Info and forum posts by 'JimD'

Portabe DVD player with good battery life

I`m looking to buy a poprtable DVD player with a decent battery life. Favourite at the minute is a Toshiba SD-P75U - Pixmania have them for £100 inc VAT - it claims 5 hours. It also has a USB port so it can plug in an external hard disk.

Opinions?

Thanks,
Jim

RE: Places to visit near Whitby?

Scarborough`s just down the road - traditional seaside holiday town with parks, amusements, beaches, miniature railway, boating lake etc.

It`s years since we took our kids to Flamingo Land & I know it has changed quite a lot. It used to be 80% zoo & 20% theme park, but I`ve heard that the balance has switched the other way to about 60% theme park now.

Robin Hood`s Bay is very picturesque, but would only be a 1/2 day.

Jim

Samsung E590?

Anybdy got any thoughts on the Samsung E590? My better 1/2 has just orederd one as a free upgrade from Orange. The spec looks OK, especially for a free upgrade. Just curious if anybody has any experience on one.

Thanks,
Jim

RE: Best way to get landline & broadband in new flat.

Thanks guys, you`ve just confirmed my original thoughts.

cheers,
Jim

Best way to get landline & broadband in new flat.

My daughter has just moved into a new block of flats. It is wired for cable & for standard BT connection. What`s the best (most cost effective) way for her to get landline & broadband?

To get a landline through BT she needs to pay connection charge of around £125, then she`ll have to pay line rental + monthly broadband fee. We`ve seen Tiscali`s current offering of landline + broadband for £14.99/month including line rental, but she`ll still have to pay the connection charge.

As an alternative she`s looking at VirginMedia`s current "3 for £30" offer of 2Mb broadband, unlimited landline calls & a Virgin Sim card with 100 anytime anynetwork minutes & 100 texts per month. All this for £30 per month

Any other ideas?????

Cheers,

Jim

RE: Help need quick way of transferring pics from Mobile to Notebook

All I knew before I went looking was that with my Nokia 6021, IRDA was faster than BT for syncronising the calendar & address book with Microsoft Outlook. The previous posts prompted me to go looking as to why . . . .

Jim

RE: Help need quick way of transferring pics from Mobile to Notebook

Just done the google search - in ascending order:
irda 1.0 - 115Kb/sec
bluetooth - 721kb/sec
irda 1.1 - 4.0Mb/sec


OK, so 10Mb/sec was a bit of an exageration . . . . .

Jim

RE: Help need quick way of transferring pics from Mobile to Notebook

Have rou tried infrared? I use it with my Nokia 6021. It`s not as fast as a cable, but much faster than bluetooth. I think it goes at close to 10Mbits/sec

Jim

RE: What do you lot think for £150?

Sorry to disagree, but the EvoW6000 was marketed by Compaq as a mid to high end graphics workstation - I bought about 20 of them 3.5 years ago. I bought them with 1Gb RAM, 2GHz processors & high end graphics cards (at the time).
We still use them for CAD application. The advantage of the Xeon over a P4 is that it has a much larger instruction cache, which really helps CAD fly.

If the m/c seems sound & I would give it a punt.

RE: Broadband question

Thanks for the 2 replies - I hadn`t thought about the ISP only allocating the 1 ip address, & when you mention that it makes sense that I would need a router to handle the multiple PC scenario.

Thanks again,
Jim

Broadband question

This may seem like a daft question, but I`ve just signed up with a certain well known B/Band supplier, & everything is working great. Yesterday they sent me another ADSL modem - the cheap USB type (that`s all I use anyway).
So now I have 2 modems, I also have 2 phone sockets, 1 upstairs with the desktop plugged into it with the 1st Modem they sent me & 1 downstairs. Would I be able to plug a laptop into the 2nd phone point using the 2nd modem & use them both at the same time? I know both will need filters, but they sent me 2 with each modem, so there`s no problem there.

Thanks,
Jim

RE: How many Freview boxes do I need?

Mark - thanks for the reply - would that allow me to watch 1 Freeview channel while recording another? How about recording 2 different channels while watching a 3rd?
Jim

RE: How many Freview boxes do I need?

Thanks for the advice - it certainly looks like a nice box of tricks. However, I was just hoping not to spend £200+ . . . . . . .
Jim

How many Freview boxes do I need?

This might sound like a stupid question, but here goes . . . . .
I have a 32"wide screen TV with 2 scart sockets. In 1 I have a DVD recorder. In the other I have a VCR. I have the aerial lead coming out of the wall, into the VCR, from the VCR to the DVDR & then into the TV. This way I can record 2 different terrestrial channels, while watching a 3rd, or I can record 1 channel while watching the VCR or a DVD.

If I want to move over to digital & use Freeview, how would I wire this up? Would I need multiple Freeview boxes?

HELP ! ! ! ! !

Jim

RE: LG DR7400 ? ?

I must admit that I haven`t looked for a multi-region hack. I was so frustrated with the Philips DVDR610 that it replaced that I was just peased to get a box that works ! ! ! !

RE: LG DR7400 ? ?

Just an update - I got the LGDR7400 (& 1 £30 rebate from Comet ! !). The good news is that it semas to work 100% perfect. I will admit that the interface is more than a bit clunky, & it`s not the fastest at moving around the menus, BUT IT WORKS ! ! ! ! ! !

LG DR7400 ? ?

Does anyone have experience with one of these? I`ve struggled with a Philips DVDR610 for 8 months, & it finaly packed up 3 weeks ago. Comet are offering this as a replacement - they initially offered be another 610, but I said no thanks ! !

From the spec shet, it doesn`t look too bad. I`ve looked at the menu system in the store, & it looks a bit clunky, but if it works OK, that`s all I want - especially after the hassle with the 610 ! ! ! !

RE: Comet are coughing up ! ! ! !

I`m glad you got your`s replaced too. I`m off to Comet on Saturday to see what they will offer me as a replacement.

Comet are coughing up ! ! ! !

Well, the Comet engineer came, looked at it & decided that he couldn`t fix it, so he took it away. After 3 weeks Comet called me & said that they were still waiting for a part, & as I`ve had to wait so long, they are offering a replacement !

I`ve just received a letter from them saying that if I go to the store, I can chose a replacement product "of equal value & specification" - whatever that means.

[green]b]So my problem now is what do I chose . . ? ? ! ! ? ?

This item was edited on Wednesday, 27th July 2005, 11:35

New Philips DVDR610 problem

I upgraded to BT31 recently & I`ve started experiencing a problem which I don`t think I`ve seen reported before.

On occasions if I record a programme, everything looks as if it has gone OK. I get the messages saying that it has updated the DVD menu etc. but when I try & replay all I get is a message saying "error" on the TV screen.

If I eject the disk & put it back in, the unit says "reading" for ever. If I turn it off & on again it looks OK, but as soon as I try & do anything (play or go to browser to see what is on the disk) it says "busy" for ever.

The problem is that it doesn`t do this every time. I have tried new (Philips) disks & had the same problem.

Just a bit more information - If I read the disk on a PC, I can see that there are files there, but I can`t play it directly. If I navigate to the directly containg the .vob files & double click on one, it plays, so I know that the thing is writing to the disk.

I`ve got the Comet engineer to come out & look at it tomorrow. I`ll let you know what happens . . . . . . . .Jim

RE: help philips 610

Just to add my comments - I bought a DVDR610 from Comet about 3 weeks ago as part of a bundled deal witha widescreen TV. For the 1st 2 weeks, I too thought it was my finger trouble that was causing timed recordings to go wrong, then I discovered this forum & read (all 5 pages) of troubles & woes.

Comet`s response is that I need to return the recorder to the store I bought it from for them to send away for diagnosis - no replacement while it is being looked at.

I emailed Philips, & they advised me to install the BT_21 firmware - I did this last night & immerdiately tried a couple of tests:

The 1st test I did was to program a timed recording while I was watching another channel - this worked perfectly.
The 2nd test was to programme a 1 hour recording for during the night. When I came down this morning, the clock was again 30 mins fast.

I have emailed Philips again this morming - lets see what they come back with.

One thought - could the TV being turned off have an effect? Is the recorder monitoring a signal from the TV through the Scart lead?