AirTurn BT-105 review

The AirTurn BT-105 hands-free page turning system

Earlier this year, I posted a review of AirTurn’s first hands-free page turning system, the AT-104. The 104 operated on RF technology to “turn” digital pages on a connected computer or tablet. AirTurn has now released the BT-105 which uses Bluetooth technology as the model name suggests. The company has taken an already inconspicuous and useful product and shrunk it down to make it even more appealing. You’ll find my review of the AT-104 at this link, and I’ll refer to that article for much of the duplicate information. Continue reading to find out how the BT-105 differs from its predecessor.

Hardware

The BT-105’s profile could hardly be any more svelte. Since your chosen device, be it tablet, laptop, or desktop, already has a Bluetooth radio transceiver inside, there is no need for the USB dongle required by the AT-104. The BT includes two custom-built pedals and the BT transmitter/battery assembly. I was skeptical of the custom pedals when I received the unit in the mail, but was quickly impressed by the build quality and performance. The pedals are made of an extremely durable plastic or resin material, which makes them light and flexible. They are flexible enough to bend and press under your foot, but strong enough to not crack. I can only imagine it would take an elephant with a tuba to damage these during normal use.

The brain of the unit, which includes a non-removable, rechargeable battery, is smaller than the pedals and fits between them. It is mounted securely to the pedals’ base with Velcro. There is a tri-color LED indicator light, two 3.5mm ports for pedal input, a mini USB port for charging, and a small multifunction button. The button acts as power, BT profile change, and pairing toggle all in one.

Function

The BT-105 simply works. It is as responsive and accurate as its predecessor, so there’s really no reason to elaborate on how it performs. The pedals are broad and extremely easy to depress. Finding them with your foot without having them in view is no problem. What’s changed with this model is more on the software and interface end than anything else.

Interface

Since the BT-105 does not have any software included like the AT-104 did, the software side is dependent on whatever application you use on your interfacing device. For my review I used an Apple iPad 2, which is AirTurn’s suggested device. I chose a supported app from the App Store, where there are many compatible options to choose from. After powering on both the iPad’s Bluetooth and the AirTurn device, I was paired and connected within seconds. The app that I downloaded included some public domain music files, so I was up and running with minimal setup.

The only trouble that I had with operating the BT was interpreting the LED indicator. As I said before, there are three colors, amber, red, and green. This makes the possible combinations of indications high. And the BT-105 uses quite a few of them. The manual lists several light patterns, but correlating them to the code that it gives you is every bit as difficult as you might imagine. One example is changing the Bluetooth profile. The BT-105 comes setup for iPad use, but it must be changed to one of the other three profiles to be used with alternate devices. I tried changing it from iPad to PC/Mac mode. The process is described in the manual this way:

“To change to the PC or MAC profile (Profile 1), turn off the BT-105. Then, holding down the foot switch plugged into Port 1-2 (the port closest to the red power switch), turn on the BT-105. Release the foot switch as soon as you see the LED blink. The LED will then blink red, then green, then red, indicating that the profile has been set.”

The process worked as described when I attempted it, but many musicians that aren’t so tech savvy may be intimidated by this process. If you are one that may frequently change devices, this could indeed become very tedious.

Battery

Another advantage that the BT-105 has over the AT-104 is the inclusion of a rechargeable lithium polymer battery. This allows for longer use time and reduces the maintenance cost of the device by not having to endlessly replace alkaline batteries. Despite my initial delight over the battery type, I was alarmed when I first read the following in the operating manual:

“Note: If you fail to charge your battery when it is blinking red, you risk running it down completely which will require a factory replacement.”

Several AirTurn representatives reassured me that this is a warning to users who may neglect to charge the unit even when the LED indicator tells them the battery is almost dead. I was also told that most regular users charge their units weekly and have no trouble. They claim that 99% of units with dead batteries are recoverable when plugged into a wall socket to recharge, but the possibility of totally killing the battery is there.

Summary

With the introduction of the BT-105, AirTurn has delivered another powerful product that will help thrust music performance into the future. All of a musician’s digital sheet music can now be quickly accessed with the swipe of a finger, and it can be effortlessly played through with light taps of the feet. Being made in America, it is great to see a quality product that delivers as advertised while still maintaining a reasonable cost and excellent customer care.

Also posted here.

Extron Institute for Emerging Technology

My partner Tim and I just came back from last month's class on Emerging Technology from the Extron Institute in Anaheim, CA.  The class was divided up into six categories taught over three days:

• ·      Streaming Technologies
• ·      Configurable Control
• ·      Digital Systems
• ·      Fiber Optic Design
• ·      Multi-Image Processing
• ·      Power Amps & Pro DSP

I learned a lot of new information, got up to speed on how things have changed over recent months, and was able to get refreshed on some topics that I had gotten rusty on.

Streaming

If there’s any topic dear to the hearts of Tim and I, it’s streaming media technology.  We were not disappointed during Wednesday’s discussion.  The course instructor gave a succinct overview of historical and current streaming tech also taking time to explain the ins and outs of some of the engineering behind it.  Significant time was spent on comparisons between the ubiquitous H.264 and Extron’s proprietary codec called Pure3.  The Pure3 codec is intended for use in mission-critical application environments where lossless image re-creation and minimal buffering and latency are required.  The side-by-side comparison of Pure3 and H.264 was very interesting.

Pure3 provides a 4:4:4 color space allowing the highest quality imaging to be streamed.  H.264 has a limit of 4:2:0.  Pure3 utilizes Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) compression while H.264 uses Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT).  DWT looks at 32x32 pixel blocks and allows for a more efficient compression over DCT.  Pure3 also uses a technique called Error Concealment to compensate for lost packets.  This causes discreet portions of the image to be temporarily shifted out of place.  Packet loss with other error correction generally results in macro blocking.  Satellite television subscribers see this kind of artifacting frequently during heavy rainstorms.  The final difference between Pure3 and H.264 is that Pure3 does not utilize GOPs.  Each frame is individually processed much like a still image compression like JPEG.  This results in higher quality streams and lower bandwidth usage when still frames or images with static backgrounds are present.

HDCP

High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection.  You may not know the term, but you probably have it in your home.  HDCP is the tech that attempts to prevent things like Blu-Ray disks from being copied.  HDCP utilizes a set number of “keys.”  Whenever HDCP-compliant devices are connected, the devices communicate the presence of these keys among each other to determine if and how the content will be displayed.  There was some discussion of the so-called HDCP “master key” that was leaked out several months ago.  Just last month, several researchers in Germany were able to use that master key to easily bypass HDCP using less than $300 worth of electronics.  This anti-piracy technology has its place, but it is causing headaches for AV professionals.  Allow me to elaborate.

Since each device has a set maximum number of keys allowed (no more than 127), HDCP-compliant devices are limited to that many devices that they can interface with.  Also the number of keys that a given device may have is not always spelled out.  If a project requires more keys than a device can send, the additional displays will be stuck showing a green screen with no content.  Since large-scale installations, such as universities, hospitals, and airports, can often have more than 127 displays, this limits the types of devices that may be used in those situations.  The newer Ultra-Violet encryption technology was not discussed in the course, but it presents an even more foreboding and Draconian future for AV professionals if it takes hold on the market.

Any Extron Institute class presents a fire hose of information, but this three-day class was paced well and peppered with some enlightening discussions among the attendees.  There were some sharp men in that room that really knew their stuff and weren’t afraid to take the instructors to task if they thought they were off on something.  However, I don’t recall him being proved wrong on any major point.  As always, we were treated and fed like royalty, even getting a tour of their main office building and manufacturing process.  Extron is one of an elite group of electronics manufacturers that still makes most of their products in America.  They have an automated facility in Anaheim that solders the boards while assembly personnel put together larger components and prepare packaging for shipments.  Clearly this hasn’t hurt the company as they are building an additional six-story headquarters building in Anaheim for their new West US headquarters.  Their US East HQ is constructing a nearly identical building in Raleigh to house their operations as well.  My hat is tipped to Extron for helping to keep more jobs on US soil when they’re needed more than ever and for having the quality customer care to invite us out for their world-class training.

Adobe Elements 10 Review

The Adobe Elements 10 Organizer interface

Adobe Elements 10 is now available for Mac and PC.  With this tenth release comes a bevy of new features for hobbyist photographers and digi-scrappers to enjoy.  Having used and reviewed the Elements software since version six, I have an easy time telling whether a new version provides significant improvements over its successor or not.  During the Elements 10 preview that Adobe presented, there were some definite “wow” moments.  With loads of new features to explore, I’ll allow you, the user, to experiment and find which ones are best for you.  Following are some of my top features.

Easy type on paths

Typing on paths is super-simple in Elements 10.

Calling this “type on path” does not do justice to what you can do with text in Elements 10.  Drawing any shape or path can quickly be typed on by simply using the new text tool options available.  You can draw a custom shape, selection, or path.  Any of these can then be “committed” onto your document and immediately typed on.  Didn’t get it right the first time?  No problem.  Simply use the appropriate tool again and adjust the points to just what you want.

Visual search

Adobe has answered a request that many people have been asking for to be able to easily locate images that contain more than just people.  The solutions are called “object search” and “visual similarity search.”  The names aren’t necessarily exciting, but the power behind them is.  Object search can be used to find anything included in images such as animals or visual landmarks like houses or monuments.  Once you select the object to be found, Adobe will rapidly search your library and bring up best matches for the item selected.

Setting up to do an "object search"

The object search results 

Visual similarity search results

Visual similarity search can be used to locate images with similar colors or shapes.  A slider appears that you can adjust towards either color or shape depending on the subject matter.  For example, if you’re looking for sunset images to use for a background on a family Christmas letter, move the slider towards color to find those rich golden hues in other images.

Special effects

As usual, Adobe has added a few new special effects to their guided edits in the Elements editor.  Picture Stack makes a popular effect easy by turning one image into a 4, 8, or 12 image collage.  The pictures are given borders and canted and rotated to create a three-dimensional “stack” of photos.

Along the lines of the Lomo effect introduced in Elements 9, the Orton effect is now easy to apply.  Michael Orton is known for his distinct style of photography involving three things: overexposure, soft focus, and camera motion.  The Orton effect quickly allows you to apply these filters to your image and tweak the results.

Bugs

As with any new release, there are some problems to contend with.  I’ve had one issue with images imported from my DSLR not showing up in the Organizer library.  I had a screen-sharing session with Adobe reps in California and India where I replicated the issue for them.  They were not aware of this issue, but are saying that it stems from the fact that my startup disk partition is different from the partition that I installed Elements on.

The other issue caused the Organizer to create out-of-date folders for images taken on the same day.  The second issue is already acknowledged by Adobe, and a fix is in the works.  With time, hopefully Adobe will squash the bugs.

Version 10 of Photoshop Elements provides some very compelling reasons for users to upgrade or buy in for the first time.  If you’re using the software that came with your camera to edit and organizer your images, do yourself and favor and invest in this product.  The new features introduced are helpful especially for those looking to add a little more spice or distinction to their images.  As always, Elements provides easy paths for users to make their images look better than ever.

Adobe Carousel (Revel) Review (UPDATE: 1/12/12)

Memorophilia: the love of memories

Every once in a while a bit of ones and zeros come together to make a piece of software that strikes an unforgettable chord with a user.  Sometimes it makes a lasting impression that a person will look back on for the rest of his or her life.  One of those moments for me was the first time I played Super Mario Bros. I was at my cousin’s house, and everyone else remembers how I was so into the game that I would actually lift my arms spastically whenever I wanted Mario to jump.  I just remember the empowering experience of holding a plastic controller in my hand and causing the image of a man on a screen to do whatever I told him to do.  While Adobe Carousel doesn’t quite meetup to the high standard set by good ol’ Mario, it certainly has made a lasting impression and brings up quite a few questions as to what the future of photo storage and sharing will look like. Tech bloggers have long been heralding the demise of everything from the mouse to the desktop computer, but few have dared to become the literary harbinger of the death of the physical photo album.  Carousel may just be the shot heard ‘round the world in that story.

First off, a little background.  If you are not familiar with Carousel, let me summarize it for you.  Carousel is an app currently available for iOS and Mac OSX Lion.  It allows a subscriber to store an unlimited number of photos on Adobe’s cloud for in-app access on any of these platforms.  Users can create different Carousels(which are like albums),that allow them to share those photo groups with other Carousel users.  The length and breadth of Carousel’s feature set has already been documented here, so take a few minutes to review that article before continuing. Now for a small disclaimer - the first hands-on time that I got with Carousel was on the iPad 2. Coincidentally, this was the first time I’ve used any iPad or iOS device for that matter.  I tried to look beyond that to give an objective view of how the app stands alone, but sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between what is a plus or minus because of the app or the OS.  That being said, my review of Carousel is an attempt to look only at the app’s performance and is not meant to reflect in any way on the performance of iOS.  Since Carousel is also a desktop app, I ran it on my 15” Core i7 MacBook Pro.

You're first presented with this screen when you run Carousel on the iPad or OSX.

Carousel for all current platforms (Windows and Android support are on the slate for early 2012) is available only in the Apple App Stores for iOS and OSX. Installation is simple and painless, removing the extra step of saving aDMG file and running the installer. If you have an Adobe ID like you would use for Photoshop.com or Photoshop Elements, you simply sign in with those credentials to get started.  Setting up a new account is as easy as getting a Gmail account.  You can choose to either start a 30 day trial or go ahead and pay for a subscription upfront.

iOS

Starting with the iPad, I activated my Carousel account 30-day trial with my existing Adobe ID. Aside from a few screenshots with basic instructions, there isn’t any detailed “getting started” guide offered. There isn’t a need for one. You are automatically setup with one Carousel.  From there, just start adding images.  I installed Dropbox on the iPad and starting bringing some photos that I had stored there into the iPad’s photo library.  After that, Carousel could import them in bulk.  At the bottom left corner, there’s a indicator light telling you if Carousel is online or offline and in sync or synchronizing. You can tap a “view status” button to see details on the activity currently in progress.

Getting the images uploaded is almost imperceptible.  The pictures are either there or not.  There’s no waiting for spinning icons or staring at fuzzy lo-res thumbnails telling you that the image isn’t actually there yet.  If you can see it in Carousel, it’s there, and you can start manipulating it.

Image Editing

Looking at "looks" on the iPad.

While Carousel is no Photoshop, it does share some similarities while still distinguishing itself from its older, more feature-rich brother.  Image modification is broken down into three basic categories: Looks, Adjustments,and Crop & Rotate.  “Looks”gives you a variety of predetermined filters and effects to choose from.  Selecting one gives your entire photo a quick overhaul.  Vignettes, color balance, and sharpness are a few of many different parameters shuffled around when you browse through the various buttons.

“Adjustments” is where the real magic happens, but here is where I find my first beef with Carousel. Under the adjustments panel, you’re presented with white balance,exposure, and contrast.  Unless you know to click the double arrows on each, you won’t realize that each of these three sliders also has three more adjustments underlying.  The icon should probably be traded out for something more familiar like a drop-down arrow.

In the style of consumer-oriented photo editors, there are obvious “auto” buttons that will allow the algorithms take the place of your eyes to try and figure out the best tweaks for your photograph.  Adjusting the sliders manually gives a very fast preview of how your image is affected.  With the iPad 2’s dual core chip, it was difficult to notice even the slightest lag in response. There’s also a handy “compare” button always available north of the adjustments,which allows you to quickly A/B between your original and the new version.  Once you’re happy with the results,click “apply” to save the changes and be sent back to your Carousel.

The "adjustments" screen on the Mac.

Sharing with Lion

After I was comfortable with the iOS version of Carousel, I installed the application on my laptop to compare.  Signing in with my Adobe ID on Lion immediately displayed my Carousel images.  Adobe has some sort of pixie dust working behind the scenes, because once you’re logged in, there is virtually no delay until you can start viewing and editing your images.  It seems that the images are fully stored in the cloud, but they can, almost like video, be immediately streamed to the device once an image is requested. It’s hard to explain, but it works really well in practice.

My wife and I then sat side-by-side on the same wi-fi connection.  I wielded the iPad while she handled the MacBook.  The first thing that we noticed was that all of my edits were visible on her interface, including photos I had starred as favorites.  She opened an image that I had modified and found that the adjustment sliders were in the same positions that I had set them to.  She could then manipulate the image further and save those changes. The updated image showed up on my side within seconds.  The beauty of always remembering the slider positions is that you never have to choose between saving a new version or overwriting your original.  You can simply reset the sliders to zero and undo any other changes very easily.  A button allowing all changes to be reset to zero would be very handy.  If you do want to keep different versions of a photo, you can choose to duplicate your image and try another look.  My wife and I went back and forth for awhile in a game of photo manipulation pinball until we finally caused Carousel to blink.

Sample of my Carousels on the Mac.

I made a cropping adjustment to a particular photo, and it would not refresh on her end.  I even tried cropping it again with no result.  Then I tried editing other images and they refreshed as expected.  That one image stubbornly refused to update.  Finally, she opened it and made her own cropping change.  Then it updated my iPad version to look like hers.  We then pushed it even further by trying to edit the same image at once.  I was told in a pre-release briefing by Adobe that if this happened, the users would be presented with a choice.  They would be shown both edited images and be asked to choose which one they wanted to go with.  We couldn’t get this feature to work,so it seems that whoever hits the  “apply” button last wins.  This could be a real thorn in the side for large groups that are working within the same Carousel at once.

Unification

For the most part, the iOS version and OSX version are very similar.  There were only two significant differences I noticed. One was that some buttons are arranged a little differently between the two versions.  The other was the icon for entering the adjustment mode. The iOS version says “develop,” while the OSX version has an“adjustment” icon similar to Adobe’s other products: a plus and minus with a triangle on it.  Still, I’ll give them an A for keeping the two versions extremely similar in look, feel, and function.

While the Lion version of Carousel is supposed to support it’s all-important multi-touch gestures, I could get none of them to work in my testing.  The iOS version supports pinch-to-zoom as well as any other program, but the desktop version simply would not respond.  It seems that three-finger rotation is not supported in either version.

The future’s gonna cost

With Adobe being first to market with software that accomplishes all of these features, they have the advantage of getting first crack at trying to set a trend for how the business model will work.  A 30-day trial is offered to anyone who wants to give Carousel a spin before committing.  However, after January 31, 2012, those same users and any new arrivals will be forking over $99.99 for each year that they want their photos stored on Carousel’s servers. Perspective compels us to remember that the cost doesn’t just pay for cloud storage of a photo library. It’s also including the software used to edit and share the images.  Plus, each Carousel can be shared with up to five others.  In reality,that $100 per year can get you a lot of functionality and allows you to even consider sharing the financial load with other family members that may want to participate in your Carousels. While $8.25 per month isn’t a bank-breaker for most, it’s also not an amount that would fall within many people’s “mad money” expenditure.  The challenge will be whether Adobe can get consumers to see this convenience as a necessity and not just a luxury.

Conclusion

During pre-release screenings and hands-on testing, Carousel has left an indelible impact on me several times.  The speed and invisibility of the sync process evoked some audible “wows” from me.  Adobe has combined their powerful algorithm arsenal with their ability to simplify image editing, creating another piece of technology that can entice a broad audience of consumers.  The warning signs that stand out to me have to do mostly with dilution of their brand.  Adobe was wise to leave the name“Photoshop” out of Carousel completely. With multiple versions of Photoshop already available for desktops,mobile phones, and tablets, another namesake would probably have caused overload for people looking for the right software solution.  The question remains, though, how people that already use Photoshop.com for cloud storage in Elements will accept to this new and familiar challenger.

My prediction is that by this time next year, we’ll see Adobe clearly favoring one of these solutions or the other based on the successor failure of Carousel.  I love the idea of having my entire photo library accessible anywhere at anytime, provided have my device of choice with me, but it may be worth the wait to see who challenges Adobe’s pole position and starts the pricing war.

UPDATE

Adobe announced yesterday that they are renaming Carousel to Adobe Revel.  I'm still a bit on the fence with the new name, but to me it describes the product even less than the original name.  Either way, Revel is here to stay.

Adobe Carousel First Look

Adobe Carousel Icon

Today, at their annual Photoshop World conference in Las Vegas, Adobe is announcing a new consumer-facing software product called Carousel.  Carousel, a photo library management app, is one part cloud storage, one part photo sharing, and one part photo editor.  Read on to find out what it does and what sets it apart.

Grado SR125i headphones review

Grado SR125i in the box

If you looked at the photo of the Grado SR125s on the left and thought, “Who in their right mind would buy those ugly things?!” you’re not alone.  And if you looked at the photo and thought, “Those headphones look like they’re from the 1960s,” you’re not far from the truth.  When I first spotted a set of Grado cans online, those were thoughts that went through my head.  The first ones that I laid eyes on were the PS1000s which retail for somewhere north of $1,500.  I don’t know about you, but when I see a product that has little or no visual appeal or heavy marketing, yet commands a steep price, I take notice.  After I began researching Grado Labs, I quickly learned why they are priced the way they are.

Oak Ridge Baptist Church spring outreach videos

Today, I finished up a DVD invitation for my home church.  The main video is an invite to upcoming special meetings meant for adults in our community.  I did all of the production and post with some help from the church's assistant pastor, Jon Kopp.  We've been making these videos every spring for the last 4 years, and this is the best one so far.  Hope you enjoy watching them!

http://vimeo.com/20959260