Buying Digital Camera

THINKING OF BUYING NEW DIGITAL CAMERA

Finally you managed to amass enough money to buy new digital camera which you want it for so long. Digital camera which will now save your time and money to develop a film. But when you see the range of available brands and models in the market you are confused which digital camera you want to go with? Well, don’t worry its human nature we like to have variety of options to choose from; but when it’s come to choosing one of it, we get confused no matter what. It happened with me too; so I will let you know how I overcome it. For that you need to ask some questions to yourself such as, do you want to become a travel photographer? If you do, then a camera with high optical zoom is best for you. Or do you simply want to capture happy moments with your family? If yes, then a basic digital camera will serve your purpose. Are you going to print all your images in large sizes? If yes, then a high resolution camera is the best option for you. Are you going on a long vacation and looking for a camera that can capture and store hundreds of images? If yes, then a camera with a high storage capacity is what you need. Just ask yourself these basic questions to find which digital camera best suits your needs.

Now, let us understand some terms used in Camera Specifications:

Resolution: This is the first thing you will have to consider. Digital camera’s resolution is calculated in terms of ‘mega pixels’ or MP. The higher your camera’s resolution is better the quality of the images. However, the price of a camera is closely related to its resolution. So generally, the superior the resolution, the higher the price of the camera is going to be.

Storage Capacity: While buying a digital camera, check out its storage capacity. Most digital cameras are available with extended external storage capacities. This means you don’t have to download all your existing photos onto your computer every time you want to click a picture. Many times, camera manufacturers offer free memory cards with digital cameras as part of a package. More the storage capacity, more number of pictures you can click.

Lenses: Look out for lenses with good optical zooms if you want to capture distant objects. A wide angle lens is a blessing if you are going to click a photo of a large group and you are just backed up against a wall. Macro lens is a must for capturing close-up photos. Some of the best digital cameras either feature a macro-mode or separate macro lens.

Battery Consumption: When choosing your digital camera, either looks for ones with ‘lithium batteries’ or ‘rechargeable batteries’.

Burst Rate: The ‘burst rate’ of a digital camera specifies how fast a camera can capture an image. If you are looking for a digital camera to shoot sporting activities or if you are interested in fashion photography, choose digital cameras that have higher burst rates.

ISO: Multiple ISO options are handy when shooting in poor light. Look for digital cameras that allow you to change the ISO and give you as many choices as possible. A camera with ISO equivalents of 100, 200, 400, 800, and 1600 will give you more flexibility as opposed to cameras with less ISO variations.

LCD Preview: A digital camera with an LCD preview feature is neat. It gives you a fair idea about the image and will help you to adjust your position accordingly. Although the battery consumption is much greater in a camera with a bigger LCD preview monitor, so try and find the balance.

Good Luck with your new Digital Camera and have fun clicking; but I must warn you it is very addictive. Beware!!!

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Buying Tips - DVD Player

DVD Player Buying Tips

DVD players get their name from the type of disc they most commonly play: a digital video/versatile disc, or DVD. DVD players are very important factor if you want to build a home theatre. Because quality of DVD player i.e. ability of player to read the DVD and transfer the relative information to display screen and speaker decides the quality of your viewing and sound experience for the movies. All of us are aware that DVD player are far better than VHS tapes and VCD players in quality and it can also store much more data on it. Although it looks like a CD it holds 7 – 14 times more information than normal CD. In addition to playing DVD movies, DVD players play CDs, MP3-encoded CD-Rs and CD-RWs, video CD’s, and a few will play DVDs-Audio, MPEG format. The newest higher-end players also play Super Audio CDs, a new high quality CD format that should become widely available in the next year or so.

So how to decide on which DVD player to buy because there are so many brand and so many models are available in the market. DVD players range in price from 3500 Rupees for a basic, no-frills player from known brand to more than 60,000 for a top-of-the-line home theater-ready player. Some unknown brand DVD players available in lesser price also but they are not dependable. This vast variety does add to our confusion on buying the DVD player.

What you have to do is to compare various well known DVD player brands and check following specification in them. Then just go for most suitable to your pocket with all these specification.

The following key features of DVD will help you decide the right one for you:

Aspect Ratio: The standard ratio of television, between the width and height of an image or display screen is 4:3(1.33:1), which is not capable of showing most movies. Generally all of the movies are made for the wide screen of a theater, and are originally displayed at the wider ratios of 1.85:1 or 2:35:1. So choose a player which can do downscaling as well as up-scaling accordingly.

Anamorphic: It is a type of widescreen display format optimized for playback on a TV with 16:9 aspect ratios. A DVD played in pan-and-scan mode provides an image with full height, but shows a central "window" that is only 75% of the original widescreen width. In Letterbox mode the player using a "letterbox filter" adds horizontal black bars to the top and bottom of the picture. As a result you get a short, rectangular image.

Dolby Digital: Is a multi-channel digital audio standard offering enhanced sonic realism. A Dolby Digital soundtrack can mean anything from 1 to 5.1 channels. Dolby Digital 5.1 sound tracks will no doubt, provide the most satisfying sound quality for a home theater system. It is referred to as a 5.1-channel system because it offers five full-bandwidth channels with true stereo surrounds, and a subwoofer channel. Although there is some DVD players which can drive 5.1 channel speakers by it self without receiver. But it is suitable to go for specialized DVD Player and connect it to a receiver or processor which will not only drive the speaker output but also amplify it.

Perceptual Coding: A data compression technique used by Dolby Digital to reduce the amount of audio and video data formats. Perceptual coding omits imperceptible sound and picture data which is redundant. By throwing away a lot of unnecessary information it is possible to fit multiple versions of a movie on a single disc.

Digital Output: Almost all DVD players come with at least one digital audio output for sending the Dolby Digital bit-stream to a Dolby Digital decoder. Two most common types of digital output are Coaxial and Optical. Both require a cable to connect to the digital output of the Dolby Digital receiver or decoder but mostly they are not included in the set.

DTS: Or Digital Theater Systems is an established multi-channel audio format in movie theaters, but a relatively new concept for home theater systems. Like Dolby Digital, DTS is a 5.1-channel format. DTS' compression technique throws away less audio data than Dolby Digital, so it should sound better.

Horizontal Resolution: These are the number of vertical lines that can be identified across the width of a TV screen. Usually a bigger number of horizontal resolutions is almost always better.

MPEG: Or Moving Picture Experts Group is the digital video signal compression used for DVD. This adaptive, variable bit-rate process is able to allocate more bits for complex scenes involving a lot of motion, while minimizing the bits in static scenes. Some DVD players display an on-screen bit rate of data flow in the form of a bar graph.

Composite Video Signal: DVD player's standard RCA-type video jack provides a composite video signal or S-Video. It is a video signal in which the brightness and color portions of the signal are combined.

Component Video Signals: Is a video signal in which the brightness and color portions of the signal are processed separately. Component video signal splits the chrominance (the color information portion of a video signal which describes an image's color shade and vividness). As a result one gets improved color accuracy, remarkably clear on large screens. Component video signal is far superior than S-video.

Signal To Noise ratio: Or S/N ratio basically tells how clean video signal is. Video signal to noise (as well as audio) is measured in decibels or (db). Because of the way they process signals; digital video formats like DVD and digital satellite TV are extremely clean.

Multi Language Capability: All DVDs are designed to make it easier for movies to be distributed in multiple languages. A single DVD disc can contain soundtracks in up to 8 different languages! In addition to multilingual dialogue, a DVD also has space for subtitles in up to 32 languages. Off-course the number of soundtracks and subtitles may vary from disc to disc depending on the length of the movie and whether other special playback features are included.

Parental Lockout: A limited number of DVD movies come with variable ratings capability. According to the movie rating level you select, the player will skip over certain scenes, playing the version that you choose from those available on the disc. The parental lockout can be activated by remote control. By selecting your own personal identification number, you can prevent it from getting changed by others.

Regional Codes: All DVDs include codes which would limit playback to a specified geographical region. Since all the theater and home videos are not released at the same time, all over the world; DVD players have a built-in regional code lockout feature. As a result a DVD player will be unable to play a disc that has a different region code. It is also important to note that discs may or may not have any code, or may contain codes for more than one region- allowing to be played on any player, anywhere in the world.

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Buying Plasma TV

If you have decided to buy a Plasma TV but could not decide on brand, model or confused that if your selected brand or model is good enough.

Don’t worry, all you have to do is educate yourself by comparing some Plasma TVs available in market of different brands and models and compare their specification. If you are not clear about the technical terms mentioned. I have listed some of them here.

Screen Size: Screen size is measured diagonally. There are many screen size available in the market, you need to decide on your room size and your budget.

Native Pixel Resolution: Native Resolution for Plasma for screen size less than 50” will be 1024 X 768 and if you don’t mind bigger screens you can get more resolution and HD resolutions.

Scaling:

It is a process where a television's video processor will match the resolution of the incoming signal to its native pixel resolution. This means that lower resolution signals will be up-scaled, but the processor will downscale higher resolution signals so that they can be displayed at the TVs native resolution. That is the reason you need to buy HD Ready TV. Poor scaling can result in poor display results, such as jagged edges and inconsistent detail. It must be noted that results also depend on the quality of the incoming signal.

Contrast Ratio: Contrast ratio, or the degree of variation of the whitest and darkest parts of the image, is a very important factor to consider. A good contrast ratio to have in an TV is 1,500:1 or higher. Anything less than 1,500:1, may not provide an optimum viewing experience. If Compared to LCD TV plasma scores on contrast ratio point.

Brightness: Without sufficient brightness image might look muddy and soft, even in a dark room. Viewing distance, screen size, and ambient room light will affect the need for more brightness capability. A brightness rating listed as 550 cd/m2 or higher is good enough, but don't depend upon the technical number listed, just make sure the screen is bright enough for your needs upon your own visual inspection. Because manufacturing companies tends to give higher values.

LONGEVITY: Longevity means life of the TV. People do worry about this point regarding Plasma as they fear because Plasma has gas they will have lesser life than LCD’s. These might be true in past but latest Plasma’s don’t have this problem anymore. Life of LCD televisions and Plasma television is almost similar. Anything more than 40,000 hours is considered very good, when you consider that you watch TV 10 hrs day then it comes to more than 10 years. And I think that’s more than enough.

Viewing Angle: Viewing angle need not to be worrying point for Plasma’s as it is for LCD TV. Because plasma can be watched from side also but anything above 160° is good enough.

Tuner and Connection Considerations: Almost all TVs have built-in tuners, if it is not there you have to buy external tuner or set top box. There are TV’s with dual-tuners for PIP functions i.e Picture in Picture function which allows you to watch 2 different channels at a time. If they are HD Ready nothings like it. However, it will be useful only if you don’t receive HDTV programming.

Input Connection: Check if the TV has connection for HDMI Inputs, RGB Inputs, S-Video Inputs, Composite Video, Component Video, VGA input.

Speaker: Try and buy a TV which has at least 10W + 10W speakers in built. That’s not very good but that can be minimum requirement.

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Buying LCD TV

If you have decided to buy a LCD TV but could not decide on brand, model or confused that if your selected brand or model is good enough.

Don’t worry, all you have to do is educate yourself by comparing LCD TVs of different brands and models and compare their specification. If you are not clear about the technical terms mentioned. I have listed some of them here.

Screen Size: Screen size is measured diagonally. There are many screen size available in the market, you need to decide on your room size and your budget.

Native Pixel Resolution: LCD flat panel sets have a number of pixels on the screen surface that is called as Native Pixel. You need to look for as high a native pixel count as possible. Most LCD TVs offer at least a 1280x720 native pixel resolution. This is the minimum pixel count you should settle on. Some larger screen LCD TVs now offer 1920x1080 native pixel resolution, which certainly is even more desirable, but costly.

Scaling:

Scaling is a process where a television's video processor will match the resolution of the incoming signal to its native pixel resolution. This means that lower resolution signals will be up-scaled, but the processor will downscale higher resolution signals so that they can be displayed at the TVs native resolution. That is the reason you need to buy HD Ready TV. Poor scaling can result in poor display results, such as jagged edges and inconsistent detail. It must also be noted that results also depend on the quality of the incoming signal.

Motion Response Time: It is nothing but the ability of the LCD TV to display fast moving objects without any blurring effect. In the past this has been a weakness of LCD technology. However, this has improved now. Check the specifications for Motion Response Time (ms = milliseconds). A good LCD TV should have a Response Time of either 12ms or 8ms, with 8ms being optimum, i.e. lesser the value the better. You need to consider this especially if you watch lots of sports or action films or like to play games on TV. Be wary of LCD TVs that do not list their motion response time.

Contrast Ratio:
Contrast ratio, or the degree of variation of the whitest and darkest parts of the image, is a very important factor to consider. If the LCD TV has a low contrast ratio, dark images will look muddy and gray, while light images will look washed out. A good contrast ratio to have in an LCD TV is 1,500:1 or higher. Anything less than 1,500:1, may not provide an optimum viewing experience.

Brightness: Without sufficient brightness your image will look muddy and soft, even in a dark room. Viewing distance, screen size, and ambient room light will affect the need for more brightness capability. A brightness rating listed as 550 cd/m2 or higher is good enough, but don't depend upon the technical number listed, just make sure the screen is bright enough for your needs upon your own visual inspection.

Viewing Angle: Make sure you can view the image on the LCD TV from the sides as well as the from the prime viewing area. LCD TVs typically have a good side-to-side viewing angle, with many going as wide as 160 Degrees, or about 80 degrees from the center viewing spot. If you find that the image begins to fade or becomes un-viewable within 45 degrees from either side of the center viewing spot, then it may not be a good choice where you have a large group of viewers sitting in different parts of the room.

Tuner and Connection Considerations: Almost all LCD-TVs have built-in tuners, if it is not there you have to buy external tuner or set top box. There are LCD TV’s with dual-tuners for PIP functions i.e Picture in Picture function which allows to watch 2 chanels at a time. If they are HD Ready nothings like it. However, it will be useful only if you receive HDTV programming.

Input Connection: Check if the TV has connection for HDMI Inputs, RGB Inputs, S-Video Inputs, Composite Video, Component Video, VGA input.

Speaker: Don’t judge LCD TV with speakers, but try and buy a TV which at least has inbuilt 10W L+R speakers.

These are the only features you need to consider before buying LCD TV. If you find more features in LCD TV specification you don’t understand, don’t bother about them. They are there to just filling up the space.

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Selecting a Laptop

Selection of Laptop

Now days everyone has Laptop, desktops seems to be out of date. Everyone is going for laptops rather than desktop for personal computer. Desktops are used only in offices. Laptops give you more privacy, more mobility and connectivity to your office or home all the time and all the places. Lot of people prefers to work from home on their Laptop rather than traveling to office. And for youngsters it is must thing to have after a cell phone. It is not only helpful for your work needs but also for social networking too.

So when my desktop start giving me problem I decided to go for Laptop rather than going for new Desktop or updating the old one. But I was really confused which Laptop should I go for, there are so many brands and so many models of each brand available in the market. It was really difficult to choose which one I should buy. I think everyone in India who is thinking of buying a Laptop will consider Sony – viao first. As there is lots of adverting for this brand and Sony is widely accepted brand. But may be that’s the reason why they are so expensive. For the same configuration what Sony offers other Laptop’s prize was good 20 – 30 % lesser. So I decided to first do my research as per the configuration. Points I consider before buying are,

1. Dimension and weight of Laptop: You might be surprised that I considered this point first. But I thought this is necessary to streamline the selection and concentrate on one type of model, once I’ll fix the screen size. There are various screen sizes of laptop, 15.4 inch, 14 inch, 10 inch etc. Prizes of Laptop change according to the screen size, so it is very much important point in selection. I decided to go for 15.4 inch as I will like to watch movies on my Laptop. Weight of Laptop is also directly proportional with the screen size. You have to carry your laptop so keep your eye on weight also.

2. Battery Life: Battery life is most important point as it will tell us how long we can be away from power point.

3. Processor: Whatever is latest we should go for it, Select between AMD or Intel Core 2 Duo processor of more than 2 Ghz.

4. Hard Disk: Anything more than 160 GB should be good enough.

5. Ram: Minimum of 2 GB DDR2 SDRAM and provision to add up to 4 GB.

6. Other Peripherals: Go for a Laptop with DVD writer, built in video card and sound card, built in camera. Try to find Laptop with the maximum USB ports, inbuilt modem and integrated Bluetooth, wi-fi, LAN provision. If it has card reader even better.

7. Warranty: Whoever provides maximum warranty, normally it comes with one year warranty. And also look for the brand which has good service network. If it has international warranty even better.

8. Operating System: Try to get a Laptop which has pre-installed operating system, otherwise that will be additional expense.

That’s it bye the time you overlook and compare these point you will know which Laptop to buy. I bought Acer’s Laptop which cost me around 40,000 Rs. One additional tip if you are thinking of buying, buy it from small authorized dealers rather than in malls or big shop. Because this is where you will get good prize and you can bargain as well as you get goodies with your buy.

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Confusion over Buying PC

WANT TO BUY A COMPUTER?

Thinking of buying a computer and little confused because of various branded computers available in the market. Or can not decide whether to go for branded PC or assembled one. And if want to go for assembled one then trouble is that you don’t know what configuration you should go for and how different factors affect the PC configuration. Don’t worry this article will help you to some extent.

Having computer today is absolutely a necessity today for your office. Now a days computer allows you to operate your business from sitting at home. Thus saving your time spent in travel as well stress you go through. Or if you have kids then it becomes so much more important to buy a computer for you home. As kids today need as much knowledge and literacy in computer as possible for their brighter future or we can say for even their survival in cut throat competitive world.

Before starting on points to consider to buy a computer, I will like to say that there is every chance after buying a computer in month or so you will find that there are even faster and cheaper computers available in market. So just try and find fastest and best suitable machine with your budget. Because even if technology going to evolve everyday your computer not going to be a junk on table in one day.

Now when we start hunting for a computer, decide if you want to go with branded computer or assembled one. My suggestion will be assemble one as it will cheaper and you can select best components and assemble them together. Only negative point will be for servicing you have to contact different people for different components.

Configuration for computer:- (This will help you select your branded or assembled computer)

Processors (CPUs):
The CPU (Central Processing Unit) is the brain of your computer. In general, the faster the better. Processor speeds are measured in gigahertz (GHz), the fastest models available now is in the range of 4GHz, but this is for mean hardcore machines. If you are in hardcore animation, gaming industry you can go with it but it will be really expensive. For the basic everyday office or home use processors starting from 1.5 GHz, is good enough. Then you have to make choice between Intel core duo or AMD core duo. General assumption if you want to play games on your machines then AMD processors serves the purpose better. Or Intel is common in use and will be cheaper option than the AMD processor.

Memory (RAM):
Most computers now use a type of memory called DDR2. Some high performance one might use DDR3, but this is quite expensive. Avoid systems using DDR1 or SDRAMS as for the amount of memory go for at least 1GB of memory. Memory speed will have immediate impact on performance as well. More the memory faster the PC. When buying computer try to buy as few DIMMs as possible to allow for future memory upgrades if needed.

Hard Drives:-
Hard drives are where all your data is going to be saved so it is also a very important part of your computers. Now a days Hard drives going down on sizes and going up on storage space. You must have at least 250GB of hard disk. Almost all of them are running at 7200rpm now.

Optical Drives (CD/DVD):
Most of the systems now comes with DVD writer, CD writers are things of past now. And there is no need to make any adjustment in the budget. As for floppy drives, they are part of ancient history of PC’s, nobody use it anyway.

Motherboard:
Choice of motherboard will depend on the processor you have selected, it has to be compatible with processor. You have to take care that, the motherboard you have selected has onboard video graphic card, sound card as well as there is provision for external video card and sound card in case of high end use. The motherboard should allow you to add LAN card, Wireless LAN, Bluetooth, USB 2.0 connectors. And try to have as many USB connectors as possible as most of the Upgrades and Peripherals of computers use USB nowadays.

Cabinet:
This will have to be compatible with hardware you have selected. Ithas to have SMPS into it to power up the hardware. Then it has to as less bulky as possible and with arrangement for air ventilation so that your PC will be safe from overheating.

Monitors:
Monitor is also a as important part of PC as CPU is. Previously when LCD’s were really expensive people used to go with CRT, but now LCD is the option everyone goes for. If anybody think of CRT he goes for Flat Panel CRT. But LCD is still far better because it gives sharper picture, it is not bulky, it occupies lesser space, and it is easy on your eyes too. As for the size 17 inch is standard size now a days. Just take care to buy a monitor which should be capable of 1024 x 768 resolution, you might use most commonly 800 x 600 resolution. But it is always better to have provision.

Input/Output Interference Peripherals:
Keyboard and mouse has to be the first thing to buy as they will help you to communicate with you PC. There are wired and wireless Keyboard and Mouse available in the market so it will depend on anyone’s personal taste.
Then you can add “All in one printer” in your set up which will help you to print, scan, copy as well as fax your documents.
You will also need LAN card installed in your system to connect Internet. As modem is provided by Internet Provider nowadays so you don’t have to worry about it.
Then there will speakers to listen to music and movies, if you prefer to watch DVD’s on your PC then you can add 5.1 home theatre speaker set in your system.
If you want to use your PC for chatting then you need to have a Headphone with Microphone and Webcam of 2 – 3 megapixel.
You can also add TV tuner card to your PC to watch TV on your desktop computer.

Softwares:
After all the hardware in place you have to think about the softwares as they are essentially decides how you want to use your computer. There are two popular and user-friendly operating systems available in the market, WINDOWS and MAC. Windows has captured most of the PC market than the MAC. As it is more compatible to most of the softaware and it has been used by almost everyone it is better bet as it is lot cheaper than MAC, and it is only because of ‘Supply and Demand’ Rule. Don’t judge quality by there price difference. Although buying MAC is in thing now a days, it is somewhat style statement. As MAC’s other product Apple ipod and iphone becoming really popular. So it’s again personal choice.
Then there are various softwares available to enhance the use of your computer, there is MS OFFICE which contains MS Word, MS Excell, Powerpoint, Outlook etc. to help in your office and school, college work. Then there is Adobe, Corel, Macromedia’s softwares like photoshop, coreldraw, Flash, dreamweaver, etc. to help you with your artistic work.
After installing all the softwares don’t forget to install Antivirus software to protect your PC from Virus specially if you are using Internet.


So in Nutshell go and find suitable PC for yourself and enjoy the limitless possible things your PC can do for you.

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