[Imc-birmingham] [Fwd: [Imc-uk-video] useful gizmo for doing screenings]

[phunkee]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	[Imc-uk-video] useful gizmo for doing screenings
Date: 	Fri, 22 Jun 2007 11:06:00 +0100
From: 	kriptick <kriptick at beeb.net>
Reply-To: 	uk indymedia video subgroup list 
<imc-uk-video at lists.indymedia.org>
To: 	imc video <imc-uk-video at lists.indymedia.org>
References: 	<20070619172208.5jojncj6hw8wwow8 at mailzone.onetel.net.uk>



Those of you doing screenings of films for audiences are most likely lugging
a heavy paving slab laptop around with you to play the material from.
Regularly having your expensive laptop sharing space with drinks on a small
table in a bar setting can be nerve wracking - well I always worry about
mine in such a situation. It's even more worrying when you know that there
are loads of cables connecting to it and snaking across the floor and plenty
of  less than sober people blundering around it in the dark. There's also
the wear and tear factor - laptop DVD drives are notoriously flimsy and not
designed for really frequent use. Just catching the very exposed and
delicate lens with your fingernail while changing a disk in the dark can
spell instant death for it.

Maplin have on special offer at the moment for 40 quid a gizmo that could be
very handy for regular screeners.
http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?ModuleNo=97124&doy=22m6#overview

It's an external USB connected hard drive box that also has the intelligence
to play videos stored on it's hard drive without requiring a computer. It
has both a VGA socket and compo video for connecting to the projector. As
supplied it comes as an empty box without any HDD so you fit whatever size
drive you can afford into it which is really easy - 5 mins. At present the
best byte/buck ratio for HDDs is around the 300 gig size. I've just bought
320 gig for 42 quid. Now 300 gig + means that you can use it to carry your
entire collection of docus in Xvid format etc around with you - not just for
screenings but also it's useful for file exchange sessions when you're
meeting up with other video people. It plays MPG1,2, Xvid, DivX, VOBs, and
the collection of VIDEO_TS files that can be ripped from a complete DVD.
Also can be used for unattended playing of collections of music and JPGs -
useful for background wallpaper at public events etc. The main thing about
such a device is that it stores much more than any lappy, is more portable
and there's no screen to smash when someone sits on your backpack. For
anyone travelling around rough places like festys etc it could be ideal as
you'd just spend a few hours copying all your fave films onto it via a
computer beforehand and you'd then be setup for whatever you or the
audience want to see. Also at 80ish quid versus 300+ quid for a lappy it
won't hurt so much if it gets nicked or whatever, though you should still
factor in the value of all the films you lose if you didn't have backups.

There are of course disadvantages which I should list too.
It'd prob be a bit harder to power it from a 12 Volt system in a field as it
requires both 12V & 5V that come from a separate supplied power brick so
you'd prob need an inverter. It's not as versatile as a properly set up
lappy in that it won't play .WMVs, .ASFs, quicktime, real, .MP4s and any of
the obscure video formats that open source fundamentalists want to foist on
us. It's also not as spontaneous as a lappy in that if someone turns up at
the last minute with a DVD or USB stick containing a
hot-from-the-protest-line vid then you'll only be able to get it onto the
media drive by connecting with a computer. Remember too that as with
anything containing a hard drive, it mustn't be jolted or dropped especially
when it's spinning or you'll lose the lot. The built in video menu can be
hard to find video files with as it insists on showing 4 simultaneous
previews/page with no directory names shown when you're browsing for a
particular file amongst dozens. This takes ages & I was cursing the idiot
who wrote the gimmicky firmware until I found that by using File mode from
the main menu instead of Video mode it was much quicker and more obvious -
just like a standard file browser window.

There are also other such devices. IMC London have recently bought a similar
media player device from Freecom that can also be connected directly to
ethernet - useful for video exchange sessions but this costs 88 quid.
http://www.freecom.com/ecproduct_detail.asp?ID=2637&CatID=&sCatID=

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