Will Tablet Owners Jump On The Upgrade Merry-go-round?

Are we ready to abandon two year-old iPads?

Apple strangely decided not to call its new tablet the iPad 3. However you describe it, this “new iPad” is hitting the shelves, making the iPad 2 look old and the original iPad look ancient. Of course that’s the same old original iPad that was the most desired object in the world only 24 months ago.

We live in a throw-away society and most of us happily abandon a perfectly good phone every two years because our telco gives us a new one for free. It’s not really for free, as the cost is built into the monthly bill, but it feels free because we’ll keep paying for the same plan regardless.

That old phone might get handed down to family or friends, but sooner rather than later it will end up in landfill (although you really should investigate recycling options). People don’t value things if they don’t feel they paid for them, so they have no qualms about casting old phones aside.

That’s not the case with tablets, regardless of your devotion to Apple, Android, Windows or even the ill-fated BlackBerry PlayBook. If you own a tablet, chances are you bought it outright and plonked down your cash (or at least added it to your growing credit card debt). Even if you’ve got a Wi-Fi/3G model which uses a SIM card to access the mobile broadband network, you probably bought your tablet outright and slipped in a pre-paid SIM.

Your telco isn’t going to turn around after a year or two and hand you a shiny new tablet for free. If you want the latest and greatest wundertablet, you’ll need to pull out your wallet again. Unless you’re a devoted fanboy with deep pockets, that hip pocket pain should make you wonder if your old tablet is still up to the job.

Gadget makers have been relying on rapid technological advances to quickly make last year’s model soon feel obsolete. Yet as products mature the technological leap between models will lessen, as we’ve seen with incremental upgrades such as the iPhone 4S. Truth be told, last year’s iPhone and iPad are still up to the job.

The way to maintain sales could be to encourage the hand-me-down mentality by personalising gadgets to the point where we can’t share them. Tablets are already so tightly integrated into “your” world that it’s awkward to hand them over, even to family members (or especially to family members, depending on your privacy concerns). Once you Vulcan mind meld with your tech, you want it constantly by your side.

The lack of desktop-esque fast user switching on tablets is frustrating, but that’s all part of the plan. If you’re sick of wrestling back your gadgets from family and friends, it’s much easier to justify surrendering your perfectly good tablet and buying yourself a new one. Next thing you know, you’re trapped in the upgrade cycle.

Is Optus “stealing” The Footy?

Does a Personal Video Recorder in the cloud clash with broadcast rights?

Football is a religion in Australia and broadcast rights for the AFL and NRL are the holy grail of entertainment. Seven, Foxtel and Telstra will pay $1.25 billion over the next five years for the rights to broadcast AFL matches. Foxtel subscribers will see every match live, either via the traditional Foxtel service, via Telstra’s T-Box or via Microsoft’s Xbox 360. Telstra is also offering every match live to its mobile customers, for $5 per match, $10 per month or $50 per season.

Telstra paid $153 million to the AFL for the right to simulcast live footy matches to mobile devices, so the AFL is obviously upset that Optus’ TV Now service lets you watch free-to-air television with only a slight delay. TV Now isn’t the first service to offer such features, but the sporting heavyweights have decided now is the time to fight back.

The AFL claims that Optus is stealing the footy coverage, but the courts found in Optus’ favour. The fight is far from over and the Federal government has even threaten to step in and change the law to protect broadcasting deals. Changing the law to make exemptions for powerful players is generally bad policymaking and it’s Australian viewers who will pay the price.

Under Australian copyright law, you’re allowed to record television to watch later – something known as time-shifting. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the AFL Grand Final or repeats or Gilligan’s Island, all free-to-air broadcasts are treated equally. Optus has extended this concept to mobile devices with TV Now, offering a Personal Video Recorder in the cloud so you can stream recordings straight to your smartphone. Optus isn’t broadcasting live television, only letting you watch something you recorded earlier.

The trouble is that, like many lounge room-based PVRs, TV Now offers “chasing playback” – letting you watch the start of a show while you’re still recording the end. So you can record the football and then start watching on a 90-second delay. The AFL says this is as good as live and wants it stopped, but the courts believe that TV Now falls under the same laws that let you time-shift television at home. The fact you’re watching it on a mobile device is irrelevant.

The core of the problem is that the AFL/Telstra deal sold off something that isn’t for sale; the public’s rights under copyright law. The AFL sold Telstra the exclusive right to simulcast live football matches to mobile devices. But the AFL seems to believe that Telstra’s service should be the only way to watch football on mobile devices. They’re not the same thing. It’s like the AFL granting Telstra the right to sell stubby holders in team colours but Telstra believing it has the exclusive right to sell beer.

Either the AFL sold something it didn’t have the right to sell or Telstra didn’t understand what it was buying. Either way, the government shouldn’t change the law to let them get away with it.

How To Clean Up Your iTunes Library

iTunes organises your music for you, but if things get messy you can fix it by hand.

When you rip a music CD to your computer using iTunes, it automatically downloads all the details for every track and uses this to sort your music according to artist and album. After this you can drag around the columns in iTunes to control how your music is listed.

Occasionally songs aren’t sorted correctly — perhaps listed out of order or broken into multiple albums. This often happens when you’ve imported songs from another source apart from the iTunes store or a physical CD, because the track data isn’t automatically updated when you import tracks into iTunes this way. Thankfully it’s easy to fix this problem.

The first step is to select one of your new tracks in iTunes and press the Control and ‘I’ buttons (or Apple and ‘I’ buttons if you’re using a Mac). ‘I’ is for “Info”, and this keyboard shortcut opens a window listing lots of information about that file. Switch from the Summary tab to the Info tab and you’ll see all the data regarding that track, album and artist.

The key information to enter here is the song name, album name, artist name and track number. If you don’t have the CD case, websites such as allmusic.com are a good source of such information.

Entering this data should give iTunes enough information to sort your songs correctly. Thankfully you don’t need to edit each track one at a time. You can select every track in an album at once and use the Info keyboard shortcut to edit the album and artist for every track at once. Now you can go back and individually edit each song’s name and track number, using the Next button to easily skip to the next song.

Once your albums are sorted correctly, go iTunes’ Advanced menu and choose Get Album Artwork to see if iTunes can find the album covers online. If not, you can manually add an image using the Artwork tab in a track’s Info menu.

Sometimes iTunes gets confused even when you do rip your music from a CD, particularly if it’s a compilation such as a movie soundtrack. If iTunes breaks up compilation albums according to the artist, try ticking the Part of a Compilation option on the Info tab. Problems can also arise when different band members are credited as the artist on different tracks of an album, but entering the band name as the album artist can override this.

If these changes don’t fix your problems, check the Sorting tab to see if they’re being overridden. For example, tracks by the “The Beatles” might have the Sort Artist set to “Beatles”, so it appears under B rather than T. These Sort details do not affect how track details are displayed, only how iTunes sorts them. It’s a handy trick to ensure iTunes doesn’t mix up tracks from multiple albums with the same name, such as “The Essentials”.

Controlling your media centre PC

Controlling your computer from the couch is half the challenge when building a media centre PC.

Last month we looked at setting up a media centre PC, but there’s still work to be done. The key to a great media centre is the ability to control it from your couch as easily as you control your other home entertainment gear.

The first thing you’ll want to do is set your media centre to automatically log in to Windows when it boots up. You might also want to configure the media centre interface to launch automatically, so you’re ready to go.

As for controlling the computer from afar, there’s more than one way to skin this cat. The obvious solution is to opt for a wireless keyboard and mouse, but these can be rather cumbersome to use while reclining on the couch. A wireless trackball makes life slightly easier, but you might be better served by a lounge room-friendly keyboard with a built-in pointing device. There are a few to choose from, such as Logitech’s Wireless Touch Keyboard K400. You’ll find also smaller keyboards which fit in the palm of your hand, such as Logitech’s diNovo Mini and Kogan’s Android Wireless Keyboard and Trackpad. As an added bonus, these tiny keyboards work with both a PC and a PlayStation 3.

Once your media centre is up and running smoothly you shouldn’t need to rely on a keyboard and mouse very often (unless you’re watching online video in a browser). Rather than invest in a physical keyboard to keep in the lounge room, a better option might be to install a remote control app on a smartphone or tablet.

Take a look at Hipporemote for iOS or mkRemote for Android, two apps which let you use your touchscreen device as a keyboard and mouse for your computer. These apps are much faster and less cumbersome than full desktop sharing. For the times when you do need to see the desktop remotely, it might be easier to control your media centre from a notebook using a service such as Logmein. You’ll also find a Logmein Ignition app for Android and iOS, offering desktop sharing from handheld devices.

Like I said, once everything is running smoothly, you should be able to drive the Media Centre interface using a standard remote control rather than a keyboard and mouse. You’ll pick up an MCE remote kit for around $50. The remote control might be cheap and nasty, but don’t worry because we’re more interested in the USB RF receiver that comes with it.

Plug the RF receiver into your media centre and you can now drive the MCE interface with the supplied remote or a universal remote control. Look for a universal remote which lets you execute multiple commands with one button press. For example you might want to fire up the media centre, turn on the television, change the channel and power up your surround sound with a single button press.

Once you’ve abandoned the keyboard in favour of a universal remote, it’s much easier to sit back and enjoy the show.

Setting Up a Media Centre PC

With a few tweaks you can turn Windows into the ultimate entertainment centre.

Last month we looked at converting a boring beige box into a whisper-quiet lounge room companion. Now we’ll tackle configuring the media centre interface (MCE) and playing your favourite video files.

MCE is built into Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate. You can use it to play CDs and DVDs, as well as music and video files. MCE also lets you watch and record free-to-air television if you add a TV tuner card or USB dongle.

After you’ve run MCE’s initial set-up wizard, in the main menu go down to Tasks and choose Settings. Under General you can set MCE to start automatically with Windows and always stay on top. Go into Visual and Sound Effects to kill off the annoying ping as you navigate the menus. Enable Optimisation to force the MCE interface to restart once a day to improve stability.

Thankfully an MPEG-2 codec is pre-installed with MCE versions of Windows 7, so you don’t need to install separate software to watch DVDs and free-to-air TV. It doesn’t offer native Blu-ray support, but most Blu-ray drives come bundled with Blu-ray playback software, some of which offer MCE integration.

If you encounter stuttering when watching live TV, you could have digital reception issues or perhaps your tuner card is overheating. If you only experience stuttering when watching something you recorded earlier, perhaps while recording something else, then you should consider dropping in a second hard drive just for storing your recordings. If you’re recording to an external drive, you might need the performance boost of USB3 or eSATA.

When it comes to scheduling recordings, MCE can extract the Electronic Program Guide from the digital TV signal. You still might consider a third-party EPG service such as IceTV, which offers extra features such as scheduling your recordings via a web browser or your mobile phone.

MCE also makes a great DVD jukebox. If you rip your DVD collection to the hard drive as .vob files, MCE still lets you navigate the menus and access the extra features. You can add the folder containing your DVD collection to MCE by dipping into Settings, Media Libraries and Movies. MCE’s Movie Library doesn’t always display your DVD collection by default, but you can fix this by editing the registry. You can also install plug-ins such as My Movies for Windows Media Center, which downloads cover art and other metadata.

If you’re downloading video files from the internet, you’ll want to install a codec pack to extend MCE’s format support. Shark007’s Codec Packs are a one-stop-shop codec packs for MCE, with versions available for Windows 7 and Vista/XP. Format support includes DivX, Xvid, MKV, QuickTime, RealMedia and MPEG-2 as well as DirectVobSub for handling subtitles and AC3Filter for playing AC3 and DTS soundtracks.

With MCE configured, next time we’ll wrap up with a look at controlling your media centre from the couch.

Turn Your Computer Into The Ultimate Lounge Room Companion

With a little effort you can turn a humble PC into the one entertainment box to rule them all.

Computers don’t have to be boring beige boxes which stay hidden away in the study. These days you’ll find a range of sleek home theatre PC cases, designed to look at home alongside your television and run whisper quiet.

If you’re not looking to build a new computer from scratch, you can give your existing PC a lounge room-friendly makeover. If your primary concern is noise, swap out noisy case fans for quiet alternatives from the likes of Antec, Zalman and Acousti.

Remember, fans are for cooling and heat is the mortal enemy of PC stability. Silent fans tend to be larger so they can spin slower but still move a large volume of air. Look for variable speed control and take extra care if you’re putting your computer inside an AV cabinet with limited airflow.

Silencing your computer and managing heat is a matter of trial and error, particularly if you’re using a cramped desktop case rather than a roomy tower case. With your case fans muted you might find that the fan on your CPU, power supply or graphics card is now the loudest component. Switching to a quiet or fanless heatsink for your CPU is the next most economical move, after which you might consider a silent power supply.

Keeping the heat down lets the remaining fans in your PC run slower and thus quieter. Tying down loose cables helps improve airflow, as does removing the covers over unused PCI slots. Vibration is another source of noise, so use rubber washers to install the fans, hard drive and optical drive.

Next consider how you’ll connect to your television. Many new processors feature an integrated graphics chip with built in MPEG2/4 hardware decoding, which is important for smooth playback. If you’re looking at Intel’s Sandy Bridge chips, opt for HD 3000 graphics (rather than HD 2000) and a motherboard with an HDMI output.

If you need to add a graphics card for the hardware decoding, AV outputs and extra grunt, you don’t need as much grunt as a high-end gaming machine. Opt for mid-range graphics card with a heat sink rather than a fan, but keep in mind the heat sink might cover the adjacent PCIe slot. Many graphics cards come with AV adaptors for connecting to component, composite and s-video inputs on your television.

If you want to watch and record free-to-air television you’ll need a digital TV tuner. Opt for dual high-def tuners so you can record two shows at once and watch all the new channels (you can downscale them to standard-def if you don’t own a high-def television). Assuming you have a spare motherboard slot, internal TV tuners generally feature stronger tuners than USB sticks. Try to get the tuner as far away from your other components as possible, to avoid interference and heat issues which can cause reception problems.

With the hardware in place, next time we’ll look at configuring the software on your media centre PC.

E-Readers

E-books continue to grow in popularity. Not only are today’s consumers willing to pay for their e-books, many authors are making a living exclusively through selling their books in electronic format. The most convenient way to read your e-book is through the use of an e-reader device. These are usually small, hand held devices that can be carried anywhere with you. There are some excellent models in e-readers on the market. In this article, I will mention just a few of the e-readers that I feel fall among the best on the market.

Sony PRS600
The Sony PRS600 is an attractive device that has a 6-inch touch-sensitive screen. The PRS600 holds countless e-books which are stored on an SD memory card. While reading from the device, users can easily turn the pages of their e-books by simply moving their finger across the screen. This great feature makes things feel very much like reading a physical book however this model can have screen glare.
Size: Height = 174.5 x Width = 121 x Depth = 10mm
Weight: The PRS600R weighs just 286g so it is very easy to carry around
Battery Life: Comes with a rechargeable lithium ion battery. As measured by page turns, the battery lasts 7,500 page turns when using it for reading (excluding when other features are being used).
Memory: Uses SD memory and has a built in slot for cards.

The Kindle Wireless Reading Device
The Kindle is a great e-reader made available by Amazon.com. Users can use it to read ebooks, to store up to 1,500 ebooks, to purchase ebooks from Amazon.com and to do a host of other things. This well-engineered device has a screen that looks like paper. Unlike many LCD screens, it can be read in sunlight as well as in any other environment as well.
Size: 1/3 inch slim (about the thickness of a magazine)
Weight: 10.2 ounces
Battery Life: User can read for up to 1 week on a single charge even with the wireless feature switched on.
Memory: Holds up to 1,500 books

Bookeen Cybook Opus
The Bookeen Cybook Opus is an attractive e-book reading device. It is extremely easy to read from. It makes use of ePaper technology which emulates the way that ink prints on a piece of paper. The screen can be read in all types of lighting conditions, including sunlight. The Cybook has very long battery life. Users can download a huge number of books from a catalogue made available by a variety of web sites.
Size: Height = 151mm x Width = 10mm
Weight: 150g
Battery Life: Battery lasts for 8,000 page flips.
Memory: The Opus has 32 MB of built in memory with 1 GB of NAND storage. It also accepts Micro SD storage cards.

Sound Editing Software

In the world of audio, things began to switch to digital quite a long time ago. The ability to record sound digitally gives people the ability to manipulate that sound and edit it in other ways using a computer. Huge conveniences come from being able to edit sound using this type of audio technology and it also gives more people (that otherwise might never venture into audio editing) access to this type of tool. The digital format is a much more lasting format than analog (cassettes and vinyl) and a lot of people want to buy sound editing software just to transfer old albums into digital.

These days, sound editing software can be purchased online in a single transaction, downloaded right away onto a computer and used instantly to edit sound. There is a host of sound editing software on the market; more than you could probably imagine so sorting through it can be quite a task. Below, I have looked at some of the popular sound editing software applications and performed a few comparisons for you:

NCH Golden Records
NCH Golden Records is sound editing software designed specifically for transferring analog recordings into MP3 files or into CD format through your computer. Users can record music onto their computer and then onto CD. Clicks, pops and hisses can all be removed using an auto restoration feature of the software. The software is easy to use and it works with a record player or cassette recorder being plugged directly into the computer. NCH is a reputable company that has all types of audio applications on offer.

AVS Audio Editor
AVS Audio Editor is sound editing software that is currently available for the Windows platform only. It is quality software that allows users to enhance digital audio, extract and edit audio from video files, save audio in a variety of formats, remove excess noise from audio and more. It allows you to visually analyze files to help with the task of editing them. AVS is a reputable UK-based software development company that has already created many good commercial applications.

Audacity
Audacity is a free open source sound editor. It is available for all platforms so Windows, Mac and Linux users will all be happy with this product. This software can be used to do all types of audio editing tasks: record live audio, convert analog recordings to digital, edit sound files, splice and mix sounds and more. This is a very reliable piece of software that is very effective, especially due to the live recording feature.

With all of the benefits of digital music, it is definitely time to archive all of those old vinyl recordings in a digital format that will not wear out. Any of the sound editing programs featured above will make this task quick and easy for you. In most cases, all that is needed is a record player or cassette player and a computer with a USB port and wire to plug the record player into.

The Next Big Internet Trend – IPTV!

The Internet is an extremely fast evolving medium. It is a place where an amazing number of trends are launched every year. Some trends go unnoticed, some achieve huge levels of publicity, while others completely revolutionize the way that things are done. Looking back over the past few years there have been many web trends that have literally changed the lives of millions of people. Web sites like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter have each provided us with new ways of being connected to friends. They allow us to socialize and network in ways that were unthought of just 10 short years ago.

Since new ideas arise all of the time online, knowing the next big trend in the Internet world can be extremely hard to predict. This is because in all corners of the globe there are handfuls of young people working away, night and day at computers hoping to be the one that wows the world with the next thing. Whether or not they succeed is dependent upon a host of variables. It is hard to predict. Of those things that are up and coming and that are publicly known Internet Protocol Television or IPTV looks to make a huge impact over the next year on the Internet world and the traditional broadcasting world. IPTV is gearing up to take the world by storm.

In many ways, the birth of IPTV is an obvious and natural transition for television. We have YouTube which invites the world to broadcast itself. It is hugely popular and many will tell you, including myself, they prefer to sit and watch YouTube videos online than regular TV. There is something fresh and enjoyably raw about the videos on YouTube that are good. Most importantly, these videos are broadcast exactly where I am at. Online! It is ideal, since I am already online networking, chatting with friends through messenger, even working! So, this is the most convenient place for me to be entertained.

When IPTV becomes available it will provide users with traditional television programming delivered through their computer and over Internet protocol (IP). In many ways, it is the next step in digital television. With IPTV, programs will be sent through the Internet to computers using packet-switched network infrastructure. This is the exact same technology that is used to send and receive emails and all other content found on the Internet.

The business mind always considers the question of what is the next big thing. Knowing the correct answer to that question could be hugely profitable for anyone that chooses to benefit from it. They could choose to develop that particular business idea themselves or they could choose to align themselves in such a way that they profit from the popularity of that industry when it takes off. IPTV has a lot of financial and moral backing so I am confident that it is a service that all of us will very soon be contemplating.

Video Editing Software Showdown

The demand for video editing software continues to rise steadily. The use of videos online has become more and more commonplace. In fact, every money-making web site uses one if not more videos to present their idea to visitors in a multimedia fashion. All of these videos need to be recorded, edited and fine-tuned for release on the web. This creates a new level of demand for video editing software.

I have personally used lots of video editing software over the years. For those of you that are fairly new to video editing or for those that are looking for video editing software for the first time, I have conducted a comparison of a few video editing applications just to give you an idea of what features to look for and of what to expect in the way of quality.

Adobe Premier Elements
Adobe Premier Elements has been on the market for some time now. Various updates and releases have been launched and it is truly a stellar piece of software. The Pro version of Premier is used at the most professional levels of video editing, and many top of the line Hollywood motion pictures are edited using Premier. If you are a serious video editor and want to use a software application that has no bounds, then Adobe Premier is the software for you.

CyberLink PowerDirector
CyberLink PowerDirector 8 is among the best in commercial video editing software. It is easy to use for those that are beginners and it also allows quality editing at a professional level. It comes with all of the standard features you would expect and what really makes it great for home users is its integration with popular social networking sites. Videos edited on PowerDirector can be uploaded directly to YouTube and Facebook. In addition to this, videos can be saved in a variety of formats to be played on a variety of platforms.

Corel VideoStudio
Corel VideoStudio is an extremely user-friendly video editing application. One of the things that makes it so user-friendly is the fact that the developers of Corel sat down with a variety of different users to get their opinions on what would improve the software. The Corel developers listened and actually made changes to suit the user. That makes this a quality product that is intuitive. It is geared as much towards the brand new user as it is to the long time professional user.

As far as features go, all three products are comparable and offer the same standard features. They each provide video capture and playback, have a series of visual editing tools, have editing effects and transitions. All allow both photo and audio editing and they let you save your videos to disk. You may already have a preference as to which of these tools you decide to use whether based on popular name brand, ease-of-use or a high recommendation from a friend. Personally, I prefer Adobe Premier. It is an extremely solid application that is well-developed, generally bug-free and in my experience it does not disappoint.

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