One of the more intriguing iPhone accessories we discovered at last year’s CES is finally available, an entire year later. Tiffen, who own Steadicam, those carryable/wearable camera-stabilization systems you see on-stage at award shows, concerts or in DVD behind-the-scenes extras, are finally shipping their Smoothee stabilizer designed for the iPhone, camera-equipped iPod Touches or the Flip. At the moment the iPhone 3GS ‘kit’ is available, which includes the handheld stabilizer and an adapter to hold the phone in place, for $179.95. While swappable adapters for holding the Flip and iPhone 4 will be available soon for $24.95 each.
It’s rather apparent that the old video rental store model just isn’t working in today’s world. With companies like Hollywood Video and Blockbuster going under (the latter isn’t completely dead just yet, but it is getting there), I wonder how many years we’ll still see this type of business. The three biggest alternatives are discs by mail (Netflix), streaming video (also Netflix, Hulu, etc) and rental kiosks (RedBox, Blockbuster). One company is hoping to get in on the latter, with a twist.
How would you feel about going to a kiosk and renting a movie, loading it up on a USB flash drive and taking it home? Tha’ts what Flix on Stix is aiming for. They want to slap a movie on your USB flash drive (or sell you one) and program it to automatically disable playback after a set amount of time. Their rates certainly aren’t bad with $1 for 3 days, $2 for 6, $3 for 9 days and $4 for 12 days being talked about.
If you need someplace to sit, isn’t a chair usually your first choice? Of course, sometimes you can’t find a chair when you really need one. Perhaps you’re in an area where all of the seats have been taken, or maybe you just need a rest in an area with no seating at all. Then you have to scout around and try to find something that you can rest your bum on, which may not always be fruitful. So I say, why not carry a chair with you?
This video, while uploaded way back in 2007 has been brought to our attention. I have to say, as far as portable chairs go, this one looks like the most interesting. I can’t say that I’d necessarily trust it to hold much weight, judging by how little material is actually there. Not to mention, you should never trust anything presented by a magician. Unfortunately like most magicians, I don’t believe this man has revealed where the chair was purchased (or how it was constructed if it is a custom job).
For better or worse, Flip has stuck to their guns when it comes to being the easiest to use pocket camcorder on the market. While the majority of its competitors have found a foothold in the market by filling the holes where the Flip is lacking, it still remains incredibly popular. Even we have pointed out the Flip’s shortcomings time and time again, like the lack of an external mic port which would make it considerably better for activities like conducting interviews. But at the same time, if my dad ever decided to get his YouTube on, the Flip would easily be my first recommendation to him.
So while not necessarily caving in to the feature-packed peer pressure of its competition, Cisco has recently improved the Flip in a way that still keeps it dead easy to use, but also makes it more appealing to those who’ve always wanted more…
When I wrote about the Samson Zoom Q3 last year I was happy to have found a compact camcorder that also cared about capturing high-quality audio, but bemoaned the fact that I couldn’t have my cake and eat it too since it only captured video at PAL or NTSC resolutions. Not even 720P fake-HD! But a year later Samson has righted those wrongs with their new Zoom Q3HD which most importantly now captures full 1080P video. (Or 720P if you need 60fps.)
It’s also still got those built-in stereo condenser microphones in their 120° X/Y configuration which will definitely appeal to musicians or concert bootleggers, particularly that latter group since the Q3HD also has a special ‘Concert Lighting’ setting which automatically adjusts for rapid stage lighting changes. Other features include support for SDHC cards up to 32GB in capacity, a built-in USB cable which is pretty much required these days, and it’s actually powered by 2xAA batteries instead of a non-removable rechargeable one. No pricing or availability info just yet though.
Before camcorders used solid-state drives, flash memory cards, minidiscs and even miniDV tapes, if you wanted to record video on location you had to carry a heavy portable VTR over your shoulder, and rely on massive betacam cassette tapes. And while Sony’s RVT-SD200 Location Porter might look like the shoulder slung VTRs of yesteryear, it actually allows a user to transmit live video feeds over a wireless internet connection or even cellular data networks. So in theory a reporter doesn’t need to arrive at a location in a broadcast vehicle in order to do a live report. It’s remarkable to think of how far we’ve come, but let’s face it, in another 10 years we’ll be looking back at devices like this and laughing again at how large and crude they were.
If you haven’t caught iPad fever yet, and have a couple of long haul flights to deal with in the near future, you might want to give iLuv’s i1166 portable media player a shot. And even if you do have an iPad, the i1166 still has a few features you might enjoy if all of your movies don’t come from iTunes. At its core the i1166 is a portable DVD player featuring a generous 8.9 inch widescreen TFT LCD display (NTSC resolution I believe) but open it up to insert a disc and you’ll also find an iPhone/iPod Touch dock inside that allows you to control and enjoy content from those devices on the larger display.
On the bottom edge of the i1166 you’ll also find an SD card and a USB port for attaching flash drives, allowing you even more flexibility when it comes to how you access your videos, as well as 2 x 3.5mm headphone jacks for sharing with someone sitting next to you. It also comes with a remote if you have the player propped up on a desk far enough away to not have access to the controls. I’m going to assume/hope there’s a rechargeable battery stashed in there somewhere, otherwise the $299.99 price tag is a little steep.
First we got a glimpse of what it was like for the sound engineers to work with Darth Vader in the studio, and this time around we get to see them battling with Yoda’s unique sense of grammar while he records his lines for the Tom Tom GPS devices.
“You’re gonna kill people if you give directions like that.”
The MobiCam Digital appears to be an upgrade to Mobi Technologies’ MobiCam AV which, quite frankly, looks right at home somewhere in the mid 90′s. So besides a much needed facelift and a move away from an analog video signal, the MobiCam Digital allows you to remotely monitor up to 3 different cameras from a distance of up to 450 feet. The cordless monitor features a 2.4 inch LCD pivoting display and its rechargeable lithium-ion battery is good for a solid 8 hours.
The cameras feature a wide angle lens for capturing as much as the space they’re monitoring as possible, and a set of IR LEDs circling the lens provides visibility in complete darkness up to 30 feet away. The receiver/monitor also includes an AV hookup for connecting it to a TV, and an optional MobiCam Internet Kit will broadcast the live feeds online, allowing them to be monitored anywhere in the world you have a net connection. The MobiCan Digital ‘starter kit’ includes the monitor and a single camera for $189.99, while additional cameras are $99.95 a piece. And if you opt for the internet kit you can add an additional $59.95 to your bill.
Related Tags: CES2011, iPhone, Video
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