AVR #186: Pitch Hitting
We finally did it – our best show ever! Or at least the best that Dina and Clint have ever done… we think… maybe you should listen for yourself and decide. Dina introduces us to her language handicap and Clint reviews a very expensive television that costs more than most people spend on their whole home theater. Why is the iPod 4 so amazing? Because Clint is out of contract. Ever want to make your own wall plate for HDMI and a host of other connections? A company called BTX finally let’s you do it… sort of. Last of all, Toshiba hits one out of the park with a TV aimed squarely to take on the competition – and it’s just 2-inches thin. Not bad for a company who only a year and a half ago shrugged off thin TVs in favor of video quality. Now they appear to have both.
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I rec’d my iphone4 a day early and it really is an amazing phone. The video call is VERY slick and makes for a new level of calling and connecting with people. The video is pretty amazing and the picture quality on the camera is 10x better than my previous iphone3g. I did some comparisons and initial impressions on my work blog:
http://www.trustsig.com/blog/iphone-4-unboxing-and-initial-impressions/
I have been looking at the ipad and really do want one. You can upload photos to it with an Apple attachment (both an SD card reader and a USB port) but I haven’t seen either of them in action. My main purpose of getting one is for a home automaion touch screen as spending 500 on an ipad over a 1600-3000 touch screen doesn’t take too much convincing. At that rate I could put one in every room.
I’ve been using these for HDMI jack. Just locks into a standard keystone jack:
http://www.microbarn.com/details.aspx?rid=102164&source=froogle
Monoprice carries them but there is not a pic online of it.
http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=104&cp_id=10426&cs_id=1042609&p_id=6852&seq=1&format=2
I’m actually very impressed with the HDMI keystone jacks – that’s a recent innovation that is changing the way you can customize your low voltage plates.
I’ve been really surprised what they’ve been able to fit on a keystone jack. In the back of my rack I have a keystone plate with 4 CAT5’s for data 3 CAT5’s for IR distribution, 2 COAX for subwoofer cable, 1 COAX for cableTV, 2 HDMI Keystones and a 7.1 speaker plate. Now if I could just get all of this in black…
Makes for very clean and easy wiring.
Still having to do bulk passthru for control wire cabling as it’s 24V.
I’m bummed that the iPhone4 is still unavailable up here in Canada 🙁 On the plus side, we have 3 providers: Rogers, Fido and Bell (ok, actually 2 since Rogers owns Fido :p ).
I want an iPhone4 as soon as possible! But all 3 providers just sent out an e-mail update saying that they will have news on the Canadian launch “soon”.
As for all of the problems with the iPhone that people in the States have been complaining about? Yeah, you can pretty much blame all of them on AT&T and not the iPhone itself. Up here in Canada, I have never had a single dropped call with my iPhone 3G on Rogers. I’ve also had tethering and the ability to send multi-media text messages ever since the firmware update that made those features possible on the phone!
It always makes me laugh, but also a little angry when people blame the poor performance and “missing” features on the iPhone or on Apple because all you have to do is come north of the border to realize that the phone isn’t the problem: AT&T is!
I have an iPhone on AT&T (a lot of my friends hacked theirs and are on different networks) and the service can definitely be spotty, especially in important cities like NY.
But it does look like the iPhone 4 has a particular design “flaw” that Apple and Steve Jobs have acknowledged, namely that if you’re left handed–like I am–that holding the phone will cause signal loss. It has to do with the wi-fi and cellular antennas being exposed in such a way that if your hand touches both, you will cause interference.
Their solution? Buy a case.
For me, that is fine, since I would never be without a case, but I think it’s a big shame that they released the phone knowing the issue was present (I’m assuming they knew because I’m assuming they had at least a few left-handed testers).
Oh well. I will probably upgrade anyway!
Corroborating link:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31021_3-20008799-260.html
How about a skype call from Tom?
Just so we know he is ok.
We need “Proof of Life”
@Ted… iphone4 is getting a 4.01 update (supposed to be this week) that addresses the reception issue. I haven’t been able to recreate it with mine so I don’t know if it’s widespread or just some phones.
@Leif, I am really curious to find out how a software update can fix what looks like a hardware issue… But if it can, that will probably seal the deal for me!
@xego HE’S ALIVE!!!
lol
Just thought I’d share that I heard from Tom via email, so worried listeners can rest easy and know that the AV Anger will be posting again soon 🙂