panasonic delivered more than I had planned for and showed off some really cool stuff. The new television offerings (3D and otherwise) were certainly giving me TV envy and I just bought a new LCD TV a few months back. The cameras (that I hadn’t really even gone to see) have me formulating evil plans in my head to convince my wife that I have two birthdays this year. I want it all, but would “settle” for any of the 3D TVs and the ZS7K camera.
With over 9,000 photos on Flickr alone, I think it’s safe to say that I like to take a lot of pictures. Like just about everyone these days, I have a digital point-and-shoot camera for documenting parties, nights out with friends, road trips, fun in the snow, and the list goes on. I also have a couple video cameras and a DSLR. I’ve heard about the Xshot! camera extender and saw one in action, but didn’t have my own… until now, thanks to a kind gift from an BC Blogger, Heather.
What Does It Do?
Those who have never seen an XShot usually have one of two reactions when they finally encounter someone using one. One reaction is to ask what it is, but more often than not people just comment on how cool it is. For those wondering what it does, the answer is easy. It extends the reach of your own arm by way of a telescoping pole that has an attachment at one end to connect your camera and a rubber grip at the other end to hold it. The result is a better shot in self-photos, making photos with the length of your arm in them a thing of the past.
How To Use An XShot
It’s too easy, really. Just screw the tripod mount into the adapter (found on the bottom of most cameras) and adjust the tilt to your liking (usually 90 to 110 degrees is good). Next, set the timer on your camera, extend, and smile. Now you know how to use it, but what about all the different ways you can make use of an XShot? There’s the obvious self-photo, but here’s a few more ideas:
- Photos with a friend
- Artsy photos from all angles
- Photos well above the crowd like at a concert
- Photos in hard to reach places (inside a wall, under the couch)
- Self-shot videos
- Unique perspective shots like from outside a moving car
You can see these last two in the following video:
Conclusions
Obviously, I love my Xshot! and Heather rocks for sending it to me. I’ve used it several times already and I’m sure it will get used a ton more at upcoming events. For about $30, it’s cheap enough to make up its purchase price before long and it’s compact enough for travel. It’s a great little accessory for anyone with a camera and if I hadn’t gotten one in the mail, I had already planned to buy one. You should too.
Xshot!
