Mailbag #3

- (1) Jose: What happens to my TV and DVD in February 2009?    In the United States starting in February 2009 all analog singals will be turned off and replaced with digital signals. Digital signals allow muiltple channels transfered at the same time compared to the analog which only allows a signal channel tranmission at any one point in time. For more information on this visit the U.S. Department of Commerce website at http://www.dtv2009.gov/. When over-the-air TV moves to digital in 2009 your old VCRs and DVD players will still work fine. Canada will make the analog to digital transition August 31, 2011. For more information about the Canada transition visit: http://www.tinyurl.com/43pqfb. For additional information on a variety of different countries visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/digital_switchover.

- (2) Andy: Which Panasonic LCD television should I get?    The difference between the model 80 and model 85 is the number of HDMI connectors. We recommand getting the model 85 with more HDMI connectors.

- (3) Michael: Feedback on episode 121?    Two additional PVR solutions include SageTV and SnapStream Beyond TV.

- (4) Demar: Will you need new hardware to use an Apple TV as a PVR?    In theory, Apple could release a downloadable firmware upgrade to enable such a feature, but it's more likely that Apple will release new hardware. Presently, there is a hack to enable your Apple TV to playback more video and audio codec's. In fact, it requires you to remove the hard drive and install patches using another computer. Not for the faint of heart.

- (5) Ed: How do you update high-def DVD players?    Both HD DVD and Blu-ray players have a ethernet network connection on the back of the device which enables instant online firmware updates.

- (6) Shawn: Are there any good free video editing programs?    No, because most of the good programs cost money. These programs use codec's which require license fees. A good fairly cheap choice would be Adobe Premiere Elements for about $99 US. A viewer recommands, Sony Vegas, which is a bit more expensive than Adobe Premiere Elements. If you truely want a free solution without all the bells and whistles your only choice would be a run it on the Linux platform. Apple computers includes a decent video editing application called iMovie.

- (7) Dadonna: What's the deal with Soild State Drives?    Check out episode 116 for more information.

- (8) Bill: Can you please change the popping sound?    No, we like it.

- (9) Roberto: Why are there black bars on my widescreen TV?    For the answer please go back and watch episode 111.

- (10) Isaac: Any resources for total beginners?    For more information on definitions of all those technology words, visit http://www.webopedia.com/.

- NAT = Network Address Translation.

- HDMI connector = High Definition Multimedia Interface. This is an all-in-one connector that handles both video and audio. HDMI should be your first choice to connect any device to your TV.