SillyDog701

[Antony]

Similar to Your Computers? thread, I will start a thread for listing your gadgets. It does not have to be the latest. Actually, the older that better.

Things can be listed to this thread,

• mp3 player
• video game consoles
• portable devices (excluding laptop/notebook)
• PDAs
• mobile phones
• multi-function devices
• media centre devices
• entertainment devices
• TVs
• printers
• ...

Things don't belong to this thread.

• computers (desktop, server, notebook/laptop)
• devices usually considered as part of the computer, e.g. mice, keyboards, monitors
• components usually part of computer (e.g. internal or external DVD burner)

We welcome photos of your gadget, it is always fun to see the item. If you have an "outdated" gadget, we will be very interested to know Please do not use other people's photo as yours.

You can use images from official website, but I really prefer the actual copy you have, in your set up.

If possible, please list the full name and a link.

I think we can let the fun begin now.

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[Antony]

Since no one posted here, I'd like to start one.

My most recent purchase is an old-fashioned inkjet printer (as [sdt=13127]I mentioned in this thread[/sdt]).

A Epson Stylus Photo R230.


(image taken from Epson website)

And this is what it (the one on the right) looks like in my room:


The main reason I bought it is that I want a printer that can print on CD/DVD surface directly. The CD/DVD media tray is shown in picture above. It does a pretty good job on doing so I have to say. In fact, it prints better colour on plain paper than Brother MFC-240C (the one on the left picture above).

Epson Stylus Photo R230 is a 6-colour inkjet printer. More detail here.

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[djv1]

All I really have to brag up is my dirt bike, I 've got a Yamaha WR450F
as seen here (picture off of Yamaha.com)

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[Antony]

Nice gadget, Dustin.

I got myself a new toy yesterday.


A Brother P-touch 1280 labeller. A second Brother machine I've got.

Why do I need a labeller? It turns out that I simply have far too many cables and wires that I need to label. (Well, not every product I have follows Apple's simplicity designe... only one power cord would be enough for an iMac to connect to the net and printing.)

blog entry

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[Antony]

Well, I am I must be crazy, I bought another printer yesterday. In fact, it is the third printer I bought this year. As discussed in [sdt=13297]this thread[/sdt], it's an Epson AcuLaser C1100N. Network version of colour laser printer C1100.







I did not get the duplex kit, an additional 500 sheet tray or additional RAM (32MB built-in).

(blog entry)

Just to remind everyone and, in particular, Don; Antony is poor.

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[Antony]

As I posted earlier, I bought Brother P-touch 1280 labeller a while back, here is the labeller:



And it's somehow very useful in places like this:

(That's the messy section of Antony's office.)

I know I need to tidy up all those power cords and cables.

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[Antony]

I think the wireless router fits into this thread.

My new toy: D-Link Xtreme N Gigabit Router (DIR-655)

It's an 802.11n (draft) wireless combined with a Gigabit Ethernet router. Finally I have 802.11n and Gigabit network at home!

Box shot:

(also an 802.11n PCI adapter for a Windows machine, not mine)

Package:


and an interesting label at back:

That's very important. I blurred out all the MAC address, serial numbers in above photos.

I know the 802.11n specification is not yet finalised, but my iMac supports 802.11n (draft), and the D-Link 802.11n PCI card work with 802.11n-draft, I am not worried.

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[Mandrake]

Congratulations. That's a nice router! I've been looking at routers with gigabit ethernet for some time now. How much did this one set you back?

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[Antony]

Thanks.

How much did this one set you back?

$260.
If you just want a Gigabit Ethernet router/hub without 802.11n or USB port etc, you can get one for less than $100.

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[Antony]

Some of you know that I use my Mac to watch TV.

I used to have an Elgato EyeTV for DTT.




It works great, but I sold it and got Elgato EyeTV Diversity (two tuners in one device).



And yesterday, I bought Elgato's Turbo.264, and it's a hardware H.264 encoder.


It helps me encoding videos into H.264.

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[Don_HH2K]

And yesterday, I bought Elgato's Turbo.264, and it's a hardware H.264 encoder.


It helps me encoding videos into H.264.

Interesting. Usually I let my run-length movies encode in the background with only a small performance hit (for MPEG-2 and MPEG-4) or overnight in the case of resource-heavy codecs like VC-1 and H.264. Of course, since you're capturing 720p or 1080i, you probably have much more encode work to do.

Does Elgato mention where the resolutions and bitrates top out for the Turbo.264, whether or not it supports interlaced content, and so forth?

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[Antony]

Does Elgato mention where the resolutions and bitrates top out for the Turbo.264, whether or not it supports interlaced content, and so forth?

Sorry, I forgot the product page, Elgato Turbo.264.

Currently it supports following outputs:

Apple TV Video:
Video: H.264 Main Profile, 5 Mbps max., 800x600 max., 30 fps max.
Audio: AAC-LC, stereo, 128 Kbps, 48 kHz.
(Note: If the source movie is larger than 800x600 it will be scaled to fit within 800x600 preserving aspect ratio. Resolution is maintained if 800x600 or smaller. Frame rate is maintained when 30 fps and smaller.)

iPod (Best)
Video: H.264 Baseline Profile Low-Complexity, 1.5 Mbps max., 640x480 max., 30 fps max.
Audio: AAC-LC, stereo, 128 Kbps, 48 kHz.
(Note: If the source movie is larger than 640x480 it will be scaled to fit within 640x480 preserving aspect ratio. Resolution is maintained if 640x480 or smaller. Frame rate is maintained when 30 fps and smaller.)

iPod (Smallest)
Video: H.264 Baseline Profile (up to Level 1.3), 768 kbps max. 320x240 max., 30 fps max.
Audio: AAC-LC, stereo, 128 Kbps, 48 kHz.
(Note: If the source movie is larger than 320x240 it will be scaled to fit within 320x240 preserving aspect ratio. Resolution is maintained if 320x240 or smaller. Frame rate is maintained when 30 fps and smaller.)

Sony PSP
Video: H.264 Main Profile, 512 Kbps, 320x180/320x240, 30 fps.
Audio: AAC-LC, stereo, 128 Kbps, 48 kHz.
(Note: A source with 16:9 aspect ratio will produce a 320x180 destination movie while a 4:3 video results in a 320×240 file.)

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[Mandrake]

I got my XBox 360 today!



The games I bought: Quake 4, Ridge Racer 6 and Perfect Dark Zero. I've got Grand Theft Auto IV on preorder at EB too. I'll be picking up Halo 3 and BioShock once they become available as well.



The crappy TV is just temporary, EBGames and BIG W did not have the VGA connector in stock. I'll go to Dick Smith Electronics and pick one up next week.



This is the cool remote that comes with the XBox.

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[Antony]

I got my XBox 360 today!

Congratulations!

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[beanboy89]

I got a Hauppauge WinTV-HVR 950.



It's a USB 2.0-based ATSC and NTSC TV tuner, so I can watch both digital and analog television on my laptop or desktop:



The device itself is very small, but a bit larger than a standard USB flash drive:



Here it is plugged into my laptop via the included 1' USB extention cable:



It will accept any coaxial cable from any digital or analog source:



Or from the included antenna (it can pick up digital or analog signals, but there are no digital stations around here):

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