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Do most new parents use a soon-to-be-born baby as an excuse to buy new computer and electronic gear? Not sure, but it's working for us! It all started because we decided we MUST have a camcorder if we have a child.
After a bunch of research we decided on a Sony DCR-HC85, which we found on ebay for a good price. Plus it came with a bunch of extras like extra-life battery, tripod, etc. I really wanted one that records directly onto DVD but the prices of those are ridiculous - I mean, for the same price you get a LOT less features and video quality. The key things that drove us to the HC85 were the video quality, the "Super Nightshot Plus" which lets you take video in the dark with infrared, "Super Steadyshot" which auto-steadies the picture so it doesn't look so jerky, etc.
Then, so that we could edit our video and burn it out to DVD, of course we needed a new computer! We got a HP "Media Center" computer which means it has Windows XP Media Center Edition (the link is not to the exact model, but close). It is basically just like normal Windows XP except that it has this interface for all "media stuff" and a remote control. So you can play your videos and music and all that from within this special interface using the remote. Kinda cool, not a big deal. But the coolest thing about it is that it can record from the TV like a Tivo! We plugged in our cable, it downloads the program guide, and we can set it to do things like, record all episodes of a certain show.
Of course back to the reason for getting this computer - it also has a DVD burner and a lot more memory than our old computer - VERY important for video applications! So, I've been learning how to edit and burn the video we capture with our new camcorder (and also the stuff we record off TV) onto DVDs. It hasn't been completely straight-forward, but I think I've got it all figured out now... maybe that will be the topic of another blog entry.
So we've been having lots of fun with "the baby's new toys" ... hee hee hee! :)
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Humm sounds familiar but our toys ended up being a now dated digital still camera ( as we had humm nothing really good for stills )...oh and well more like a de-toy of losing the Miata for a Volvo wagon ( like how parental can u get ? ).
Sounds like a cool set up and humm I have actually never seen one even though rumours persist I work for HP ;-)
*double cross fingers* Hope all is going well in what trimester three...
I will have to look at one soon as we *criss/cross fingers* move to our new house hopefully on the 21st of this month and will go with digital cable. I can fool Kelly by mumbling some techno jargon ( which is true ) " Err well AGP 8x is out and my machine doesn't have the right voltages for the new cards and the RAM is a little less than whats required..."
Humm for soem reason our camcorder which was a much later addition post twins always seems to gather dust....oh well , it will do its job some day .