Joe Tech » video

Video Conference In HD With Warpia ConnectHD

Joe Tech — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 22:50:07 +0000

With the ability to watch movies and TV series on Hulu, Amazon, iTunes, those of us without an Internet-ready TV have been settling for watching at a computer desk or on a smaller laptop screen. One way around this is to get the video from your computer to the TV as seamlessly as possible. Last year, I reviewed Warpia’s USB PC to TV video adapter, which provided decent wireless video up to 720p. After that review, many people asked about 1080p video and other features. Today, I reviewed Warpia’s latest product in this line, the ConnectHD.

1080p HD USB PC to TV Video Streaming

Like other streaming products, the ConnectHD includes a USB adapter for sending video and a receiving unit on the television end to convert the signal and display it on your TV. This is accomplished by Windows treating the Warpia adapter as a duplicated monitor and feeding it all the video you see on your screen. That video image is then streamed wirelessly to the receiver and shows up on your TV. I tested this with video in 1080p and it streamed very well. At the request of my wife, several additional tests were conducted with full episodes of Sons of Anarchy from Amazon.com. The 1080p video testing from YouTube looked great and the additional tests passed Michelle’s scrutiny.

HD Video Conferencing

The premier feature of ConnectHD is the ability to, well, connect in HD to others. The TV adapter includes a 720p HD video camera and the ability to stream video both ways. On your computer, the camera shows up as any other camera you might connect directly. This makes the ConnectHD uniquely suited to act as video conferencing hardware for applications like Skype and MSN Messenger. I tried it with Skype today and was pleased with the results. The video quality showed some signs of compression, but that may have been more Skype than the camera as the image was crystal clear in Skype’s video settings panel.

Warpia ConnectHD Video Demonstration

During my testing, I created video of some of the process, showing how well the ConnectHD works and demonstrating the features as seen below:

Conclusions

Listed on the Warpia site with a sales price of $199.99, ConnectHD is a good bundle considering the $100+ prices of most HD PC to TV video solutions and the cost of a good HD camera. ConnectHD bundles both to ensure they will work well together. If video conferencing is something you won’t likely do from the couch, $199 can seem steep, so Warpia and other companies offer cameraless solutions for a lot less cost. This solution performed very well in all of my testing and works great for the task at hand.

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STOP SOPA! Keep Uncle Sam’s Hands Off Our Internet

Joe Tech — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 06:52:48 +0000

If you haven’t heard about S.O.P.A. yet and why it needs to be stopped, spend five minutes and read on.

What Is S.O.P.A.?

Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the less known PROTECTIP (PIPA) are proposed legislation that aim to give more control to the U.S. government and copyright holders to thwart piracy online. Sadly, the legislation will instead give our government the power to blacklist sites that allegedly contain any small amount of infringing content, thereby blocking the whole site from users. As an example, if I post a video on YouTube of my cat being funny and it happens to have a pop song playing in the background, YouTube has to remove it quickly or face harsh consequences. And if they’re not fast enough? That’s when Uncle Sam gets to start messing with DNS (the naming system of the Internet), making the site unreachable by normal means to most people in the U.S. If that doesn’t work, private companies (RIAA and MPAA, for example), can get advertising and payment companies like Google and PayPal to shut down the accounts of the allegedly offending site.

In this case, YouTube could vanish to anyone in the U.S. and lose all advertising revenue if I don’t edit some music out of my kitty cat video. Sounds reasonable, right?

And if you want to read the full text, here’s H.R. 3261
Pay attention to 102(c)(2)(A)(i) regarding DNS re-routing and 102(c)(2)(B) regarding search engines.

If all that’s too much to read, check out the SOPA infographic from Mashable or watch a video about the legislation below:

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

Wikipedia And JoeTech.com Are Going Dark In Protest

At 12:00 AM on January 18th, 2012, the English version of Wikipedia will go dark for 24 hours, and so will JoeTech.com and we’re certainly not alone. Reddit got the SOPA Strike rolling, and Mozilla has been vocal about this for a while. My dedicated server provider, Codero, voiced their own opinion about SOPA/PIPA, urging customers to get educated.

During that 24 hour period I’ll have a blackout page up, but as of 12:00 AM on January 19th, 2012, JoeTech.com will be back to normal.

How You Can Protest

If you have a web site, go on strike with me.

Even if you don’t have a site, you can make your voice heard. That link will do the work for you to connect you to your senators to voice your opinion about SOPA/PIPA. Politely urge them to consider the freedoms we fight so hard to protect before voting on this horrible legislation.

Share this post on Facebook, Twitter, and Google +. Better yet, share any of the helpful links above.

Stop waiting for bad ideas to become laws.

Update: It looks like our politicians are listening, promising to make changes to the bill to help with our concerns, but we’ll have to wait and see what comes out of it. At this point, the bill may be vastly changed for the better or may just die completely.

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Santa Was Dancing In My House

Joe Tech — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 09:33:18 +0000

It’s almost Christmas, but I didn’t have to wait to see Santa. In fact, he brought his elves to my house to dance. Well, at least that’s what I was able to make a video of thanks to today’s review of ReelDoozy, a pretty unique iPhone app.

What’s All This About?

ReelDoozy is an iPhone app that uses green screen technology to let you super-impose fun video they provide on top of your own video. The result is a video of, say, your own house with Santa dancing around in your living room. This green screen technology has been used for years in the television and film industry but lately, it’s turning up in all sorts of fun apps like this, thanks to the processing power and video capabilities of today’s smart phone line-up.

ReelDoozy Features And Improvement

When the app is fired up, the first thing to do in order to make a video is select a foreground video. This is the video of Santa, or whatever else you choose, that will be super-imposed atop your own video. There are four short clips starring Santa and his elves that are free to use. For most, these will be fine to play with, but the app offers six additional foreground video collections that can be unlocked for an in-app purchase of 99 cents per collection. While playing, I decided to buy the Dancing Pack to aid in the making of my review video below.

After selecting a foreground video, you select a background video or create one on the fly. So far, it’s been pretty basic stuff I had expected from the app, but the next step was a nice touch. With both the foreground and background videos selected, you can choose where to position the foreground subject and even pinch-zoom to re-size him. Better still, you’re given slider controls to adjust the brightness and contrast of the foreground video and can choose to use the foreground audio, the background, or a mix of both. Of course, this stuff is almost necessary if you want the final video to look good at all. I would have really enjoyed some kind of path selection to allow me to move Santa with the floor if my background video moves too much, but it might be a bit much to ask of a free app.

While I’m being greedy, I’d love some more selection in video packs. The dancing and humor scenes are fun, but I’d love the option for a couple scenes in which Santa is placing presents under the tree or filling a stocking. I’ll gladly throw down another buck for that.

Video of Santa Dancing

Sometimes the best part of a review is playing with fun stuff, so I tried to be a little creative and come up with my own videos with Santa and the elves and here’s the result.

Conclusions

When I first saw the press release for this, I thought it looked like a neat way to show the kids that Santa had actually been there. After installing and playing around, I realized it was pretty fun for those of us without kids, too. The price is always right when it’s free, and even the in-app purchase options were well within reason. The one stand-out problem with this app is that is freezes on me when finalizing a video. The video does save, though, so this is a minor inconvenience. In the end, ReelDoozy is a lot of free holiday fun, leaving you little reason to not check it out. If you try it out, I really want to see what videos you come up with, so share the links in the comment section below.

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Elmedia Player Pro Review And Giveaway

Joe Tech — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 10:00:56 +0000

Online video accounts for an astounding percentage of the internet’s traffic. YouTube, alone, sees about 48 hours of new video uploaded every minute and about three billion video views per day. Still, we find ourselves often looking to third party applications to handle video tasks our base operating systems don’t do – or at least not well enough. A good example of this is downloading video from sources such as YouTube.

Today, I spent some time with the Elmedia Player software and tried many of the features offered in the free version as well as the PRO.

Notable Elmedia Player Features

The free version of the Elmedia Player leaves out most of my favorite features, but that’s to be expected. I found, however, that even the free version is very well polished with a lot of options and advantages over most of the free video tools I see. Here’s a list of most of what you find in the free version:

- Support for many video types (FLV, SWF, XAP (Silverlight), RM and RV (Real), AVI, MOV, MP4, WMV, DIVX)
- HTML5 video support
- Zoom in and zoom out options for SWF and EXE (or APP) files
- Growl and browsers integration
- iTunes-like playlists and star ratings

The PRO version, offered for only $19.95 on Eltima Software’s web site, hones in on a few key features that the product is really designed for and delivers in those areas. While this software isn’t littered with too much fluff, there are a few extras that don’t seem entirely necessary (like video ratings). Regardless, they’re not in the way and, more importantly, they didn’t distract Eltima from doing a good job with the core features. Some of the PRO features include:

- Download Video – even RTMP streams
- Full-screen mode
- “Always on top” mode
- Make a screenshot of the current frame
- Convert file into series of images

Of course, downloading video from a wide variety of sources is the feature I’d pay for, but the screen shot and “Always on top” features will also come in pretty handy. Less needed, but great on occasion, will be the option that lets you take a series of images – I’m thinking animated GIFs here.

Hands On Testing

After installing the software, my first test (as seen in the image at the beginning of this review) was to head to YouTube and try to download one of my review videos. In the past, I’ve used plug-ins to download a video, but Elmedia Player takes a different approach. You paste the URL to a web page into the software and it loads the page like a browser. When it does this, it looks for any videos or links to them in the page’s content and makes a list for you to select from. I first downloaded just the video that I was after, but then I tried the “Download all” option which grabbed everything in site.

Tip: You may need to start playing the video in the preview page before it will appear in the list to download.

Once a video is grabbed, it’s listed under the Downloaded section, where you can pull up everything from just today or broaden the listing. The organization extends in a different way to the file folder structure behind the scenes as well. Here, a folder is created that is named after the page you downloaded from.

While this software’s core features are not that unlike some free browser plugins on the surface, the extra video formats it supports can be invaluable. Additionally, some of the browser plugins I’ve used in the past can be sporadic in their reliability. I haven’t used this software long enough to be certain it will stand up to the many challenges I have in store for it, but so far, everything indicates that it likely will. Finally, one thing that Elmedia Player will not do that the browser plugins do all too often is cease to become useful after I upgrade to the latest browser version or switch from one to another. Being browser-independent has its advantages.

Conclusions

Cons: The only con it that it’s not free – well, it is free, but the best and really useful features are in the PRO version. Pros: This is well-built software with some thoughtful extras, the price is low enough to barely be a factor, and it doesn’t care what browser you have or version. Want 15% off? No problem. Just use the coupon code JOE-TECH-PROMO when you purchase.

Don’t Have 20 Bucks? Win It Here!

That’s right. Even if you’re just a little interested, I have been given not one, but two PRO upgrade codes to give out to lucky winners. Just follow the entry instructions below and come back here next week to see if you’ve won! Entering is as simple as clicking the “Do it” link, following any instructions, and then clicking the “I did this” button. If you’re already subscribed to JoeTech.com via email or you already follow me on Twitter, you can skip right to the “I did this” button for those entries. Good luck!

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Vuzix Aims To Bring Hollywood To Your Head

Joe Tech — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 00:15:00 +0000

Hollywood does a great job of thinking about what future technology might look like and then teasing us with it. Star Trek, alone, introduced several technology concepts that eventually became real-world must-haves. Sadly, the span between Hollywood’s concept and an actual product is often decades. Today, Vuzix, maker of some pretty cool video eyewear, announced today that it has entered into a technology license agreement with Nokia to develop and produce see-through waveguide optics for use in near-eye display (NED) systems (head mounted displays and video eyewear) based on Nokia’s proprietary see-through (Exit Pupil Expanding) EPE optics technology.

That’s a lot of geek speak, but what does it all really mean? The EPE technology Nokia has been working on for the past decade might just be paired up with Vuzix’s eyewear to create sunglasses that provide a heads-up-display while not blocking your view of the world.

“We believe that Nokia’s EPE technology solves a long missing piece in the NED business for creating sunglass-style video eyewear.” said Paul Travers, Vuzix President and CEO. He added, “Integrate this Nokia technology with Vuzix’s advanced display engine developments with partners like Fraunhofer IPMS, and we expect to be able to offer the video glasses that Hollywood and Sci-Fi writers have only been able to imagine.”

If Vuzix makes this a consumer reality, it means I’ll be able to watch a movie with my Vuzix eyewear on the plane and still see the flight attendant approaching me about my drink choice.

I’m excited about the possibilities as long as people don’t try to wear them while driving.

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Geezer Tech Support – Or – NOT How To Remove A Computer Virus

Joe Tech — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 03:55:30 +0000

Although the following is a sponsored review, as always I strive to provide an honest opinion of the product reviewed.

A short while ago, I wrote about an edgy parody, Leaked iPhone 4S Commercial from the ADA Sport YouTube Channel. This week, I found out about a new one featuring a couple of old timers experiencing their first computer virus and their tragic lack of computer knowledge. Watch for yourself to see what I mean.

What’s funny about this is the fact that people can do some pretty dumb things with computers when they don’t know what they’re doing and think they’re fixing something. I worked in Internet tech support for years and can tell you horror stories. This animated tale brings some humor out of it all for your entertainment.

As you might have seen from the end of this video, it’s up against their Realistic Captain America parody to see which is best. So far, it looks like people are heavily favoring Captain America, but I like this one just a bit more. Watch them both and tell me which you’d vote for.

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Netflix Apologizes, Renames DVD Service To Qwikster, Draws More Fire

Joe Tech — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 21:13:54 +0000

A couple months ago, the household name, Netflix, brought household outrage by eliminating their popular DVD/Streaming package and replacing it with the option to purchase two separate packages at a large price hike. Today, it seems that the wisdom “better late than never” might not apply to the apology email that Netflix sent out to its subscribers and posted on its blog. If the comments on the blog post are any indication, Netflix is in for another round of abuse.

The Apology that was sent out on behalf of CEO Reed Hastings started out feeling very heart-felt, opening with “I messed up. I owe you an explanation.” Hastings follows this with his sincere apology for the way Netflix rolled out the price/package changes:

It is clear from the feedback over the past two months that many members felt we lacked respect and humility in the way we announced the separation of DVD and streaming and the price changes. That was certainly not our intent, and I offer my sincere apology. Let me explain what we are doing.

After the brief apology, the email goes on to point out that the pricing and package change was part of a much bigger move to turn the DVD side of Netflix into a completely separate company, complete with separate charges on your card if you have both services. The new company, Qwikster, will handle all the physical discs with Netflix freed up to focus on streaming. This leaves me with an obvious question…

What Are You Doing, Netflix?

As a subscriber only to the streaming service, neither the previous nor the current changes leave me with the feelings of betrayal others seem to have experienced, but as a business owner, I’m scratching my head. Netflix built a wonderful monopoly on the DVD-by-mail business and even began a decent transition into streaming. Despite kiosk offerings from RedBox and Blockbuster, Netflix still had the largest selection with a solid customer base. The pricing and package changes damaged customer loyalty, but this feels like Netflix is positioning themselves to move out of the DVD-by-mail arena completely.

At Least There’s Games By Mail Now

One thing I felt positive about in this announcement is that ~~Netflix~~ Qwikster will be offering games by mail as well. Though I’ve honestly never gotten serious enough about the idea of games by mail to sign up for a competitor like Game Fly, I love the idea. Sadly, the thought that I can’t do it through Netflix leaves me in the “maybe some day” area. Frankly, I’ve always had small nervous breakdowns when a disc from Netflix or RedBox looks like someone tried to watch it by scratching it up with a set of keys, so maybe this saves me from a mid-game mental meltdown anyway. You disc-scratchers know who you are.

The Streaming-Only Upside

Because I only subscribe to the streaming service at home, this change may actually present a large benefit to me. I often wonder when Netflix will bring the streaming library up to speed. They have millions of discs for mailing out, but far too often do I find myself searching for something only to find it unavailable for instant watching. I’m crossing my fingers that we’re headed for a larger Instant Watch selection, but I’m not holding my breath.

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Apple’s Privacy Violation – A Video Parody

Joe Tech — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 18:00:44 +0000

Although the following is a sponsored review, as always I strive to provide an honest opinion of the product reviewed. Additionally, the media included and linked to in this review does not necessarily reflect the views of JoeTech.com

This video turned up in my email yesterday. YouTube has always had its share of original content and this certainly fits the description. It’s full of shock and might even be a bit too abrasive for some of my readers, but I have to admit that it made me laugh.

WARNING: This video is definitely not safe for work and is likely to offend some people.

The video comes from the creative minds of ADA Sport and if you poke around their YouTube channel a little, you’ll find other gems like the A Modern Day Cinderella Tale with an unexpected twist or the animation detailing the Grim Reaper’s goofs. The videos remind me of the days of Ren and Stimpy, but with more, erm… guts. They also pit the videos against each other, asking you to Like the one you thought was better.

The Apple parody video was all in fun, I’m sure, but I have to wonder if Apple will bring down the hammer on these guys. If you’re curious, you’d better view it while it’s still online. One thing’s for sure. I’m not turning my back on my phone anymore.

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How To Set Up A Home Entertainment System

Joe Tech — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 00:47:08 +0000

Home entertainment systems are more than just your average TV and Blu Ray player plugged in and set on default. They involve multiple components and aim to provide the ultimate media experience in your living room, whether you are looking to bring the magic of the cinema to your own home or to get right next to the action at the next big sports match without forking out for a ticket. As such setting up a home entertainment system can be tricky, but this brief guide should give you enough information to help you get started.

Photo: Blake Patterson (CC)

First you will need to appreciate the kind of space you are working with and base your choice of entertainment technology on these immutable parameters. If you are starting from scratch and buying an HDTV along with an audio system, media player and DVD/Blu Ray device then you can be much more exacting in your choices. For example, it makes no sense to slap a 50 inch TV set in a room where you will be sitting just five feet away from the screen because all that display real estate will overwhelm the space and have a negative impact on your viewing experience.

It is also advisable to pick a consistent selection of components which are ideally made by the same manufacturer. So if you have a Sony TV it will work at the top of its game when paired with a Sony Blu Ray player and Sony brand surround sound with a compatible amplifier. Of course this kind of perfectionism is not essential because most devices should be cross-compatible on a basic level, but since most home entertainment devices from individual manufacturers are designed to interface with one another and provide inter-device control from a single remote, you may want to make the investment upfront to ensure smooth operation at a later date.

Positioning your TV so that it can be viewed comfortably is relatively simple, but setting up surround sound speakers can be a little more taxing. The satellite speakers at the rear may typically operate using long wires running from the amplifier by your TV, although some models have wireless rear speakers to reduce clutter, but be prepared to pay more for this convenience. Pay close attention to the manufacturer`s instructions when it comes to angling your surround sound speakers to ensure that the full effect of the advanced audio is experienced by the viewer.

If you want a truly flexible home entertainment system setup then you might consider buying a flat TV wall mount so that your television can twist, rotate and hang remote from the rest of the gadgets. Wall mounts can offer varying degrees of articulation, with the more complex setups typically costing extra but letting you swivel and pan the screen precisely. This may be of particular interest to anyone who has a 3D TV that requires the viewer to be seated within a particular viewing angle to enjoy the latest effects without any blurring or image disruption.

This guest post was provided by http://www.3wisemonkeys.co.uk

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How To Install Animated Windows Backgrounds

Joe Tech — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 09:13:26 +0000

Most people are familiar with screen savers in Windows. When your computer has been idle for a certain period of time, the screen will go blank or animate in some way to keep the screen you left up from burning into your monitor. Over the years, screen savers evolved to entertain. Chances are pretty good that you or someone you know has had a virtual fish tank as a screen saver at some point. The problem is that you’re usually not around to enjoy your screen saver when it’s activated. In this article, I’m going to show you an easy way to animate your desktop while you’re using the computer. The video below has a few examples from my own setup.

In the video, I just demonstrated a few of my favorites, but you can also use it as an example of how to set a video as your background once you have Dreamscene installed. You might have also noticed that I’ve removed any junk icons from my desktop and set my program dock and task bar both to auto-hide. The less you have in the way of your background, the more you’ll enjoy it.

What You Need To Get Started

- Dreamscene: The Windows 7 Dreamscene patch is here (32 bit). 64 bit is here.
- Video loops: The ones I’m using are a bunch from dreamscene.org and the aquarium I found on YouTube.

That’s it. Just grab a video or two and the patch and get started below.

How To Install Dreamscene

Installing Dreamscene is pretty quick and easy to accomplish, but you will need to reboot. Bookmark this page so you can come back to it and wrap up anything else you have open. When you’re ready, just follow these steps:

1. Open the Dreamscene patch you downloaded
2: Copy and Paste DreamScene.dll to %windir%\system32\
3: Copy and Paste DreamScene.dll.mui to %windir%\system32\en-US\
4: Run Dscene.reg
5: Reboot

(%windir% is the path to your windows directory, generally C:\Windows. Instructions may vary with an OS other than Windows 7 64 bit)

After installation and rebooting, you can set any .WMV or .MPG video as your desktop background. To do this, just find a video on your computer, right-click on it and click “Set as Desktop Background.

Find More Dreamscene Videos

Finding a bunch of videos on sites like dreamscene.org is great, but remember, you can use any wmv or mpg video, so there’s a whole lot of possible Dreamscenes all over the web for you. If it loops, that’s best, but a longer video will work, too. Sites like YouTube have an abundance of videos, but you might try just searching Google for free video loops.

Comment below and link to any video loops you find that you really like.

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