Media Extenders and the Wired (or Wireless) Home

If you?ve been online reading lately about digital home entertainment equipment, a phrase that you may be seeing more frequently is ?media extender?. This refers to a device that essentially ?extends? the reach of another media source such as a DVD player.

The more common usage of this term is describing a Media Center Extender, which refers to a device that lets you stream features from a PC that is running Windows Media Center 2005 to other devices such as televisions, radios, and personal audio players.

These ?Media Center Extender? boxes essentially serve to let you make use of some Media Center PC functions directly on your television rather than having to run to a different room in order to set a video playing on a display screen downstairs as previous, more primitive ?media throwers? or other makeshift solutions permitted.

The most famous Media Center Extender that is presently available is certainly the highly touted Xbox 360. Microsoft?s latest foray into the world of console gaming systems is now capable of interfacing with a Media Center PC to provide room-to-room entertainment via either a 100 Megabit wired home network or a wireless one, such as 802.11b or other standards. It cannot send media in reverse, however (from the Xbox 360 to the Media Center PC), which is still a very rare feature among media extenders of any kind due to copyright and other concerns.

Summarily, if you have a Media Center PC with an extensive library of legally-obtained music, video, and other media on this computer, you certainly may have a use for the Xbox 360?s Media Center Extender capabilities, or for one of the other media extenders on the market (offered by LinkSys and other tech manufacturers).

If you?ve been looking for an effective way to bring digital media to each room of your house without having to burn and re-burn CDs and DVDs, media extenders may be the brand new technology for your wired (or wireless) home!

Zed Hayden held the all-time high score for Tetris at his junior high school. Nobody ever came close to beating him, except for that kid in the chess club. When he is not playing video games or working on his 1984 Trans Am, he writes for GizmoCafe.com ? an online consumer electronics guide that is the home of the Gizmo Guy, with the latest buzz in consumer electronics, retro video game systems and more.

DLP TVs

DLP TVs are based on the concept of DLP technology, which essentially has every pixel position displayed on the screen. Due to the very small distance between the micro-mirrors, the pixels remain invisible to the eye and thus the picture display in these TVs render a smooth viewing, having no or little effect on the ambient light.

The new display technology in TV display has begun to catch the headlines. In 1970, Larry Hornbeck, of Texas Instruments (TI), developed the first version of the DLP technology, which was made available for commercial use in the year 1996. Since that time DLP TV has been meeting increasing demand in the market, being less expensive, though no less capable, large screen TVs. After having experimented for years, with micro-chips, that hold millions of mirrors, TI finally came out with the product, which has been growing in demand. The DLP is now the heart of many DLP TVs manufactured by well known manufacturers like RCA, RCA, Samsung, LG, Toshiba, Zenith, and Panasonic, to name a few. With so many manufacturers taking on the DLP technology, DLP TV is expected to account for quite a substantial share in the whole of the TV market.

The basic technology of the DLP YV lies with the rear-projection unit. These manipulate light and create the picture. This light originates from a centralised source and is projected on to a screen. DLP TV monitors work by deflecting light, in which they utilise a complex system of mirrors, which is used to reflect or deflect red, green, and/or blue light through a optical projection lens, which goes on to the screen in front of you. In order to reflect the light fully, the mirrors switch on and switch off when the light needs to be deflected. By switching on and off with great speed, the DLP technology is able to reproduce gray scale at a staggering accuracy.

The micro-mirrors are called Digital Micro-mirror Device (DMD) and the functional base of the DLP technology is these mirrors, which is referred to as the Binary Spatial Light Modulator. These mirrors are arranged into square grids, which depend on the DMD's aspect ratio. With this 1 mm being invisible to the eye, the complete assembly looks like a solid thumb-nail sized of a mirror, containing millions of micro-mirrors arranged in a grid pattern.

The micro-mirrors on a DMD is independent of its neighbour on the grid and is capable of reflecting light in two directions, viz., either 10 deg toward or 10 deg away from a lens. The light gets reflected on an optical lens, which projects that light on to a screen at a definite pixel. When the micro-mirrors deflect light away from the levs, a light absorber absorbs the light. Hence light does not reach the screen and instead, it produces a dark square pixel image at that particular pixel.

The DLP technology assigns a series of Static Random Access Memory (SRAM) cells within, to hold the data input to the system. This data is fed to the micro-mirror modules, which enables tilting of the mirrors in the desired directions. These signals are in the form of binary digits. where 1 would signify a +10 def tilt and a 0 would make the mirror tilt -10 deg. These are termed as ON and OFF switching. If the light is reflected by the mirror, it is directed towards a projection lens, where it is amplified, and then cast on to the back of the screen. If the light gets deflected, it gets absorbed and that pixel part of the screen remains dark. In this fashion, each pixel position of the screen gets mapped directly corresponding to the micro-mirror behaviour,

A coloured wheel is used in DLP composed of red, green, and blue filters, which direct individual pulses of colored light toward the DMD. This is utilised for gray-scale processing. This would mean that at any one time only one primary colour is hitting the DMD and as the filter system, within DLP, spins fast enough, approximately at the rate of 120 rpm, the colours appear blended into a full colour digital image.

What is the advantage of owning a DLP TV?

First of all DLP TV is pleasant to watch. Since it is a reflective technology, the TVs are brighter than other display technologies. The DLP technology features higher-than-average light efficiency, and as such a DLP TV will perform exceedingly well under most ambient light conditions. Brightly lit rooms will never make the display dull. Due to its reflecting and deflecting technology, DLP TV can achieve deeper, more realistic shadows and blacks than other fixed-pixel display technologies.

One of the disadvantages of DLP TV is that, while it can be watched with shifts of 70 to 75 degrees in the horizontal plane, any such shift in the vertical plane makes the viewing very dull. The TV dos not have those annoying vertical scan lines as you get in the conventional CRT display TVs. This is because the technology utilises pixel position and has its own optical equivalent in the DMD chip itself, giving you a smooth, evenly lit image through out the length and breadth of the display screen. The DMD switches on and off at the rate of 50,000 times per second and produces pictures with no moving streaks or any motion artifacts. This makes DLP TV well suited for gaming.

A DLP TV monitor is capable of displaying HDTV, standard TV, and home video and accepts, which makes texts and graphics look especially sharp one or more RGB inputs from a computer. DLP TV has a very high resolution and perfect geometry of DLP and it is one of the best ways to display data, graphs and web-based contents.

The DLP TV monitor has a very long life. The only element that wears off is the light source, which lasts between 8,000 to 10,000 viewing hours. This can be replaced at an approximate cost of $250, which makes the DLP TV inherently reliable.

110-220 Volt Electronics - A multisystem TV is a TV capable of receiving and displaying different video systems like PAL, SECAM and NTSC. You'll be able to operate a multisystem TV in 99% of the world. Their dual voltage design allows them to be plugged into either a 110 voltage source or a 220 voltage source. In some cases, the plug on the television will not fit your country's outlet, so an inexpensive plug-adapter will be needed. They can generally be picked up at an electronics store such as http://www.planetomni.com for $1.95. With a multisystem TV, such as a plasma, CRT tube type, LCD or DLP, you'll likely need a codefree (sometimes called region free) DVD player. These exist in many forms. When used with a PAL-NTSC TV you'll be able to see the full 625 lines of resolution available in the PAL system and the full 525 lines used in the USA NTSC system. There exists a converting type of DVD player which is codefree in that it can read all of the world's 6 regions and both standards, PAL and NTSC. 140,000 other products are available here: http://www.planetomni.com Tel. # 800-514-2984

Some Things Your Projector Dealer Might Not Tell You

A salesman is a salesman. He does not make a living if he does not sell something. So it may sometimes happen that a salesman or a dealer will not tell the buyer all of the relevant facts about a given product. We have tried to list enough of them here to give you a general idea of what to look for and what to ask.

Bulbs or the Headlamp
This is probably the one thing that gets overlooked more than anything else. The bulbs are an expensive part of the home theater system and need to be checked out carefully before purchasing a projection unit. What is the projected bulb life? How many lumens does it generate? These are specific questions that should generate specific answers that the projector dealer may not otherwise mention.

Contrast Ratios
Contrast ratios are something else that needs to be considered. The projector dealer may or may not know the statistics regarding a specific projector unit, but what about the ambient lighting in the room where the projector will be used. Is the light source constant or is it varied? Properly factoring in the light source in the room where the theater projector will be set up is not something that many dealers or salesmen will volunteer to do for the buyer.

Screen
The screen is also an important part of the whole home theater experience. Which screens work best with which types of projectors is likely something the salesman or dealer is not going to know and will not tell you without prodding. Having the information beforehand can save a lot of time and grief when shopping for a home theater projector.

Mounting
What types of mounts are included with the projector is something they may or may not refer to at the projector dealer, but what else is there to consider with mounts? Is the projection unit prone to overheating when mounted on a shelf mount? Is it compatible and able to be mounted in the proper place for the distances in the room where it will be used? Another factor in regards to the mounting of the multimedia projector is the hazard of creating a keystone effect by mounting the projector incorrectly or off center. What kind of variance do the optic lenses on the projector provide to prevent this? Is there only a vertical adjustment or does it have both horizontal and vertical optic controls? Does it only have the keystone adjustments or does it provide digital adjustment as well? Mounting the multimedia projector properly is a key factor in being able to properly enjoy a high quality picture with the home theater projection unit.

Is this the right projector for me?
Is the projector really compatible for the uses that are needed or is the salesman or dealer just trying to push a product off on the consumer? Knowing which projectors are better for what types of displays is something that the dealer may not even know about. Different home theater projectors have different uses. Some work better with movies, videos and video games, and some work better for still-multimedia presentations. Being knowledgeable about which projector does what can save a lot of hassling with the uninformed salesman or the dealer who just wants to move projectors out of his store.

To be forewarned is to be forearmed. No matter how well prepared the salesman is or how honest the projector dealer is, they have many different products that they have to know a lot about. Even the salesman with the best intentions will not know everything about all of the home theater projectors available. There are many things the projector dealer will not tell you.

Note: This article may be republish for use in websites as long as the author bio and active hyperlinks are kept intact.

Clifford Tan, a Home Theater enthusiast and owner of the website Home Projector Advisor offering projector reviews, advice and many useful tips and hints to business and home consumers looking to purchase a home projectors. To find out alot more information about home projection system, visit the site http://www.home-projector-advisor.com

8 Tips for Protecting a Digital Camera's Memory Card

It's Monday evening, you've made it through the first day back into your routine after a much needed and memorable vacation. You pull out the memory card from your digital camera thinking you'll download the photographs that record the spectacular sights, reunions with seldom seen loved ones, and memorable events that you experienced in the previous days.

But then the unthinkable happens. With your digital camera in hand you connect to the PC but the photographs can not be retrieved; they are lost. What could cause such a catastrophic failure and more importantly, how could a repeat of this scenario be avoided?

The way that memory cards for your digital camera are handled, used, and stored can greatly influence the length of their useful life and dependability. Observing a few precautions can be the difference between the disappointment of lost images and the pleasure of having pictures with which to reminisce.

Avoid physically damaging memory cards:

?avoid exposure to direct sunlight and temperature extremes

?protect memory cards from exposure to moisture and store in a low humidity environment

?do not write or put stickers on the cards

?store cards in a protective case or leave them in the camera to avoid accidentally breaking them or getting dirt or dust on them

Protect memory cards through proper use:

?keep the batteries of the digital camera fully charged to assure they don't fail while shooting pictures as a failure may result in lost images and permanent damage to the card

?be sure data has been saved, the process completed, before removing the card from the camera or card reader; it's best to turn the digital camera off before removing the card

?move images to the computer to edit rather than editing photos on the card itself

?delete images and re-format the card in the digital camera after downloading on a regular basis

Although the failure of a digital camera's memory card is a rare occurrence, the results can feel tragic nonetheless. Observing manufacturer's guidelines and some of the precautions reviewed above can help to circumvent the unnecessary loss of photographs.

Christine Peppler shares information on home entertainment and home electronics products, including digital cameras, on her website at: http://www.homemedias.info