3D TV Will Be In Your Home Soon - Are You Ready?

Panasonic is leading the way in an exciting new technology called 3D-TV. 3D appears to be the next major leap in technology after the HDTV revolution. But don't put all of your equipment up for sale on ebay just yet. Early reports are mixed but its likely that early adopters will be able to purchase 3-D HDTV equipment as early as 2010. But it will likely be quite some time before an extensive library of content is available to view. There are currently some great cutting edge 3D movies in the theater including James Cameron's Avatar featuring aliens on the planet Pandora, and Disney's Christmas Carol. These are likely candidates to be some of the first feature films available for purchase for 3-D home viewing.

So what will you need to replace? Everything. A new HDTV, a new 3D blu-ray player, and you will also need special 3-D glasses in order to create the 3-D effect....yes it does seem strange to picture the entire family sitting together at night wearing funny glasses. I sometimes wonder if the effect will initially be too strong and too immersive for viewers with short-attention spans. I know I often do other things why I am watching television. Will I want to putting my glasses on and taking them off over and over? Will you be able to have conversations with your fellow viewers during a 3-D football game? Ultimately, its likely that this technology will be widely adopted in 15 years, but I do think there may be a long learning period and some major adjustments in viewing habits. I can see the concept working great for dedicated home theaters, but not so well for multi-use environments. Nevertheless, I look forward to the opportunity to test 3-D TV in the near future.

Stream Pandora Radio in Your Car

One of the best new iphone apps is the free Pandora radio application. Pandora radio allows you to build custom radio stations based on your favorite artists and tweak your radio stations as you listen. Its a great free web-app for laptop music, but with an iphone you can take Pandora with you anywhere. 

My car has a simple line-in audio auxillary jack that I can plug my iphone into. The Pandora iphone app is designed to stream over Wifi, 3G or Edge, and audio quality is adjusted based on the quality of your data connection. I tested Pandora both in the city with a good 3G connection and also on a road trip where only Edge was available. 

3G streaming had great quality and zero interruptions during my test. I found it to be a perfectly functioning music option for city driving. Think of it as a free alternative to satellite radio. 

With Edge, I found the quality to be noticeable lower, however, it was still adequate. During my 2 hour drive through the country, the phone stopped for bufferring about 3 or 4 times. Most of the skips came early on when I first started the app. Once it got going, I had at least an hour of uniterrupted music. 

I found Pandora to be a nice option for road trips when you grow tired of your own collection or just want to hear some new music. I could do without the skips, but overall it was not enough of an annoyance to prevent me from using the app on the road when I am restricted to an Edge connection. 

The iPhone is Perfect for a Whole House Music System

When the iPhone released its new "app store" in the summer of 2008, there was a lot of excitement over the possibile apps that would be designed in order to give the phone new capabilities. Six months later, one thing is becoming increasingly clear........the iPhone is the perfect controller for a whole-house home music system. 

Here's why:

One of the first apps released for the iPhone was the Apple Remote. This free app gives iPhone users the ability to control iTunes remotely over a wifi network. You can also control and Apple TV and extend Itunes through the use of Apple's Airport Express router. The Apple Remote interface resembles the iPod interface. Just connect to your Itunes library over wifi and you will see all of your songs and playlists neatly organized on your iPhone. Are there limitations? Yes. You can play the same music in multiple rooms, but you can't play different music in different rooms. However, its still a very cool system and gives you the ability to access your entire music selection from your iPhone. 

Sonos recently released a free iPhone app that gives you the ability to control an entire Sonos whole-house music system. I previewed the system on their website and it looks very well done. The main advantage is that you can forgo buying a $400 Sonos controller, making it much cheaper to set-up a basic Sonos music system. Plus Sonos gives you the ability to play the same or different music in different rooms of the house, and gives you access to Pandora, Rhapsody, Sirius, and internet radio stations. 

Here's another great app for those of you that own the Roku Soundbridge. Roku Remote allows you to remotely control 1 or more Soundbridge systems using and iPhone interface that resembles the organizational structure on your Soundbridge. I find it to be a more friendly way to browse and play my music that using the Soundbridge itself. Plus, it adds album art and lyrics to your iPhone when you select a track to play. All in all, a great app. 

These are 3 great options to stream music through your house. And I'm sure there may be many more to come. If you have an iPhone, take advantage of these capabilities to get the most out of your music collection. 

Apple iPhone 3g

This is my first post in blogger using the apple iphone 3g. I'm using the blogger interface directly at blogger.com in edit HTML mode and it's working nicely. I'm able to use the keyboard in landscape mode which gives you a little more space on the onscreen keyboard. I'm still a little slow on the keyboard but I am attempting to type using two thumbs. I'll have a full review posted soon.

Panasonic's New Plasma Line

Panasonic's 2008 line of plasma TV's looks to be a good one. If you are a budget-minded consumer, you may want to look at the TH-PX80U series, which comes in sizes of 42" and 50". The 50" model lists at $1,699 but can be found online for as low as $1,239.

It got a nice review on Cnet and features an improved anti-reflective screen and SD-card input slot that is compatible with the gallery player adapter.

Other features include:

• "720p" native resolution (42-inch: 1,24x768; 50-inch 1,366x768)
• 15,000:1 native contrast ratio
• Three HDMI inputs
• Game mode

Home Theater Paint

I recently finished painting my home theater and while doing research I found a useful article on painting a home theater that I used as a guide. Formerly, my walls were painted a light beige color that reflected too much light. I decided to replace that paint with a Streudel color from Ralph Lauren. Its a chocolate brown that looks quite dark with the lights out. Although a flat paint is ideal, I decided to go with a Satin for some additional protection. I wanted a paint that would absorb more light without looking to dark. I have a front-projector and the previous paint would "light-up" during bright scenes.

Here's a list of do's and don'ts from Dennis on Home Theater Paint:

• Choose a high-quality paint
• Do not use a gloss or semi-gloss - stick with flat (best) or satin.
  
• Avoid blues and reds, as they will give off a colored glow during bright scenes.
  
• Stick with neutrals and browns.
  
• Test samples of wallpaper with your projector on before purchasing to make sure that it doesn't reflect too much light.
  

Another thing to consider, if you were projecting on a blank wall, a dark paint color will certainly require you to purchase a separate screen.

How to Sync Google Calendar with Outlook

Here's a cool feature for those of you who use Gmail and Google Calendar. Google has an application available for free that allows 2-way syncing between your Outlook Calendar and your Google Calendar. I use Outlook Calendar, so syncing with Google Calendar gives me an easy way to check and update my Outlook Calendar from any computer.

Its easy to install, simply install the app from google, enter your gmail username and password, and select 2-way or 1-way syncing. 2-way syncing updates events on both calendars to match each other. 1-way syncing updates either your Google or Outlook calendar exclusively. You can also select how often you want the sync to occur. The default is 120 minutes.

That's it. You should notice your google calendar updating immediately with your outlook events. I tested putting a new event in the google calendar to see how it would work. The same event popped up in Outlook seconds later. Pretty nice. I plan on using this feature with the new iPhone so that I always have access to my up-to-date Calendar.