Shola's Home Gadgets

We recently had a 24hr electricity power cut here in Mill Hill, London and I only realised how highly dependent the mordern world has become on this source of energy.



The power cut occured around 2am, but the effects were felt immediately. Obviously the street lights went out, but near to us, was the bedside electric clock radio which we use to tell the time. While we didn't feel the effect immediately because we were in bed, the home central heating system also shut down, which meant no heating and in the morning no hot water from the taps, and this being winter is a MAJOR problem.

Luckly for us, the cooker is gas, so once we found matches, we were able to boil water, heat milk for breakfast and later cook food that was defrosting from the fridge and freezers.

My neigbours could not make outgoing phone calls because their phone relied on electricity (we have an old phone to plug in when power fails), but computers were out, laptop batteries can only last so long, even mobile phone batteries were running dangerously low, so no unnecessary calls.

The house was very quiet, as even the radio did not have batteries in it, obviously everyone was cold and all huddled up in the sitting room.

4pm the house was dark, we had candles but it was really cold, noone was thinking of the gadgets, games consoles they got for christmas, all we wanted was light and some warmth.

While the electricity power cut was due to an underground cable fault, and the utility engineers from EDF Energy had been working round the clock to rectify the fault, by the time power was restored almost 24hrs later, it had really been a tough day, and I can't imagine being homeless in winter out on the streets!

If you are thinking of get the Hitachi HV565E HD pocket camcorder as a gift for a family member or a friend, then here is some christmas snow HD footage that might persuade you to do so. This was edited on my Apple MacBook Pro using final cut.



I have really been having a lot of fun with this little Hitachi HD hybrid camera, the battery life is quite very good, allowing me to record almost 2 hours of a driving lessons in HD, the limiting factor being that the camcorder runs out of storage space since I only got a cheap 4GB SD card from Amazon which the Hitachi camcorder has not had any problems reading.

Most of my recordings have not required sound, but it performed well during my daughther's christmas school play, for me to be happy. The other thing is I think I might have a resolution to the HV565E auto focus issue, and will be posting about it later, after I have done some more tests.

Following my recent article about my simple home automation media solution using an IPod, I have come to notice that HP wants to capture more of the HA and Home media entertainment market by launching the Smartmedia server.



Did you notice the strategic placement of the 17TB server next to XBox 360 media extender console in the video above? They are obviuosly trying to show how easy it integrates with microsoft's product.

The HP smartmedia server will perform the function of centralising your music, videos, pictures and will mean that you can show off all those family photos and home videos made over the years, and is compatible with iPhones as well.



While I'm still thinking of my options as I reconfigure my home automation system, I've got enough storage space already, so don't think I will be buying one of these media streaming devices.

I'm currently reconfiguring my home automation system, and for that reason, my HTPC is down, but it still wanted to have some of my whole house audio still available to distribute relaxing music while I work from home during the day.

At first I thought of using my apple macbook pro as a temp solution, but then I remembered I had an Ipod which was not being used lying around.

So all I did was copy a couple of hundred of my favorite songs to the 80GB hard drive of the Apple Ipod, create a few playlists, plug the MP3 player into my audio distribution amplifier which is already wired to the rooms and corridor of the house, and now I can continue to enjoy music around the house.

If you are living in a small flat or appartment, you can implemet this simple home automation idea using an Ipod shuffle which has no moving parts (less likley to breakdown), a cheap doking station (there are many cheap ones available now, not just Bose).

To prevent my Ipod from running out of power, I ordered a cheap usb power adaptor for £1, and use the Apple supplied cable to permanently connect it to the MP3 player. This also means in the even of a short power cut, I don't have to reset the playlists or press the play button.

The other part of my home automation system the XBox 360 media extender continues to work okay, providing stunning pictures on my 3 year old LG HD LCD TV.

It is christmas time, and if you are looking for a gift that you could give to a gaming console addict, then maybe you might be thinking of getting a Playstation.

Having used an XBox 360 as a media entertainment centre for over 3 years, Sony has decided to launch a playstation video store to offer easy access to HD quality entertainment on their console, in addition to the blu ray dvd playback features.



Movies, games etc, all downloaded directly and ready to view in minutes.

I have just acquired a new gadget, it is the Sony Ericsson Xperia mobile phone.

The windows mobile 6.1 phone is on a O2 contract, and is a worthy replacement of my old and trusted SE-K750i that I've had for a very long time.



The reason I chose the Sony Ericsson Xperia is that I'm looking for a gadget/device that will act as a mini mobile office as I'm out and about alot, so need to keep track of appointments, email, contacts, surf the net, create simple word documents and the Xperia fits the bill.

I have only had the Sony X1 for a short time, but it is living up to its expectations. I'm yet to buy an external memory card for it, but that will be ordered soon.

I have been using an Apple MacBook Laptop recently (last year or so) to do a lot of my work having used PCs for most of my adult computing life (right from Windows Version 3.1) and computers had 286 processors 16MB of ram and 40MB hard drives.

My Apple Mac is currently not available to me, so I've had to move back to working with PCs, and it has just dawned on me how I have become used to the Mac.
Simple keyboard shortcuts are different, and some characters are in diffrent positions, in particular the '@' symbol which I use a lot.

One of the things that you don't miss from being on the PC, is the lack of viruses when it comes to the MAC, I don't have any antivirus software running on the laptop, and don't have to worry about adware, spyware or malware. What a world of peace. I'm trully missing my Apple Mac.

While I don't think the PC will be ever threathen by Steve Jobs creation, they are getting more popular, and while still more expensive than a windows PC, they are getting more affordable, and with generous discounts available to students, a lot are being bought.

More Reading
Connecting Apple Macs to TV.
BoinxTV Mac video production software.

I took my recently acquired Hitachi DZ-HV565E camera on a family holiday, and was pleasantly surprised by the quality of photos the camcorder took in addition to the already mentioned good HD video footage.

While the DZ-HV565E takes very good pictures in the outdoor daylight conditions, I was disappointed by the results produced indoors at night especially since it doesn't have a flash for taking photos, the inbuilt light no being of much use.

I have posted samples of the pictures taken by this wonderful Hitachi HD camcorder below of some steam raliway locomotives if any of you are into small guage engines.





So far I've been very impressed with this cheap Hitachi HD camcorder, and while it is not the perfect gadget for taking both video and photos, for a portable handheld device it is perfect in my humble reviwing opinion.

Hitachi DZ-HV565E Auto Focus problems
Sanyo Xacti C40 pocket hybrid digital camcorder.

The auto focus on my Hitachi HD Camera can not be disabled or turned off, this creates a problem, as the algolrithm doesn't always choose the right thing to focus on, as shown by the video clip below.



I'm interested in my shoe which takes up most of the shot, but the Hitachi DZ-HV565E is more inclined to focus on the black surface in the background. Not very selective!



While I like the quality of images produced by this cheap HD camera, this issue does put it in the bad books for me, as serious home movie maker would not be able to be creative if he can tell the camera what to focus on. I'm still going to hang on to mine though.

I've just bought a new gadget, it is the Hitachi DZ-HV565E HD digital camcorder which will be replacing my Sanyo Xacti CA6 which I still have, but was a camcorder I didn't like!



The Hitachi camcorder was a birthday present from my wife, and has already been put to use for recording high definition driving lesson videos with very good clarity as shown below (high speed ADSL broadband internet connection required for this video clip).



This gadget reminds me of my first digital camcorder the Sanyo Xacti C40 which I loved so much and was gutted when it got lost or stolen under misterious circumstances.
It has many of the features of the Sanyo C40 that were missing in the CA6.
Rotatable LCD screen, full size tripod mount, can also take photographs as well as record HD video, the only disappointment is that the battery can not be charged while in the camera. The Hitachi records to solid state SD cards, so is tapeless, which means quicker editing times of the quicktime mov files it produces (I use final cut express on a mac for editing, but I'm sure you can use Movie Maker or Adobe Premier Elements on the PC).

So far I've only used the Hitachi DZ-HV565E to record video, and have been happy with it, and I can see that it will get more use than my Sanyo Xacti CA6. One question that a lot of people often ask is what is the low light recording like? Being a semi-professional videographer, I tend not to shoot in low light as even the professionals use lights in daylight, not to talk of indoors, and I will be using it mostly for outdoor activities in the day.

If I do have a genuine reason for shooting in low light, I will let you know how I get on with the inbuilt LED lights on the front of the Hitachi hybrid camera.

I will post more video clips and photos from the DZ-HV565E once I've had more time to evaluate it, and would give a proper review then.

This Hitachi Camcorder Broke in 2012!

More Hitachi Camcorder views
DZ-HV565E Camera auto focus Issues.
Hitachi HD camcorder spare battery

I've had a xbox 360 media extender since 2006, and have never tried playing games on it even though my son has football and racing cartridges to use on it, so I've never thought of getting a Wii games console despite the many TV adverts promoting this excellent product, but that is about to change.

A recent family holiday where I was forced by my 4 year old son to play some Wii games with him in the entertaiment room at our resort gave me an idea of how good the Wii games console and the wrist held remote are. I enjoyed how close to reality the tennis, golf and boxing games really were, and the feedback vibrations from the Wii remote was very good.

I am now seriously considering a Wii as a good complement to my 37 inch HD LCD TV based entertaiment system, and would make a companion to by XBox 360 which doesn't get any gaming action.

More reading

Xbox360 as Media Extender.

One of the many camera's that I have access to for my church video production activities is a Flip video camera which I won as a prize for a short film from current tv.

Many might think this is a fun camera that might not have much use for a professional, but the following flip sample video clip shows how a simple device can be used to accomplish tasks on a low budget.

Basically there was a need to shoot a very quick church video announcement, and it was about 30 minutes before the service started, so all our Sony PD170 cameras where already setup for the service and unavailable to use, my sanyo xacti CA6 digital camcorder was in the car, but I didn't have a usb cable to connect it to the Apple Macbook laptop, so we had no option than to use the Flip Video Camcorder.

Our Pastor had already been told that this was going to be an impromptu rough video, so the expectation had already been set, and nobody was expecting a HD professionally produced production. Shooting took less than 10 minutes, and due to the inbuilt USB interface cable, connection to the Apple MacBook was a very easy and it took less than 5 minutes to import the video clip.
A quick edit in Final Cut software, and the video below was the result.



Everything was ready for the time announcements were made, and we were very pleased with the quick turn around allowed us by the Flip Video Camera.

You can check out the orignal full quality file here.

See also Hitachi HD pocket digital camera.