40Tech » Camcorders and video

Giveaway: WinX HD Video Converter Deluxe & WinX Blu-ray Decrypter

Bobby Travis — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 02:12:49 +0000

Every once in a while, there is a shining light in the multitude of promotions and solicitations we receive at 40Tech — something that we feel is definitely worthy of being passed on to our readers. This is one of those times — at least we hope so. We want you to tell us.

So here’s what we’re going to do: We’re going to give you a link to some free stuff (that only works until Nov. 6th, so get on it now), and offer up some license codes to more free stuff. You can try them out — and keep them — and then let us know what you think. We’ll combine your feedback into a “multi-author” blog post, and let you tell the world if the WinX HD Video Converter Deluxe and WinX Blu-ray Decrypter software is worth their time.

WinX HD Video Converter Deluxe, according to the promo email, is:

…your must-have for enjoying an unforgettable Halloween and the upcoming holiday season. If you have family videos shot by camcorders or interesting movies downloaded from the Internet, you can then, with the help of this software, burn those videos to DVDs or put them on your iPhone/4S, iPad, iPod, PSP, PS3, Xbox, Android, Blackberry for playback on the go!”

You can get this for free (normally $50), without any sort of weirdness or hoops to jump through, by heading to the WinX DVD Giveaway Page. Again, the giveaway ends on November 6th, 2011, so don’t wait on it. Do it now. The activation code is right there on the page. Just don’t forget to activate it before November 10th, 2011.

For the WinX Blu-ray Decrypter, we only have 10 license codes, so we have to default to the old “be the first 10 to comment and ask for it” model. First come, first served, no exceptions. If you like the idea of backing up your Blu-ray discs, then jump in and let us know. Oh, and the software needs to be activated before November 15th, 2011, for the code to be accepted.

Once you’ve tried the software out, please do send us an email or add a comment to this post, and tell us about your experience. You can also hit us up on Twitter or Facebook, or chat up Bobby and Evan on Google+.

Happy converting!

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Eyeborg: So This Guy Replaces His Eye With a Wireless Web Cam… [Random Tech Video]

Bobby Travis — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 04:01:10 +0000

It may sound like a joke — but it’s not. If you’ve been poking about on YouTube or TechCrunch today, you may have already seen this: an interview (and partial commercial for the new Deus Ex) with Rob Spence, a man who has successfully created a prosthetic eye for himself that is actually an endoscope turned wireless video camera. It doesn’t plug into his brain or anything (we’re a while away from that yet), only outputting to a handheld LCD receiver/viewer, but hey — that’s still good enough for a decent bit of spy-tech, right? At the very least, it makes for a good “neeeeeeat” or “oh-ye-gods-that’s-gross” story.

Check out the video, below. Yep, video — and you do get to see him install and remove the eye, so if you’re squeamish… well, you’ve been warned.

Click here to view the embedded video.

So who wants one?

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Homemade Spacecraft: Awesome Family Tech!

Bobby Travis — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 02:00:07 +0000

This is about the coolest thing I have ever seen. I know I’ve said that before, but it’s a graduating scale — and this made my geek-self tingle and grin like a fool!

Father and son Luke and Max Geissbühler, from out Brooklyn way, popped an iPhone and an HD camcorder into a polystyrene container, wrapped it up in hand warmers to keep it alive in the upper stratosphere, attached it to a giant helium balloon and let it fly. Lack of atmospheric pressure causes the balloon to grow and burst, and the camera was on all the way up. It took a good look at the Earth from the outside, and then stayed on for most of the trip down — a plummet, really, at about 150mph even with its parachute. The iPhone got a GPS lock on the way down and was used to locate the “payload”.

The video footage is amazing and of incredible quality, especially for a civilian effort. The video is only a few minutes long — watch it. It’s awesome!

I think I may do this with my kid someday.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Homemade Spacecraft [Make Magazine]

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Open Source Spaceships Anyone?

The death of tape-based camcorders: temporary bad news

Evan Kline — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 02:49:12 +0000

Camcorder manufacturers are releasing fewer tape-based consumer camcorders each year, in favor of models that record to other digital media, such as flash storage. This is great, right? After all, tape can break, it isn’t as portable, and it is easier to copy a file from a format like a flash storage card to your computer, right? Not so fast. As much as it would seem that new storage media would run circles around tape, tape still has benefits that other storage media can’t yet match. After the break, we’ll explain why, but also discuss why these benefits won’t last. Photo by Joe Shlabotnik.

As an initial disclaimer, I own a tape-based high def camcorder, the Canon VIXIA HV30 (predecessor to the Canon VIXIA HV40). I do not own a tapeless camcorder, and have formed the opinions expressed here through research, and listening to others. I welcome input from anyone who wants to add to the discussion, or question my assertions.

One of the benefits of a tape-based camcorder over a tapeless camcorder is that tape is better for archiving. Some tapeless camcorders record to internal flash or internal hard drives, some record to memory cards, and others record to both. Theoretically, one could use memory cards for archiving, but this would be costly. On the tape side, a Panasonic AY-DVM63PQ costs $2.89 on Amazon, and will get you about an hour’s worth of HDV video at 25 Mbit/s. By comparison, according to CNET, the Canon HF20/HF200 tapeless camcorders will get you 5.5 minutes of recording per gigabyte at 24Mbps bit rate, and 7.8 minutes per gigabyte 17Mbps. A 4 GB Sandisk card will set you back about $7 on Amazon at the time of this writing (although you could spend as much as $24 for a higher end card). It is easy to see how these costs could add up if you were to use storage cards for archiving.

Tapes are so inexpensive, that your original footage is your archive. After you’ve captured the video from the tape to your computer, you put the tape in a secure place and you have your backup. Not so with tapeless camcorders if you’re not going to use the memory card for archiving (and definitely not so with respect to camcorders with internal storage only). You regularly need to offload the video from either the camcorder or memory card, and then make another copy if you want a backup. That backup might be onto a DVD, or perhaps an external hard drive. This extra step somewhat defeats the purpose of the “ease of use” of tapeless camcorders (also, I’ve heard some people report that it actually takes them LONGER to transfer video from their tapeless camcorders than it did from tape-based ones, but this doesn’t seem to be the norm).

Footage from tape-based camcorders is also easier to edit for most people. Tape-based camcorders generally record to HDV format, while tapeless camcorders record to AVCHD format. For now, AVCHD is out of the reach of people with lower end computers, as AVCHD requires much more processing power than HDV. Low end computers simply choke on AVCHD footage.

Many people (me included) favor tape-based camcorders for these reasons. Eventually, though, the major benefits of tape-based camcorders will disappear. Over time, computing power will be less of a concern, as users phase out older machines and replace them with machines that are capable of editing video shot in the AVCHD format. In addition, storage costs are dropping all the time, making it easy to envision a time when flash storage is just as cheap as tape. One concern is that flash media is not yet proven as a reliable long term storage option. Therefore, cautious videographers will likely want to backup their videos onto external drives or other media.

Regardless, the future is coming, and it is a tapeless one. Let’s just hope that tapeless technology and storage technology have improved by then, and that storage costs continue to drop.