iOS App of the Week I suppose we could have had Qik as the Android App of the week too, since the main change that Skype has made to this video-chat app since acquiring it from the original developer earlier this year is to make it cross-platform.
Review Most TVs now have memory card slots and USB ports for showing digital photos or playing music and video from your own collection. The Crystal Acoustics PicoHD5.1 media player provides the same features for just about any TV, especially HD-ready ones. If your set lacks the sockets, or doesn’t play the formats you want, you can just add one of these £40 gizmos.
“Crystal Acoustics’ PicoHD5.1 is certainly a handy piece of kit
Housed in aluminium and barely larger than a typical card reader, it sports a full sized HDMI socket. It also outputs basic composite video, analogue Stereo and, unusually, coaxial digital audio through one shared 3.5mm mini-jack, accessed with a supplied adapter. Read the rest of this entry »
The Eminent 7195 is a monster of a media player. It towers above diddy streaming clients like the Apple TV and WDTV models, and would doubtless win a brawl with its HDD media player Netherlands neighbour A.C.Ryan.
All-encompassing: Eminent’s EM7195 HD server
To emphasise its size, compatibility badges are writ large and loud across its substantial aluminium casing. But then it does have a reason to shout. It’s extremely well specified. Not only is the EM7195 a media player/server, it has two integrated DVB-T terrestrial TV tuners on-board, as well as some nicely thought out file management and web services. Read the rest of this entry »
The video senders of yesterday didn’t enjoy the best of reputations. Typically used to route the analogue feed of one VCR to a second TV at the other end of the house, they suffered all manner of RF interference. Even when you managed to align their directional antennas, ghostly gremlins would make for a second rate viewing experience.
Eminent’s iTrio 7100 receiver supports analogue sources as well as HDMI
But that’s all changed with the advent of a new generation of HDMI senders. Using the 5GHz band intended for short-range wireless LAN applications, they can deliver a high-quality Full HD image through brickwork and other household miscellany.
Most of HDMI senders offer a simple single HDMI link between two points. The Eminent iTrio EM7100 reviewed here, however, is rather more versatile. The Transmitter features two HDMI v1.1 inputs, SCART, PC VGA/Component (a VGA-to-component adaptor lead is enclosed in the box) and a Stereo minijack audio input. The look-alike Receiver offers HDMI, Scart and component outputs. This broad selection of connectivity means the system can be used both with modern kit and legacy hardware. The units support HDCP v1.2. Read the rest of this entry »
Review With most computers bulging at the seams with music and video files, the days of making do with even a cheap set of active Stereospeakers, let alone laptop offerings, are truly dead and buried. A decent 2.1 active speaker system will not only pay dividends when it comes to playing your music but can also provide bowel trembling bass when playing games or watching video.
PC palpitator: Altec Lansing’s Expressionist Plus FX3021
Recently, Edifier and Altec Lansing simultaneously released new 2.1 speaker sets that are in head-on competition. Both consist of a meaty downward firing subwoofer and a couple of satellites. Both have clearly spent some time and effort on styling as well as performance. And both are yours for under eighty quid.
Edifier describes the E3350 subwoofer as looking like an, ahem, ‘exotic pyramid’. Yes, quite. Fourth Dynasty envy aside the E3350 continues the restrained and minimalist styling we have come to expect from Edifier, of late. Even though everything is made of plastic, it’s a high-quality plastic with blemish-free matt black surfaces. Some rather nice design touches include the diffuse red halo LED that surrounds the touch sensitive on/off switch on top of the subwoofer and the satellites’ cloth speaker covers. Read the rest of this entry »
