Another week is here and I’m planning out content for the week ahead. After I take the dog for her morning walk I’ll be starting on the Weekly Wrapup. This week we’re going to take a look at a new effort by big corporations to apply copyright filters to the entire Internet. This new effort by the same cast of characters reminds me a lot of the SOPA/PIPA debacle from a decade ago.
We’re also going to take a look at that $99 Chromebook that’s on sale at Target (affiliate link), do a mini-haul video of a cool retro video game lot I bought at an estate auction, start working on reviewing a new Thudnerbolt 4 dock from HP, and maybe do a bit more with the MiSTer project now that some new 32 bit cores have come out. Beyond that component shortages have left me short of new stuff to review!
One of the reasons I set up the Extra’s Channel is to have a place for doing supplementary content that won’t overload subscribers with too much Lon.TV stuff all at once. This weekend I uploaded a snippet from a recent live stream I did on the DJI Mic to demonstrate how external microphones sound through the transmitter.
I left that out of the initial review as the sound quality of the external mic will vary based on the mic being used! While it’s easy to demonstrate the built-in mics as every user will experience the same thing, it’s much harder to give a clear example when there are so many different types of mics that can be plugged in.
But I had a ton of questions about it and many more “thumbs ups” on those questions. Thankfully I had a great livestream the other day where we tested the feature and I was able to pull the video from that.
If YouTube would allow us mere mortals to replace an already posted video I would have totally done that here. But hopefully those looking for a demo will be able to find it on the Extra’s channel.
DJI is known for their great drones and camera systems but they are venturing into a new area of content creation: audio. This very simple new wireless microphone system has two transmitters with built in mics. It instantly provides dual or single channel audio for interviews to smartphones, cameras, and PCs. Just make sure you don’t lose all of the little parts it comes with.
The system works similar to a pair of Airpods in that the included case also charges the components. The system can operate for about 5 hours on a charge. Unfortunately the batteries are built-in and not swappable or replaceable but USB-C ports on the receiver and transmitters allow for external power or batteries.
The receiver connects to cameras with a 3.5mm line out and to smartphones with included USB-C and lightning adapters. Those are the tiny pieces you don’t want to lose.
The transmitters each have internal storage that can hold about 15 hours of audio. This is a good safety net should something go wrong in the field so you can fix audio issues in post production. There’s also an option to record a -6db safety track to prevent clipping for your louder guests. The units connect to a PC via their USB-C ports and the storage will pop up like a USB thumb drive. But it stores the audio in 30 minute increments. The recordings are seamless but a two hour production will result in four 30 minute files that you’ll have to stitch together.
Audio quality is decent out of the built in Mics but they are omnidirectional and as such will pick up a lot of ambient noise. They also sounded bassier and a little muffled as compared to my more expensive Sennheiser lavalier mics. The DJI microphones will not work well in noisy environments like busy streets, convention floors, etc. The transmitters work over the very busy 2.4ghz radio spectrum and will be prone to interference in busier environments like urban offices, etc.
Each transmitter has a 3.5mm audio input for attaching an external microphone. I was able to get my Sennheiser lavalier to connect through the DJI system without issues.
For a first generation product this feels incredible polished. So much so that I am going to hang onto these for when I need something simple for a field production involving my smartphones.
I’m always looking for helpful ways to mount my iPad and other tablet devices in a variety of situations. The HoverBar Duo (affiliate link) appealed to me because it offered the flexibility of a desk stand along with a clamp-on configuration for mounting it on desks, shelves, etc.
But I found the product falls short. It requires tools even for basic adjustments. And most of it has to be disassembled and reassembled each time it’s moved from stand mode to clamp mode. And be sure you don’t lose all the parts when switching it back and forth.
Just acquired a new set piece! A local estate auction had an original Gameboy lot that included the box in what looks like great condition along with a few games. I’ll probably sell off the games and accessories but keep the unit and box. Oddly it looks like it’s coming with an NES RF adapter..
My first amateur radio project is to make contact with the ISS through a repeater onboard the station. I have yet to be successful being heard but I have managed to tune into the repeater for a majority of the station’s pass overhead. What do you hear? Not the astronauts but other amateur radio operators transmitting signals through the station’s repeater. They talk quickly but there’s very limited time to make contacts. Usually it’s just a call sign, an acknowledgement, and a farewell.
Because the station is moving so fast towards me and then away from me, the radio’s tuner needs to be adjusted slightly as it passes to account for the doppler effect. This video from Tech Minds was really helpful in dialing in the right frequencies. So that was the big progress I made last night – before that I could only hear the repeater for a minute or two. Last night I got about 5 minutes out of it – the duration of the pass in range of my location.
After I make verbal contact I’m also going to attempt to bounce some data packets off of its digipeater!
Unihertz is a budget smartphone maker that focuses on two niches: Tiny rugged phones and phones with blackberry style keyboards. Both product families are full featured Android phones. You can see all of my prior Unihertz reviews here.
Their latest phone, now available on Kickstarter for pre-order, is a new keyboard phone that has a more traditional smartphone shape called the Titan Slim. You can watch my full review here.
Their prior keyboard devices had square screens that often had compatibility issues with apps that expected a more square display. This one addresses that problem with a 720p rectangular display. It’s not perfect and runs with budget specs but it may be exactly what fans of physical keyboard phones have been looking for.
I’ve always ben surprised by how well Unihertz phone reviews perform on the channel vs. other budget smartphones. While their appeal has a narrow audience it’s a large enough market to build a successful company focused on specific form factors other manufacturers abandoned.
DJI is known as a drone manufacturer but they’ve more recently ventured into other areas of video production mostly centered around their camera and gimbal systems. Their new product, DJI Mic, is a wireless audio system for video creators. I purchased a kit for review on the channel.
I’m really impressed with the build quality on this one but the audio through the microphones is not spectacular. I still have a few more things to test and hope to have my review ready by the weekend. Stay tuned!
I was assigned my callsign from the FCC last night so now I’m officially an amateur radio operator! I already made my first contact with somebody off a local repeater station. He’s located about 20 miles away from me. The cool thing is that he’s been into contacting the ISS and other orbiting satellites which is something I’m interested in too.
I’m sure we’ll have more to come on the radio topic!
At 9 a.m. eastern time today the House Intelligence Committee will host the first public hearing on UFOs (now known as “unidentified aerial phenomena” or UAP) since the 1960s.
There will likely be a classified portion of the hearing that will have more details but I am interested in hearing what comes out during the public portion. According to Politico there’s some tension internally between the intelligence community, the Department of Defense, and Congress. Here’s what one anonymous official told reporter Bryan Bender:
“They fetishize their secret society,” the official said. “It’s kind of a Skull and Bones-type vibe. They take it seriously but they have no accountability. Zero. There is a whole group of us that know in great detail this subject, a lot of which has not been reported to Congress because of security issues.”
So I took my technician test and passed it with only two incorrect answers out of 35. Now I’m waiting for the FCC to process my application and assign me a call sign. I won’t be able to start transmitting on my radio until I show up in the FCC’s database a little later this week or next.
You can’t encrypt any communications – even when when using digital modes. There is one carve out for sending commands to orbiting amateur radio satellites but that’s it as far as encryption goes.
Anonymous transmissions are prohibited. Amateur operators need to identify themselves with their call signs. And the database of call signs and licenses is public information available to all. I did discover a few good friends of mine locally are licensed operators! I had no idea they were until now.
No swearing or obscene language. This one speaks for itself.
No broadcasting. Amateur radio is typically a 1 to 1 communication between two operators. While you can make more general calls for testing your radio you are prohibited from reporting the news or having a nightly radio show. There are exceptions for emergencies where providing a general broadcast can help save lives and property but that’s the only exception.
Stay in your lane: The FCC has assigned specific radio bands to amateurs where they are allowed to operate. As a holder of a technician license I am limited mostly to local communications. Operating on the longer range high frequency (or HF) bands requires upgrading to the general license. I am allowed to operate in a narrow stretch of bandwidth in the 10 meter space, however.
There will of course be more to come on this topic! Stay tuned!
I used to dread Mondays back when I was working a regular job but now I kind of look forward to them. There’s always something I look forward to working on even if it’s a mundane tech product or topic.
Here’s what is preliminarily on the docket for this week. If you are receiving this as part of my digest email hit the reply button and tell me what you’d most like to see first. If you’re not the list sign up via the link or on the left hand side of the screen!
This week’s Weekly Wrapup will be about my HAM radio license exam and some of the things that make amateur radio very different from the Internet when it comes to what you can say and do.
A review of the HoverBar Duo iPad stand. They call it the duo because it can either clamp to something or sit on its base. But it’s a nightmare to work with. This video is already done and just waiting for a slot on the YouTube channel. You can watch it on Amazon right now.
A look at DJI’s new wireless microphone kit. I like easy-to-use production gear so I’m eager to play with it. Although I don’t think anything can top my amazing Sennheiser AVX mics.
HP has a Thunderbolt dock that appears to be a bit different from other Thunderbolt docks we’ve looked at. Supposedly it has some security features that other docks don’t. I need to dig into this a little bit so it might not pop up until next week.
It’s also time for a MiSTer update! Lots of cool new cores worth talking about like the 32x and Playstation cores.
Of course my week is subject to change based on what comes in. Sometimes a shiny object might appear and that’ll take me off course :).
The problem with social media as I see it is as follows: attention seeking narcissists troll other narcissists who then air grievances seeking attention from their followers who in turn amplify the original attack in the hopes of being noticed by the aggrieved for doing so.
It’s a self perpetuating cycle that unfortunately the social engines are tuned to promote and profit from.
Blackmagic makes great production gear that works well in low budget operations like mine but also at the professional broadcast level. I use a lot of their stuff for my day-to-day operations.
One of their newest products is this oddity called the “Cloud Pod” (compensated affiliate link) and is the subject of my latest video.
The Cloud Pod is a very simple network attached storage device (NAS) that allows for two USB-C portable SSDs to be connected and turned into network accessible drives.
It uses a 10 gig network connection (see my multigigabit coverage here) but it also appears to step down to slower speeds including 2.5 gig connections. It’s hindered by the slower USB Gen 1 speeds that max out at 5 gigabits per second. Most portable SSDs these days use faster Gen 2 connections that can achieve 10 gigabits per second. The result is that your drive on the Cloud Pod will perform at half the speed it does when directly connected to a computer. That said the USB ports don’t share a bus so each can deliver its full performance simultaneously (about 400 megabytes per second each).
The Cloud Pod has no security – no usernames, no passwords, nada. So devices on the same network that have SMB support (like everything) can access the Cloud Pod and read and write data from it. You can limit the device to read-only but it applies that rule to both drives.
It has a really cool status screen that it outputs through an HDMI output on the back to a display. Oddly there is no web control panel to monitor the device – you’ll only see status if you plug a monitor into it. The HDMI is an output only for the status screen – it doesn’t support ingest.
I was able to edit a 2 camera 4k 60 multicam project over a 10 gig connection with about the same performance I get when directly connected to the SSDs. But I was maxing out the connection with original media so a third camera angle would have created issues unless I switched to lower res proxy files. It supports syncing to Dropbox which might be useful for sending proxies to remote users. It says it supported Google Drive on the box but the software doesn’t yet support it.
The target market for this one is quite limited but I can see it being useful for a small production team. Just be super careful who has access to your local network because there is no way to restrict who can read, write, and change files on the drive.
