Tagged: review

Review: Panasonic TX-L37ET5B

After a crappy experience with an LG, I decided to go for a slightly more reputable manufacturer - Panasonic.

I went for the cumbersomely named Panasonic TX-L37ET5B 37-inch Widescreen Full HD 1080p 3D LED TV with Freeview HD.

Looking at the TX-L37ET5B's specs it's a close to perfect TV.

  • Four HDMI ports
  • Enough miscellaneous ports (PC, scart, component, composite) to be able to plug in just about anything.
  • Freeview HD
  • Passive 3D

I'll start with the negative points - because that's usually what people look for in a review.

Let's Get Physical

The screen has a rather thick bezel, so if you need to squeeze it into a tight space, check your measurments.

There is a bright green LED under the screen - to show you that the display is on. There's no way to turn it off (short of a bit of masking tape). Worse, it's off centre. It's not terribly annoying - but I wish there were a software option to switch it off.

There's no Kensington Lock slot - so you'll have to screw the stand onto something (or place the unit on to a wall.

The screen is quite reflective - so make sure you don't have any lights behind your head when you're watching TV.

"Smart" TV

Despite being connected over fast WiFi to a fast Internet connection, the Viera Connect service is really slow. To be fair, this is the same on every "smart" TV I've tried. The UI is laggy and doesn't look great. Once it starts streaming, it's fine.
The Web Browser is comically bad. It does a good enough job of rendering pages, but navigating with the remote is tiresome.

Turn Ons

It took me a surprisingly long while to work out how to turn on the TV! I'm used to pressing the on button once and having the set spring to life - that doesn't happen on the Panasonic. You have to hold down the on button for a second before the TV wakes up. It's not onerous - just weird.

Sound As A Pound

DTS? This TV is a stranger to it. If you're pumping DTS through HDMI, the TV will ignore it - it won't play through the speakers and it won't pass the bitstream through optical out. Luckily, I have an optical cable running from my media centre to my amp - so it's not a hardship.

The manual mentions it supports DTS 2.0 - but I didn't have any discs with that to test with.

There doesn't appear to be any way to adjust the delay of the optical output.

Minor Niggles

There's no USB recording. Not a huge burden, although the Australian version of the hardware does support it.

So, that was the bad - now onto the good.

333333333DDDDDDDDDDDD!!!!!!!!!

The 3D was a bit of a gamble for me. I was really disappointed with the 3D in Tron Legacy (see my review of Tron). I figured that the 3D set wasn't that much more expensive and, hey, Piranha 3DD sounds like a cinematic masterpiece...

What really swung it for me was the fact that the set uses passive 3D. You don't need to buy expensive BlueTooth glasses which need to be recharged, flicker wildly in front of your eyes, and - more likely than not - are incompatible with any other TV. The Panasonic came with 4 passive glasses - enough for a family or small gathering. If you need more glasses, you can "borrow" them from a cinema - or buy more for around £1 each.

Playing some side-by-side (HSBS) content and the TV automatically converted into 3D mode. Worked on Blu-Ray and Xbox 360 content. Really quite impressive. Perhaps it was the size of the screen - but I found the 3D much more impressive than I did in the cinema.

For a laugh, I tried out the 2D-3D conversion. It attempts to turn any normal video source into 3D. I tried it out on the 1938 film of Robin Hood. I was gobsmacked - it wasn't flawless, but by golly it worked!

The 3D is flicker-free, does not suffer from banding, and is really effective.

Tinker Tailor

There are loads of options to fiddle with. Colour, contrast, white balance, gamma, individual colour gain and limits. I followed this calibration guide and twiddled with all the knobs until everything looked satisfactory.

Android Remote

Panasonic provides an Android Remote Control app - it's actually really useful. Not only can you change channel etc, you can select videos and music from your phone and "fling" them to the TV where they start to play (after a delay - depending on your wifi).
Panasonic Remote Android
Shake the remote, and the "power off" button appears. Nifty!

Although the UI is a bit confusing, the only real down side is the inability to turn on the TV from the remote.

Sound

The optical-out works flawlessly - unlike the piece of crap LG I had.

When watching BBC HD, the TV automatically detected the change between stereo and 5.1 and sent the correct bitstream to my decoder.

As mentioned above, there's no DTS.

Overall

A really good telly. Tweak the picture to suit your preferences, plug in anything, have fun with the 3D

Buy the Panasonic TX-L37ET5B from Amazon.

Y-Cam Knight SD - Review & Linux Guide

This is a review of the Y-Cam Knight SD. I previously reviewed the Y-Cam S in 2009. I got this camera for a 30% discount thanks to Y-Cam's social media team. Adjust your bias filters accordingly.

Unboxing

Linux Set Up

To set the camera up, you need to use its internal webserver. So, how can you find out the IP address of the camera?

  1. Use the provided network cable to connect the camera to your router.
  2. If you have WINE installed, you can run the auto-run program on the provided CD. It should find the camera's IP address.
    y-cam setup wine
  3. If not, log on to your router and see what IP address has been given to the camera.
  4. Go to that IP address in your web browser - and you should see this
    y-cam web login
  5. Click on the settings page
  6. Do you want random strangers able to view and control your camera? No? Change the password straight away!

You can then either use the wizard or go through each setting yourself.

There are lots of options - you can have alerts emailed or uploaded to FTP, you can set the bitrate and image size for different video streams, you can access the camera via your smartphone (there is an app for iOS, Android, and BlackBerry - or plain old RTSP will work). If you're a geek, you'll thrill at being able to select exactly the right codec at the perfect bitrate for your needs.

Improvements

This new Y-Cam has one major improvement over the previous versions - motion detection can now be set up in Linux.
The previous model insisted that you use an ActiveX control in Internet explorer. This model was quite happy with me using Firefox in Ubuntu.
y-cam Motion Detection
In this example I have set a motion detection window on the door handle.

Pros

For a shade under £200, this is a great bit of kit.

  • Infrared mode - spot baddies in the dark.
  • Wall mounting bracket (or just leave it on a bookshelf)
  • It will email you when it detects movement.
  • The power cable is 3 metres long, so you can position the camera just about anywhere.
  • Good support forum.
  • Regular firmware updates.
  • You can now record direct to NAS or microSD card.

Cons

This is a remarkably capable camera - with only a few minor negative points.

  • No light on the plug. The previous incarnation of the camera had a light on the plug so you could tell when it was powered on.
  • Low resolution. The 640*480 resolution is good enough - but who doesn't like more megapixels?
  • You can now record direct to NAS - however, it's a choice between NAS or microSD. I would have liked to have seen an option to record to both.
    y-cam Storage
  • The WiFi can be a bit picky. It will quite happily find networks and identify was encryption they have, but sometimes it just fails to associate with them.
    y-cam WiFi fail
    Annoyingly, it doesn't say why a connection has failed. It could be the wrong password, or something else. I eventually got it on the WiFi - but I couldn't tell you what I was doing wrong the first time.
  • The setup instructions are quite poorly worded. They're not too tricky, but could do with a bit more care.
  • Not open source. My previous Y-Cam is not receiving updates any more, that's fine as a business decision, but I wish I had the security of knowing that I could update the camera's firmware even after the official support period.
  • The default password is 1234 and should be changed immediately. It would be much better if it was factory-set to the serial number of the device.

Conclusion

For an Internet security camera this is an excellent piece of equipment with a reasonable price point. It's even cheaper if you forgo the SD option.

Set up is complex - but I think that's a good thing. If you want to go down the simple route - you can sign up for Y-Cam's HIVE which is a simple portal for managing and viewing your camera.

You can stream the images & audio via RTSP or HTTP using MJPEG, MPEG4, ASF, or just JPG snapshots.

At this price point, you don't get PTZ or optical zoom. But you do get mobile friendly video streaming and Linux compatibility.

You can buy all the different Y-Cam models at Amazon.

Any questions? Drop them in the comments box and I'll do my best to answer them.

1971 - Bananas

I'm watching all of Woody Allen's films in chronological order.

After his previous films, it's hard to see why anyone would let Woody Allen make another comedy. I'm glad they did! "Bananas" is the first truly funny Woody Allen film. Right from the start it contains gags which - amazingly - make you laugh. A departure from his earlier films!

The jokes come at an even pace, a good mix of satire, slapstick, surrealism, and sight gags. The semi-improvised dialogue has a "stand-up" feel to it.

What's surprising is just how consistent it is. I'm used to being able to sit through 15 minutes of a Woody Allen film without a single laugh - Bananas sets up a relentless modern pace.

You can buy Bananas from Amazon - and I highly recommend it!

1969 - Take the Money and Run

I'm watching all of Woody Allen's films in chronological order.

Take The Money And Run has a promising start. A faux documentary with some excellent gags. But it leaps around the story with no real regard for the viewer.

It's possibly the first "mockumentary" and, as such, is a trail-blazing piece. But as with his earlier films the gags are few and far between. Once the jokes hit, they're often substandard and fall flat.

You can buy Take The Money And Run from Amazon.

Woody Allen Challenge 1965 - What's New Pussycat

I'm watching all of Woody Allen's films in chronological order.

Set in Paris, a struggling writer on the brink of a loveless marriage seeks solace in the city's many nocturnal delights. Featuring a suicidal young woman, a cameo by Toulouse-Lautrec, and some delightful shots of Paris and its surrounding countryside.

What's New Pussycat PosterIs this Woody Allen's "Midnight In Paris"? No, it's his 1965 film "What's New Pussycat".

It is a film of its time - a bawdy sex comedy set in the swinging sixties - so it seems rather unfair to judge it too harshly. Nevertheless it is a noisy and confusing mess. There are snatches of comedic genius in among the confusing plot strands.

Peter O'Toole may be the most devastatingly handsome leading man ever to light up the screen. And of course, only Woody Allen would have the chutzpah to write himself into a role which involves undressing a bevy of strippers.

Sadly, even the sight of Ursula Andress in her underwear fails to lift the film which, by the end, descends into slapstick.

It's not a particularly great start to my Woody Allen Challenge experience. At times the "groovy" costumes elicit greater laughter than the writing.

The film was only written by Woody Allen - he didn't direct it.