The problem with a moniker like Picture Porter Elite, classy sounding or not, is that it conjures up notions of a digital bucket of sorts, compatible primarily with still photos. That is far from true for this well-rounded portable media player. Its roots are in the realm of the memory-card reader, which began its life as a PC accessory and later became a freestanding device with its own onboard data storage. You could insert cards while out in the field and safely archive their contents onto the unit's built-in hard drive, thereby freeing up the precious removable media real estate so you could snap new pictures and/or lens new video. A small LCD let you interface with your multimedia content. To expedite the transfers, it displayed file names, file types, and so on. The Piture Porter Elite uses a bigger color screen and has the necessary decoding so you can view your images and movies. Throw in music playback just because everyone everywhere is listening to MP3s, and you begin to formulate a sense of what this device can do. It also connects to a video source and records content to play back on the go later. Or you can park the Picture Porter Elite next to an audio/video system, patch it in with the included cables, and view all of the content on your TV. You can zoom, pan, and rotate your photos or easily print them via a simple USB connection to a PictBridge-compliant printer. The FM radio has a bold, clever graphic user interface and is a nice bonus. (The included headphones serve double duty as an antenna.) There's even a voice recorder with an embedded microphone and a pre-loaded game: It's Tetris, even though they call it Matrix.
At the Dolby booth, this prototype of the first-ever audio/video receiver with the new Dolby Volume technology was on display outside their mini-theater. Onkyo, with a tradition of early integration of new audio technologies, won the honor of debuting the new process which organically rejiggers the loud and quiet parts of a soundtrack within a scene, such as hard-to-hear dialogue amid background sound effects, as well as equalizing the levels between two different programs when we change channels or go to commercial, with very enjoyable results in all of the demo I've heard in the past year. Clearly this is something that consumers have been demanding, one of those seemingly simple problems that's a bear to solve (otherwise everyone would do it!)
Dual-core and other Intel technologies are a boon to heavy users of multimedia PCs.
One wife, two kids, and one cat later, it hit me: There are just not enough hours in the day. My leisure hours, like work, have become a matter of multitasking—watching a DVD in one window as I write a review in the other, downloading photos, and sending e-mails. I can no longer use the "I'm already busy" excuse since, frankly, I'm expected to walk and chew gum at the same time around here. And what of my poor PC, which is charged with performing all of the above and more? At least I know I'm not alone, here at wit's end, as the fundamental usage model has evolved and one-thing-at-a-timers have gone the way of the Timex Sinclair.
Within the first few minutes of E.T., old-timers like me who remember seeing it on the big screen 30 years ago can’t help but recall why this movie was a bona fide cultural event, the likes of which we seldom see anymore. Oft copied, never equaled, it is an exquisitely crafted piece of cinema by a virtuoso at the top of his game. E.T. tells the tale of a lost, lonely visitor and his equally lonely host, an ordinary boy named Elliott. It celebrates the universal childhood fantasy of a secret best friend…and that other one about the flying bicycles. Rough around the edges though it may seem by today’s standards, this 1982 original version remains one of the most profoundly moving films most people will ever see.
The size of a deck of cards, Verbatim's new 2.1-gigabyte Store 'n' Go HD Drive offers the blazing speed of a USB 2.0 connection (which also powers the little guy), meaning that even enormous MPEG video files can be transferred fast. The vast capacity of the one-inch, 4,200RPM hard disk puts it in a class above the popular flash memory drives, to hold almost half a DVD's worth of video... or music or photos or any other files you care to drag and drop. The Store 'n' Go is plug-and-play for Windows ME or better--Win98SE users, keep that driver CD handy--and is also Mac- and Linux-ready. The built-in USB cable means you never need to search for it, although an extension cable is also included, and at under two ounces this drive is light enough to carry around your neck, with a lanyard and protective carrying pouch supplied for that very purpose.
The latest FireBall aims to give us what we've been missing.
One of the benefits of talking about home theater all day every day is that I get to hear people ask questions like this: "I'd buy a DVD megachanger if there were a way to keep track of my hundreds of discs, but what choice do I have?" Apparently, the spies from Escient were eavesdropping. Their FireBall DVDM-100 DVD and Music Manager has been designed specifically to integrate with the latest generation of super DVD jukeboxes to help identify and organize all of the movies and music stored inside, with a little help from the Internet. You can find a specific DVD in a hurry, sort through all of your comedies, or visually search through all of the covers, right from the sofa.
A bigger hard drive, a little time, and you're halfway there. I'm a lucky guy. My wife and I have had only one major squabble since the beginning of the year, and it was about sharing the space on our personal video recorder's rapidly filling hard drive. My problem: I've fallen behind in archiving and deleting my keeper episodes. Hers: She waits too long to watch her recorded Ally McBeal, Buffy, and Friends, and the PVR automatically purges them. Although many possible solutions exist (Ally was cancelled, thankfully), the simplest would be to add a larger hard drive. Compared with the purchase of a newer, higher-capacity PVR, this approach is quite economical, and it's a project that a home theater buff with some electronics/computer expertise can tackle.
Budget receivers can make anyone a home theater meister.
I'm a simple man. As I travel this great land of ours, for both business and pleasure, most of my conversations with others sooner or later lead to two topics: movies and their inevitable offshoot, home theater. I rarely discuss the specifics of what I'm packing at Rancho Chiarella; rather, I listen to the wide-eyed yearnings of the hard-working Everyman who dreams of experiencing all that a respectable A/V system can deliver. For so many of the folks I've talked with, an affordable home theater receiver is the key to their wish fulfillment.
Film editor Thelma Schoonmaker on movie quotes, fact versus fiction, and "Marty withdrawal."
Thelma Schoonmaker has been director Martin Scorsese's editor of choice ever since their shared career-defining turn on Raging Bull. With a collaboration spanning almost four decades, Schoonmaker recently won her second Academy Award and has been nominated for three others in the past. She took time off from her work on the upcoming crime drama The Departed to rewind with us.
Chris Chiarella
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