Chinon AVi - iPod Docking System with LCD (review + manual)

Chinon AVi packs a lot at a very attractive price of $199. It's an iPod dock, an alarm, an FM radio and a 7 inch Digital TV. In my opinion, a perfect thing for the kitchen. Or is it?

Now, keep in mind that recently Apple made it impossible to use third-party cables to connect iPods to television sets. You would have to pay $40 just for a set of composite or component cables at an Apple store. Apple-made cables have a special chip that's required by the newest Apple devices. My biggest concern is that this docks not able to overcome this hurdle. A fast scrolling animation of supported iPods on the manufacturer's site includes a 2009 120gb model, but not the 7g 160gb iPod. The iPod Support table does not make a distinction between various kinds of iPod Classic, but adds this: "please note that some iPod models may only support viewing of photos or slideshows on the iPod display and do not support the TV-out function". I must clarify that the 2009 160gb iPod (7th generation) does have a TV-out feature, but you may have to use an Apple cable, as I mentioned above. What this boils down to is that you may end up getting those $40 cables at the Apple store after all! Luckily, this device has video in, but at this rate you can be getting any LCD TV you like, not just the Chinon dock.

The manufacturer does not make it clear if the dock supports iPhones, but this is probably due to some intricate details of Apple licensing of the "Made for iPod" logo.

Another big issue is that the digital tuner in this dock only supports ATSC, not QAM. You will not be able to plug it directly into the cable outlet. Only off-the-air signals can be received. Unless, of course, you have a cable box, but then again, why not use a regular TV?

The bottom line is that you are probably better of with a regular decent audio system that has an iPod dock. The audio out feature works very well for all kinds of iPod devices. And get a small TV if you need one for the kitchen or wherever. You can always connect your supported iPod to it using cables, even you have to buy them directly from Apple. This Chinon AVi dock is more of a novelty item, only useful for brief outdoor use.


Chinon AVi Manual

See also:

Under-cabinet radio with iPod dock: Hamilton Beach

Fuji S1500FD manual

The Fuji S1500 continues the "tradition" of Fuji 1000. This may very well be my next camera. As usual, one thing I can get for free is the manual, even though it eventually comes in the box.
Fuji S1500 manual

Comcast's new DTA box and standard QAM channels

When during the time of last year's government mandated switch to digital broadcasting Comcast assured its customers that there is nothing to worry about as long as you have cable -- well, that was not entirely truthful. Just a few months later Comcast customers were forced to aquire inconvenient digital to analog boxes. As of now, in most locations you can no longer watch "high channels" without such a box or some other kind of Comcast receiver. The absolute worst thing is that most of these DTA boxes have a single coaxial output. This means that high-def channels transmitted without encryption can no longer be watched, unless you do something creative. It has been very unfortunate for Comcast not to be able to scramble those channels to begin with, because legally they cannot do it. These channels are available off-the-air and as a result they must be available to Comcast customers with basic cable service at no charge. The channels are still available, but Comcast found a way to make watching them as inconvenient as possible. The hope is, of course, that people will want to subscribe to Comcast's high-def service. If you don't want to do that there are several things you can do.

First of all, you probably will have to split the cable signal. Then you can send one line directly into the QAM-enabled TV and the other line will go into the DTA box. (Instead of a splitter you can use an A-B switch. There are even some that come with a remote, but you will have to spend over $40 on that.) From the DTA box you can send the converted signal to some tuner device. An old VCR would work just fine, if it has a tuner. Then use RCA cables (yellow, white and blue) to connect the VCR to the television. Set the VCR to channel 3 (or 4 in needed). Now you will have QAM channels trough the TV's digital tuner and all the high analog channels can be easily accessed on the AV input (controlled by the DTA remote).

Update

Turns out (unsurprisingly) that Comcast uses standard QAM channels to transmit digital signals. It means that all the "higher" channels are still available on any TV that can receive QAM. They are assigned to various channels in the 70-90 range. All the DTA does is simply modulating the signal into analog form and assigning the same channel numbers as before. The only problem that I seem to notice is that the audio is not in sync on some channels. The DTA must be doing something to rectify this, but many channels look just fine and the sync problem is negligible. In fact, syncing problems are commonplace with QAM, in my experience. So, just run a channel scan on your digital TV and see if you are satisfied with the results. If you only have an analog tuner then the box is actually a good thing, because you will be getting better quality picture.

eBooks on iPhone: my ultimate (for now) solution

It took me several days to figure out just the right combination of ebook reading software on my iPhone. It seems that at the moment no app of this kind can perform all functions that I find absolutely necessary. Namely, I want to be able to read fb2 books and they must be very well organized on the device with multiple nesting folders. GoodReader (presently $1 at the app store) works very well with folders and handles PDFs using reflow technology. However, this reader does not support fb2 format. I also don't like the fact that when GoodReader opens zip files the resulting files are not stored in a temp folder, but instead show up in the same folder as the archive. UBooks is a free app that reads fb2, but it does not support nesting folders. But a very nice feature of this reader is the fact that it stores files in a folder seen by iPhone Explorer, which makes uploading files very easy. So, my combined solution right now is to load my digital library in zipped txt format into GoodReader using WiFi (works quite well, although a bit slow) and use UBooks for any additional books in fb2 format. And, of course, there is a Kindle app for newly purchased books.

There is also an app called ShortBook ($5) which looks very promising. It looks like it relies on internal info in fb2 files for its database, so the resulting list is quite manageable. But I don't like the way book pages are presented and the interface is a bit convoluted. I was going to give this app a try, but its free version kept crashing every time I attempted to change the font from the default Arial to Verdana. I guess I will wait until buying it.

Best place to shop for an iPhone case.

Best place to buy a case for an iPhone?

It does not matter how much you spent (and were willing to spend) on an iPhone. You still should not overpay for iPhone accessories. The best place to look at a wide assortment of cases is your local Apple store, but everything there is extremely overpriced. You may find what you like and then hit the web in order to find a better deal. But instead you can head to a discount store. I found a great selection of iPhone cases at FiveBelow. As the name indicates, no item at this store costs more than $5. Because iPhones are hugely popular (I believe about 10% of all cellphone market) there are heavy volumes of related merchandise. Sometimes cases are marked as if they only fit iPhone 3G, but 3Gs is no different! FiveBelow has iPhone cases in many colors and designs. And they also have screen protectors. If you know of a discount store other than FiveBelow, it may be worth checking out as well.

iPhone vs. iPod

It happened so that I had to upgrade a great deal of my electronics all at the same time -- needed a better phone service, my laptop nearly broke and my iPod's hard drive became too small to handle my file collection. After much going back and fourth I decided that there is simply no way for me not to have both a 160 gb iPod and an iPhone. Here are the reasons:

• Of course, the capacity. I envision having to constantly review the files on the iPhone in order to save space and be able to download something new.
• Battery concerns. iPod batteries last a long time and I suppose they have somewhat improved with years. However, my use of the iPod is very heavy every single day. My old one had to run on red quite often. Now, add to this running a phone service, WiFi and some apps. I do not want to end up without a phone all of a sudden because I listened to my iPod too much!
• With 160 gb I can count on having a very spacious external drive to transfer files. Without that I would have to buy another device anyway. Why not make iPod that extra device? I can enjoy it while carrying to files from place to place.
• Using two devices means that the load will be divided between them. Perhaps, breaking down will not be so likely?
  

Cool-er ebook reader

There are strong indications that the ebook market is about to explode. One of the early examples of this will be the yet unreleased British device called Cool-er. It has great options for international users, SD-expansion (rated at 4 gb), good selection of supported file formats and the ebook store that promises to be more reasonable and "better-stocked" e-store. The manual for Cool-er is already available. Check it out and see if the device is right for you at $250 or so.

Cool-er ebook reader manual