Encounter of the 3D Kind | Open Magazine Volume 02 Issue 06

What is all this noise about 3D TV? Will it happen? Should you buy one? It’s everywhere, even in this magazine, and you must have thought, ‘Wow man, all geeks and newspapers are talking about it, and it is about time I changed my old TV’. Well, sit down, take a sip of that green tea, and read this. Trust us, it’s not that obvious.



Okay, this noise is loud. After all, the biggest announcement was in December 2009 when Fifa declared that the 2010 World Cup will be broadcast in 3D. Yes, 3D so you could see your best players actually shooting the ball into your homes, and the experience will be like never before. But wait, are we that close to 3D content? Is 3D the next big thing after the LCD, plasma, the LED television? Here is my lowdown on why you need to wait before you jump in to buy yourself a 3D television in India.

3D movies, including India’s first, Chhota Chetan (1984), have been around for quite a while, but far too few and far apart to make an impact. The recent Avatar in 3D has now got people wowed by this extra-dimensional presentation. In addition, the increasing adoption of CGI (computer generated imagery) and animation means more 3D content on its way, and with the World Cup kickoff round the corner, suddenly there is a splurge of 3D TVs. The excitement is similar to what we experienced when we saw our first 3D animated foot rulers, or pictures of our favourite cartoon characters. But there is a hitch.

Though there are multiple technologies to create 3D images, starting from the anaglyphic (using a passive red-cyan glasses, this is what was used in early-day comics), to polarisation (with passive polarised glasses), alternate-frame sequencing (needs active shutter glasses, and this is what one of the companies has chosen) and autostereoscopic displays (no headgear/glasses required), the problem is that the world of 3D is split into two major halves—one wants to build TVs that will not require viewers to wear special glasses (after all, just to watch TV you can’t wear a pair of spectacles), and the other set wants to make TVs that require you to wear spectacles.

Now, when we talk about glasses for viewing, these spectacles are not like your ordinary green and red filter ones that were handed to you when you watched Chhota Chetan, or picked up that odd comic book in 3D where the characters leapt out of the pages. These are active glasses, running on batteries (that means charging them), and a pair would cost you around Rs 5,000.

The other camp—3D TV manufacturers who don’t want to have you wear glasses—propose to use a technology which is very similar to what we saw on those 3D foot rulers. There will be tiny lenses slapped onto the screen and you will see the images in 3D without wearing glasses.

There are big players backing each technology. LG, Samsung, Sony and Panasonic have TVs that require glasses; Philips, TCL and Alioscopy have TVs that can show 3D content without having you to wear any kind of glasses. Who will win and which will become the standard technology is something we can only guess. For me, even thinking about having to wear something to watch TV is a bit uncomfortable. And I am not sure if I will be able to wear it for the duration of a film.

Anyway, assuming you are one of the early adopters of technology, and you must buy it, here is what all you will need after buying a 3D set: irrespective of the technology you choose, you will need to upgrade your DVD player to a 3D Blu-ray player (not yet easily available), buy a huge new library of 3D films (even though you may have the original film), and wait for a broadcast company to start providing 3D content.

Since 3D requires nearly double the refresh rate, even your DTH box and/or CAS box may need to be changed. But I could not get a comment from any of India’s DTH vendors if their boxes are ready for 3D content. So, that could mean buying everything all over again.Also, the wow factor of 3D is short-lived. When you go to a store to check out the TV or see it at a press launch, as I did, the immediate impulse is to get one home. But then, after a few minutes of watching, you suddenly realise that there is very limited content there, and you will not want to pay a premium just because 3D is one of the new buzzwords out there. For me, the experience of watching a 3D movie, such as Avatar in 3D, or getting to catch Shrek the Final Chapter in 3D, is best enjoyed in a cinema hall.

If you don’t mind wearing glasses while watching television, and are okay with a mild headache while you watch TV for extended time, also know that you may have to just change your television in another two years, depending on which technology becomes the standard, go ahead and buy it. For others, I would like to say, just as soon as we’ve bought the last technology, a new one is here, so you need to buy it all again, all over.

I like the technology, and I love the potential, but I will wait to decide on which technology succeeds, and also wait for more content to be made easily available. Right now we are at a stage where the future is unclear; I sense that in another two years, we will have a lot more 3D content. After all, with animation and CGI, this really is not far off.

The biggest benefit of the technology, I see, is that it will enable doctors to work interactively with radiology reports—if it’s a Cat scan, an x-ray or an MRI, or even a Doppler scan, they will be able to turn things around in a 3D world and be able to offer better diagnosis. But for you and me, I will suggest we wait.

The Samsung LED backlit 3D TV is already available in India against orders, and LG and Panasonic should be here around this month. Philips 3D TV is expected to be here around mid June, and TCL is available in China. Once most of these brands come in, we will see prices drop. Currently, Samsung’s 3D LEDs, with a screen size of 40–65 inch, cost Rs 130,000–435,000. Its 3D LCDs (46–55 inch screen size) cost Rs 129,000–186,900, and the 63 inch 3D plasma costs around Rs 300,000. Eventually, as more content becomes available and 3D technology becomes mainstream, we will see prices crash, as happened with LCD televisions.
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the above article appeared in the Open Magazine, Issue Dated 14th May 2010.

Small Wonder - Review Kodak Zi8

You can always shoot videos with your still camera or get yourself a good video camera, but the form factors of the latter seem too outdated at times and videos from my still camera are shoddy at best. So getting good video quality, if possible HD, in a form factor that works for me, is important and the Kodak Zi8, with its fit-in-short-pocket size and easy to use features, fits the bill perfectly.
The Zi8 is small and measures just 2.4 by 4.5 inches; it is about an inch thick and weighs 138 grams. Bt it still offers five shooting modes — 1080p (1920 by 1080), 720p (1280 by 720) at 60 frame per second, 720p at 30 fps, WVGA (848 by 480) and still photos (5.3 megapixels at a 16:9 aspect ratio). Video is captured in H.264 format and audio is recorded at 48kHz. Plus, it comes with both telephoto and macro mode.

Also included are an external microphone port in case you want to hook up a mic to the person you are interviewing. You can also run the camera on external power for long durations, though on battery and shooting high definition videos gave me 2.5 hours shoot time. In case of a long shoot, it is better to plug the camera into the electrical socket.

Apart from the form factor, the Zi8's image quality is brilliant and image stabilisation one of the best in the industry. For many this might not mean much, but when you shoot a movie with a camera in your hand, the slight jerks can cause a lot of disturbance, and the Zi8 negates these easily. But I would leave the still camera of the Zi8 for a time when you have no better options available.

The 2.5-inch LCD is bright and sharp, and you can adjust its brightness in three steps. But the shiny black plastic in which the body is finished is a fingerprint magnet and very scratch prone, so I suggest you carry it in a cover at all times. The dealer gave me a 4GB SD card with the camera, but I think you should go for an 8GB SDHC card which will give you approximately 120 minutes of HD video recording.

The built-in USB plug is a wonderful feature and you don't need to carry a memory card reader at all times. You can connect the Zi8 to either a Mac or a Windows machine and it is detected as an external disk. If you are a Windows user, the ArcSoft Media Impression Software can be installed from the camera, but Mac users will need to use something like iMovie to edit videos.

In case you are trying to make videos for YouTube, I suggest you stick to the compact 720p/30 fps or WVGA formats as your best results. For home movies, it is better to use 1080p/30fps. The HDMI and AV cables come bundled with the camera. In playback mode, you can go from slow motion to about 16x speed, skipping to part you want to watch.

But the Zi8 is not a super fast camera and I did have some issues shooting indoors. The indoor shots have come out well, but the videos shot in daylight look as if they were taken with a professional camera. The built-in microphone is not all that great and you might have to plug in a better mic for good audio quality. A feature which I absolutely hate is the red light next to the lens, which tells the person you are shooting. Though I understand that this will prevent privacy invasion, it becomes annoying for the person you are shooting.

Moreover, you can't change settings while recording a movie. If you try to do this, the camera stops recording and you have to start a new file. The icon that shows the battery level some how goes off the screen when recording begins, though, thankfully, they reappear when it has just 20 minutes of juice to spare. However, the built-in four-way toggle and the buttons were easy to use.

Creative's Vado and the Cisco Flip are good competitors, but Zi8 delivers similar features at a great price point of Rs 10,999, making it one of the best pocket camcorders I have reviewed till date. The greatest quality of the Zi8 is that you can concentrate on the shooting, while the camera handles everything else.

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The above review appeared in the Indian Express, on Sunday 16th May 2010

A DTH War for the Record

Last month, Airtel launched their Personal Video Recorder (PVR) box with mobile-based recording and some other unique features. Soon, their competitor Tata Sky followed suit with both Internet and mobile recording signaling a new phase in DTH services. So if you are planning to reap the benefits, read on:

Hardware
The TataSky Digicom, with its circular layout for the record, forward, play, rewind and pause buttons, reminded me of an DVD Player. On the back, the box has standard connectors for your TV as well as Ethernet and USB ports. The Tata Sky+ box gives you 90 hours of recording, but I could not check out their new 130 hours claim. The curvy remote makes it easy to record programmes.

The Airtel digital recorder's plain black box is brilliant to look at with its glowing red light. The buttons are on the top making the front panel plain, but it still has all manual setting. But there are no indicators on the box to show if you are actually recording. But the box has a 576p HDMI out, two USB ports for future uses and an Ethernet port. This box is not HD ready, so if Airtel comes up with HD transmissions, the box will have to be swapped for a new box. It gives 100 hours of recording on the box. The remote has a standard brick interface with old VCR-like buttons, all very functional though.

Interface
The TataSky interface used to be fast and functional, but it has become slower with the new version. Still, TataSky's blue and red colours are far more soothing on the eye than the red and black of Airtel. However, Airtel allows you to list 20 favourite channels in five different sections and search for recorded programmes by time and genre. Since both use NDS as their software provider, it won't be long before they catch up with each other. A channel switch is faster on the Tata Sky+ box compared to Airtel where you can feel a lag. However, the Tata Sky+ ad for ring tones or content on the screen can be annoying.

Features
Along with Internet recording, the new TataSky+ offers TVoD where popular programmes are pre-recorded for you to watch at your convenience, but without eating up your hard disk space. Currently, the feature is free.

Problems
If you have more than one Tata Sky+ box, you can't choose which box should record the programme. If you enable the programme from your mobile phone, the primary box in your account starts recording, while through Internet all boxes will start recording. The mobile applications of both companies are very similar and let you programme the channel you want. Both the customer care centres seemed a bit clueless about Internet and mobile recording.

MPEG4 vs MPEG2
Airtel claims to have MPEG4 on their transmission and on their boxes. Tata Sky+ hardware, on the other hand, supports MPEG4, but the transmission is in MPEG2. But thankfully, an average person cannot make out the difference between the two technologies.

Both Tata Sky+ and Airtel have rushed to the market to add features, but are still very basic in their approach as far as interface, usability and features go. For now, I will choose Tata Sky+ over Airtel, just because I can record programmes from anywhere through the Internet.

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The above review appeared in the Indian Express, on Sunday May 09, 2010

Save it to the Dropbox

Everyone is faced with the problem of sharing/accessing large files without having to depending on thumb drives, writing DVDs or using a remote login to download the file from your computer. I have found a solution to this problem in something called the Dropbox, and it is free.

You can download the application on to your Windows, Mac or Linux PC, or even on your iPhone or iPod Touch from dropbox.com and start using the application. Once installed, a menu will pop up for you to sign in. You can choose the 2GB free account or go for the 50GB or 100 GB paid version at a monthly payment of $9.99 and $19.99, respectively.

After you fill in your contact information, key in a strong password as your files will be stored on a remote server. The next step is to name the PC that you are installing the programme on — use a descriptive name such as My iPod or My Home PC.

All you have to do now is to save files you want to share into the Dropbox folder created on your PC. The programme works behind the scenes and sends a copy of all the files to the Dropbox server. So the next time you boot up your other PC where the application is installed under the same account, your files are downloaded there too.

But if you make a habit of saving files directly to your Dropbox folder, you will soon run out of space on the cloud and might have to explore the costlier paid options. This might be expensive, but makes sense if you are using the application for business.

Dropbox has worked very hard to ensure full compatibility to Windows and Linux Platforms and it also works seamlessly on the Mac. I am glad they have an iPod, iPhone and an iPad app, and would love to see an app for the Android and Brew platforms which are gaining ground. Till that time you can access Dropbox from any browser.
I also don’t like the fact that Dropbox currently does not allow to share a file, you have to share an entire folder with files in it. But the sharing still works wonderfully well.

Its best feature, however, is a paid one. It allows you to do unlimited undo on a file for 30 days from the last save. If you use the iPod, iPhone or iPad application, you can look at your pictures as an interactive photo gallery and even download files for offline viewing on your handheld. If you have the latest iPhone 3GS that shoots video, you can directly upload these to the account.

So if you too are faced with file sharing problems, check out Dropbox at dropbox.com

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The Above review appeared in the Indian Express, on Sunday, May 2nd 2010

Open Magazine Volume 02 Issue 05

This week in my Open Magazine article

* the HTC Legend
* Senheiser HD201 Headphones
* Rovio Wi-Fi Cam
* and the Microsoft Arc Keyboard

To view my article click here for the PDF or visit The Open Magazine website for a High Resolution copy

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The Above Article Appeared in Open Magazine, Volume 02, Issue 05, Dated 7th May 2010