I've got a couple HDR-HC1 cameras, one from Japan and one from the US, and really like the video quality that comes out of 'em. As long as the scene is well-lit, the results are good. Annoyingly using CapDVHS I could only capture HDV video from the Japanese one. I haven't taken the time to figure out why until just today. It was easy enough in the past to just always used the Japanese camera to capture HDV content. Well, today I got curious and took a moment to figure out what the problem was. Very...

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Demo unit on display this week at CEATEC Japan Commercial unit to be sold in December Finally, an OLED panel that's reliable enough to sell. Unlike backlit LCD, which uses the same amount of power all the time, OLED only uses power for the individual pixels that are lit, saving energy. It's not a technology that has to "shutter" light, so contrast is incredible. As well, viewing angle is 180 degrees, both horizontal and vertical. There's no angle that you would see any funny coloration, so it becomes...

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It's a great keynote going on this morning out here at the Venetian, learning about the newest of the new from Microsoft. The new beta bits for Silverlight 1.0 are now available for download, with the RTM is coming this summer. And surronding Silverlight is also the announcement of the featureset to be included in Silverlight 1.1. For that Laurent already mentioned some of the great news. Especially important is that a scaled-down version of .NET will be included in that v1.1 release. We've been...

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Worth the jump. And if you like free stuff then it's also worth doing some further sleuthing... http://www.youtube.com/watc

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Happy Thanksgiving to those of you in the States! This time of year usually means lots of travel, and often it's impossible to be everywhere that you want to. Thankfully, good quality DV camcorders, machines with fast processors, and broadband Internet speeds can allow us to enjoy a much higher quality video experience than what most people equate to a "webcam". It's easy to broadcast in fairly high quality using the free Windows Media Encoder. This walkthrough uses version 9 to deliver good quality...

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... and look at the kind of trouble he's gotten himself into! http://www.youtube.com/watc...

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This post gives a little info about how to repair an LCD projector that has a washed-out and yellowing image, which results from the blue LCD panel weakening over time. I would have to guess that at least 30% of the used projectors on eBay have this annoying problem! I bought a reconditioned Proxima 9260+ projector three years ago, and it has served me well with a wonderful bright, colorful, and high-contrast image. I've probably used it a total of 800 hours now, and it has been great. Liking the...

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Several years ago Bill Gates invested into a little aviation firm founded by his friend Vern Raburn in his old stomping grounds of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Today their Eclipse 500 jet just received provisional FAA certification! This 1.3 million dollar plane holds 4 passengers and travels faster than commercial jet aircraft. It is small but comfortable, with an interior designed by BMW. Notable is that during certification it achieved the status of being the quietest jet aircraft in the world. The...

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The first cell phone with a lens cap?(And an optical zoom!) Available soon in the states is this way-cool Nokia N93, which captures video at 640x480 resolution and 30fps. Record up to an hour and a half in a 2 gig mini-SD card. Then share your creation online, uploading it via speedy 3G. I was in Japan on vacation last month, and stopped in at Tokyo's "electric town" (Akihabara) to gawk at the gizmos. While there I saw other evidence that a true video revolution is happening on a cell phone near...

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CNet invited me to be on today's “Buzz Out Loud” show, AKA "the podcast of indeterminate length". It was lots of fun hanging out with Veronica and Tom for the brief interview. The reason for the invite was my passionate dismantling of the new Toshiba HD-A1 player. For those that want some more detail about what's under the hood of the unit, you can check out these previous posts, starting with the dissection video: Up close and personal with Toshiba's new HD DVD player (the HD-A1) More...

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