AV Rant #231: Ramble
We started with no topics, no news, and still topped an hour. Sorry guys, guess Liz just wanted to make sure you had something to remember he by. This week, not much. We’ve got a bit on Avatar, some mother’s day suggestions, piracy in poor countries, and power cords (Tom thought this article was written by someone else, it is actually written by the Blue Jeans Cable guy). Tom reviews the OtterBox Defender Series case for the iPod Touch 4th gen. This week’s soup to nuts is about cables and furniture, notes to follow Thanks for listening and don’t forget to vote for us at Podcast Alley! To see our (mostly) complete collection of show videos, click here. To get our iPhone app, visit the iTunes store. Download Tom’s ebook Bob Moore: No Hero which is pretty much available everywhere.
Cables:
- You don’t need to spend a lot for good cables – unless it is a long HDMI cable and then you’re screwed
- Lower gauge = larger cable and usually means better cable
- Cross power and interconnects at right angle, don’t run parallel (plan your wall runs accordingly)
- For RCA types, shielding is important
Furniture:
- Ventilation is important, you may need to add fans
- Think about how to place your gear – putting the hottest device at the bottom may be the worst idea
- Check your user manual for space requirements
- Don’t forget that the size of the gear doesn’t take into account the cables sticking out the back
- Specialized AV furniture may be more expensive, but they usually take many of these issues into consideration in the design
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Best wishes, Liz!
Now that that’s out of the way… You are correct, Liz, when you point out that you are no economist. International pricing and the accomodations for both smuggling and the more legitimate, legally imported, so-called “gray market” goods are objects of intent study by media companies, drug companies, consumer electronics companies, clothing companies, and, well, just about all international companies.
It’s complicated. But there is one overarching principal… the company is striving in some way to maximize profit, and without all the facts it’s difficult to make definitive pronouncements one way or the other. Distribution channels, the probability of theft, and the ability to move profit (and therefore taxes) around internationally are all important. I’m sure they’ve studied this stuff carefully (my firm has even helped on a couple of occasions). That doesn’t mean they’re right, of course; they might have screwed up. But it ain’t simple.
Before Rob gets me… I meant “principle.”
Congratulations, Liz!
You have a very endearing personality, a self-effacing & easy-going sense of humor, and a happy, optimistic outlook on life. Your guy Will is a lucky, lucky fellow!
All the best as you officially start your lives together!
Congrats to Liz and Will!
To celebrate, here’s an example of a VERY reasonably priced 6-foot power cord from my favorite peddler of 100% bull$#*! products, Richard Gray’s Power Company!
http://is.gd/Osr9QX
Enjoy!
😀
And once you see the prices for Nordost’s Odin Reference Supreme line of cables, you’ll understand why Richard Gray’s Power Company cables are just a downright bargain!
$16,000 for an 8 foot power cord? Quick! Where do I send the check? lol
http://is.gd/By261N
For far less than what these guys spend on power cords, they could have an electrician install a 60A 240VAC line connected directly to their amp.
What’s so awesome about the Nordost Odin power cords is that they’re only rated for 15A outlets and they’re made out of two solid 15AWG leads! So for one thing, they’re stiff, and for a second thing, they’re not even the same thickness as the Romex that runs inside of your walls! (which is typically 2 leads of 14 gauge solid copper)
Hey Rob – wanted to report that backed-up BR image files are working swimmingly! 110% AV awesomeness…I was living like an animal before! 😀
I don’t know why these guys don’t just themselves some decent welding cable and make their own cords…
Some 1/0 would be good for 190 amps, i.e. 95% of what a typical 200A house service can even supply.
http://weldingcable.net/
@Downtowner
Cool! Glad to hear you’re now enjoying Blu-ray without the crappy physical part! :p
Yeah, there’s just something so awesome about having ALL of your movies at your fingertips. I can completely understand the mass appeal of streaming services for this reason. It’s just that, at the present moment, there is no streaming service available that offers the same selection of available titles, or the same high quality as what is available on physical discs.
Using a NAS setup is, ultimately, just a stop-gap. But I think it’s an entirely worthwhile stop-gap because I think it’s going to be many, many years before full Blu-ray quality can be equaled by a streaming or On Demand service, and we might never see a day when the Studios see fit to make ALL titles available in this manner. Discs are here to stay for quite a while longer. So if you want access to all of those titles, and you also want the highest quality, but you want the same convenience as a streaming or On Demand service, then you pretty much have to make it yourself – and a NAS is the easiest and most obvious way to do that. 😉
@Rob have you tried this? http://wiki.mymovies.dk/(S(rv0uj145zsytkq55oxobao55))/Default.aspx?Page=Playing%20ISO%20Images&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1
Can’t say as I have! Looks like it might be a nice interface. From my very quick overview of that site, it looks as though it’s strictly a sort of skin. All of the playback is still handled by other software (ArcSoft TMT in my case), but at least it’s a way to browse through the movies by coverart and whatnot.
I’ll have to look into it further. Thanks, Downtowner!
I’ve used My Movies as a WMC plug-in for DVD backups. It worked very well. There’s a companion collection manager that gives you all of the thumbnails, synopses, etc. My only problem was that I had to transcode all DVD files to .dvr-ms so that they would play back with transport control over Xbox 360 extenders. I got tired of the transcoding after about 25 movies, so I just kind of stopped using it (especially since the transcode would often fail). However, the BD iso backups are so awesome, I may go back to My Movies inside WMC to get that nice interface.
I also had an idea to just make up an HTML file with a nice background, movie graphic thumbnails, and hyperlinks to the iso files. I don’t really need synopses, etc. because these are my favorite movies…I know them pretty well!
The HTML file could have main entry page that to links to various genres or to an alphabetical list (A-C, D-F, etc.), for example.
This sounds like the holy grail of home automation: http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/10/google-announces-android-at-home-framework/
Liz,
My wife plays COD by looking at the sky most of the time. We laughed out loud when we heard you do the same!
http://www.archive.org/details/TripDownMarketStreetrBeforeTheFire
This is a fascinating 35mm film made in
April 1906 on Market Street in San Francisco, right before the earthquake. There is a 2.3GB downloadable version that I am grabbing right now.
Impressive visual recording technology from 105 years ago…film is the original high-definition medium!
Congratulations Liz and Will! Take a look at the Nook for a good alternative to the Kindle that’ll also work with epub for library books. I bought my wife a Nook and she loves it.