PureAV Isolator - filter your power

The Belkin PureAV Isolator Surge Protector does so much more than just provide eight surge protected power sockets. Designed for the home theatre market, it is just as suited to computer use, we take a look at what it has to offer.

Nowadays, it seems like we live in a totally wired world, with many manufacturers now striving to bring us an UNwired world. Even if we manage to get rid of most of the wires in our set-ups, it is a forgone conclusion that all of our gadgets, whether home theatre, computer or gadget related, will all need power. Wireless power will never happen, as this is a bit dangerous :-)

There are a lot of surge protector products available, and even from Belkin, you can buy a cheaper product with up to 9 sockets. The PureAV Isolator offers that little bit more, on top of the eight sockets available. For a start the sockets are clearly labeled with the most popular devices your may have, so this makes for easy identification. The unit is also very heavy and well made, a mix of metal and plastic construction that really feels high quality. One of the first things I noticed and liked was that it has built in cable management, so the excess mains cable (which is 3m long) is wrapped around the body of the unit and tucks neatly away.

The PureAV also uses power filter technology (PFT) which isolates any noise coming through the mains channel. You would be surprised, that even with new mains cabling in your house, it can still be quite contaminated with noise. It also protects against electromagnetic interference and radio frequency interference. Sounds very techy, and it is, but all you need know is that the high quality components are helping to deliver the cleanest and smoothest electricity to your equipment.

You can also run through two phone lines and your satellite, cable, or regular antenna, so these are protected too. The unit comes supplied with three 1.8 metre cables for telephone, gold coaxial and aerial, so you have those extra leads available from the offset. To keep things neat there are some cable tidy wraps and wall mounting screws, so it seems like Belkin really have thought of everything.

The build quality, the lifetime product warranty, the unlimited connected equipment warranty, and the fact that this product delivers the highest level of protection you are likely to need, all adds up to a very sensible purchase. Yes, you can buy cheaper, but I doubt at this price point you could buy better.

Product: Belkin PureAV Home Theatre Surge Protector
Model: 8 socket (F9G823uk3M)
Price: £79.99
Supplied by: Belkin UK
Contact: +44 (0)1933 35 2000

Griffin XpressCable review - optical goodness

Griffin Technology, better known for their iPod accessories also make a variety of cable solutions. Previous reviews of their products have revealed great quality, so I was very interested to learn if their Xpress Cable would keep up the good work.

The Griffin XpressCable is a digital optical audio cable, coloured white with grey accents to the tips, it measures in at three meters long. So straight out of the packaging you can use it for connecting various audio equipment like a DVD player or your XBox 360.

Also supplied is a pair of 3.5mm mini-jack adapters. These can be plugged onto either or both ends of the cable, converting the toslink connection to a 3.5mm stereo jack. This allows you to take advantage of some Apple Mac's digital audio outputs, such as the Mac Mini, PowerMac G5, Airport Express, not forgetting the later Intel based Macs, oh and before I forget, the iPod Hifi.

So, a cable is a cable, yes? Well, a lot of people say that digital signals are already digital, so a £5 cable will work as good as a £50 one. I strongly disagree with this misconception. The XpressCable is well constructed, the plugs seem to have longer bodies to them, so you get a real solid connection. I have experienced optical cables before that just fall out of my XBox 360, but there was no such problem with the Griffin Cable. Audio delivery was crisp and clean, definitely on par with optical cables costing double the money. If you want a well constructed cable that delivers great audio, without breaking the bank, then look no further... oh and I almost forgot, it is white in colour, so it will match your Mac gear to a tee.

Product: Griffin Technology XpressCable
Price: $19.99
UK Street Price: £12.00
Supplied by: Griffin Technology
Contact: +1 (615) 399-7000

Lindy Premium Gold Flat Scart Cable Review

The Lindy Premium Gold Flat SCART cable promises to deliver a "Superior quality connection for your Home Cinema equipment", well it certainly is a unique looking cable, so let's take a look at what you get for your hard earned money…

To kick things off, if you have plenty of cables and things are maybe looking a bit messy, you know the normal spaghetti junction, then this flat design may well help things out. It can easily be routed through tight spaces, even underneath equipment if that makes it easier to hide things.
The gold plated connectors are absolutely fantastic, some of the best quality I have experienced. When inserting into the back of equipment, I found the connection to be very easy and more importantly secure.

I tested the Premium Gold Flat Scart Cable with two different devices. A Pioneer DV454 DVD player and a Panasonic DMR-EX85 HDD recorder. The Pioneer showed the biggest improvement over the standard supplied scart cable. The easiest way to describe it in layman terms is that there was less interference and the picture picked up a definite sharpness (whilst still looking very natural). The Panasonic delivered a good picture anyway, but I still saw a slight improvement in detail.

This cable from Lindy UK is available in a variety of lengths, with the 1m version on test costing £21.99. For this very reasonable amount you get a really high quality scart cable. A lot of people shun spending money on things like this, but if you put this up against the scart cable that came with your kit, you will be amazed. If you are just starting out, then put aside £40 or £50 at least for a couple of these, you will not regret it.

Product: Lindy Premium Gold Flat SCART Cable (1m)
Price: £21.99
Supplied by: Lindy UK
Contact: +44 (0) 1642 754000

Lindy Premium Gold HDMI Cable Review

If you have found yourself investing in new HD technology lately, then you best treat yourself (and your kit) to something that will give you the best out of your investment. Everything is moving into the High Definition age, and connections are changing. Scart is out and even component video connections, which for a long time were considered to give the best picture available, are being replaced by HDMI.

In the same vein that a scart cable bundled with a DVD player was pretty useless, this new HD kit either comes with a very flimsy cheap HDMI cable, or more often than not, none at all. The Premium Gold HDMI cable from Lindy UK offers a really robust looking cable, with some high quality construction, without asking ridiculous prices…

The cable is of a striking blue colour, it is triple shielded and comes with 24K gold plated connectors. The connector on each end is of a unique RF-BLOK patented design, which provides increased EMC shielding and reduces interference. Now, whilst I could not test for this interference in my set-up, I should add that the clarity of image delivered by the Lindy cable over the one bundled with the Toshiba HD-A1 HD DVD player was nothing short of phenomenal. The colours were vibrant, there was no fringing and just the overall feel of the cable construction oozed quality.

The two metre cable we tested here costs £48.99, which is not cheap, but you will be hard pushed to pick up this length and quality of HDMI cable anywhere else. You can buy the Premium Gold HDMI Cable direct from Lindy UK in lengths from 0.5m to 15m, and you get a 25 year warranty thrown in for good measure. Remember to add one of these to your 2007 High Def shopping list.

Product: Lindy Premium Gold 2m HDMI Cable
Price: £48.99
Supplied by: Lindy UK
Contact: +44 (0) 1642 754000

Octava 5x1 HDMI Switch Review

The Octava HDMI Switch that we are testing at Geekanoids was kindly supplied to us by The Media Factory, who supply a number of home theatre solutions. Anything from cabling right up to a top of the range plasma screen.

The Octava HDMI switch offers a solution to a problem that we will all no doubt encounter over the coming months. With the introduction of so many high definition products onto the market, that all use an HDMI connection, screen manufacturers are often slow to keep up. Take a look at the back of your screen, if you are lucky enough to have a high definition screen, you may have one or two HDMI sockets at the most. Well, the PS3 is just around the corner, your upscaling DVD player already takes up one, another for the SKY HD box, oh and don't forget that new XBox 360 version 2, which is bound to be HDMI... you see the problem !

Basically, the idea of the Octava HDMI switch is to offer a number of inputs and outputs for high definition devices. There are four versions available from The Media Factory, a 3x1, 3x2, 4x1 with digital audio switching, and the 5x1 version that we are looking at here. For £149.95 plus delivery, you get five HDMI inputs and one output that you feed to your screen. Five inputs should see you right for the foreseeable future, so the asking price really does represent great value for money…

The unit itself is an all metal affair, powder coated in silver paint, and really does feel well built. On the front of the unit there are five blue LED's which show you the input you are viewing. The front also sports the infrared receiver (for the supplied remote) and a Smart Scan button.
When you switch the unit on the LED's cycle and you are ready to go. The Smart Scan feature is on by default and it really is SMART. When you switch an HDMI source on, for example your HD DVD player, the switch senses this and changes to the correct input. If no devices are on, the switch goes into standby mode. Smart Scan can be switched off with the button on the front if you need to do so.
The supplied remote control also allows you to manually select inputs, which is handy if a device does not trigger the Smart Scan. In our tests this feature worked perfectly and the Octava switch really was transparent to the system we were testing.

Each device we used was first tested without the switch in place. The Toshiba HD-A1 HD DVD player which delivers a superb, crystal clear picture was unaffected by introducing the Octava switch. Onto the Panasonic DMR-EX85, which is an HDD recorder with upscaling features, and again the picture was very clear with or without the switch in use.
The Octava HDMI switch uses a proprietary design called Clear Eye, which claims to improve the digital video signals. Although this really needs to be measured properly, with the naked eye I was certain that the Toshiba picture did take on a little sharper appearance. Over longer cable runs I would expect this technology to improve things even more.

The big question is if this is a good buy? Well, if you need an HDMI switch then yes, it is a great piece of kit, and very well built too. The 3x1 version costs just £119.95, so for the extra £30 you are getting two very valuable extra inputs. I would definitely buy the 5x1 version if funds allowed. The fact that it supports up to 1080P resolution, and that it works so easily and transparently, it comes very highly recommended.

Product: Octava Automatic 5x1 HDMI Switch (HDS5-UK)
Price: £149.95 + delivery
Supplied by: The Media Factory
Contact: +44 (0)1968 661 803

Lindy HDMI Switch Review - Bargain Price !

The Lindy HDMI Switch solves a problem that many of us face over the next few years. It took a long time for manufacturers to give us enough SCART sockets on the back of TV sets, but now, with the advent for High Definition, there is a new socket in town... HDMI.

People seem to be flocking to the stores lately, picking up large LCD and plasma screens to view their DVD's and digital TV on. When they realise just how bad standard definition sources look, it is not long before they are wanting SKY HD or perhaps an upscaling DVD player. Add the forthcoming PS3 into the equation, and to get the best from your set-up you suddenly need three HDMI sockets. With most screens coming with one HDMI socket, at the most two, this is a problem.

One option is to purchase an AV amplifier or receiver which has HDMI switching, but this is an expensive move. The minimum you are really looking at spending is £500 which may get you one extra input. For those who are already happy with their sound set-up or do not want to spend that sort of cash, the only other option is a switch.

Gone are the days of those clunky push-button SCART switches, with the Lindy UK offering of a remote control HDMI switch. This neat little box of tricks offers a very smart solution, with three HDMI inputs and one output (which goes to your screen). The box is an all-metal affair, not particularly pretty to look at, but the understated design looks nice and techy. The rear of the units has the power supply input and HDMI sockets. The front sports the IR receiver (for the remote control), some status lights, input button, and an image enhancer button. The remote control supplied is very small and flat, with a power button and number buttons for selecting the desired input…

Set-up is very easy, just plug in your sources, connect the HDMI output into your screen, switch on and you are good to go. For our tests we used a Lindy's Premium Gold HDMI cables, which are very reasonably priced. It is important to remember when buying any switch to budget for an extra cable. Once everything was powered on it was nice to see that there was absolutely no degradation in quality at all. Switching between inputs was faultless, with the remote being very responsive and the LED status lights on the front showing the selected input. The image enhancement circuitry made no noticeable difference to the clarity of the picture in our tests, but I really think this will come into play if you are using long HDMI runs of ten meters of more.

Picture quality from out Toshiba HD-A1 HD-DVD player was exceptional, the clarity was pin-sharp and colours remained unchanged with the switch in place. We also tested a Panasonic DMR-EX85, which is a hard disk drive recorder, with an upscaling DVD player. Again the picture quality was brilliant, though we did need to disconnect the SCART cable to obtain a stable picture. This is not a problem though, as the whole idea of this new technology is to ditch your old SCART connections in favour of the much superior HDMI.

A quick note about the Lindy Premium Gold HDMI cable which was very impressive. The build quality was spot on, and the 24K gold plated connectors ensure the highest possible signal transfer. We compared this cable to the standard one supplied with the Toshiba HD-A1 HD-DVD player and the picture certainly seemed more vibrant. Keep an eye out on Geekanoids for a full review of this cable very soon.

The Lindy HDMI Switch supports HDTV resolutions up to 1080P and is fully HDCP compliant, so you should not run into any problems in the future. You also get a generous two year warranty. For £119 it offers great value for money, with some switches on the market costing a lot more. It may be a budget price, but it certainly delivers great performance, with that all important transparency to your home cinema set-up.

Product: Lindy HDMI Switch Remote
Price: £119.00
Supplied by: Lindy UK
Contact: +44 (0) 1642 754000

Product: Lindy Premium Gold HDMI Cable (2m)
Price: £48.99

Pinnacle SoundBridge Review - wireless music

The Pinnacle SoundBridge is a device that connects to an external set of powered speakers, or a hi-fi system, and allows you to stream content from you computer wirelessly. With so many products moving this one step further by adding the inclusion of video streaming, audio only products are left with two choices. Either compete on quality, or price has to be what I would almost term as an impulse buy... more on that later.

This package consists of the unit itself, which sports a nice 16x2 line LED display. Around the back is the power adapter input, line-out for connecting to speakers or hi-fi, earphone jack to save you annoying the neighbours, and a SD/MMC memory card slot, a nice addition if you have an MP3 player that uses these and you want the SoundBridge to play back from a card.
There is also a rubber stand, to sit the cylindrical shape unit on, this seems a little cheap, but it does the job OK. To finish off the package you get the power adapter and stereo audio cable. The CD containing the SoundBridge software makes no attempt at hiding the origin of this product, which has been licensed from Roku.

Of note is the supplied remote control. More often than not this is a last minute thought, but the Pinnacle supplied remote has some useful buttons, a nice feel to it, and a nice layout, so well done Pinnacle !

Connecting up is really easy, and once you have installed the software, registered the unit with your wireless network (802.11b support) you are more or less ready to go. The SoundBridge will work with Windows Media Connect, Windows Media Player 10, Rhapsody and the fave of mine iTunes, which is of course supported on both Mac and PC platforms.

Supported formats include WMA, AAC, MP3, AIFF and WAV music files. My system is solely MP3 files, which when streamed to the SoundBridge and output to my AV receiver, the quality was pretty darn good. I was impressed with the crispness of the audio, with no dropouts, and the easy of navigation was also impressive.

Now, I started this review by saying that this sort of product has to either compete on quality or price. Well, on the quality front, the SoundBridge has more than acceptable audio performance, a nice remote and seems well built. The only negative is the cheap stand. The price however is amazing, you can pick this unit up at Curry's or Amazon for just £99.99. This is almost an impulse buy for many users, if it were £20 cheaper it would be a no-brainer, but for the sub-£100 asking price I think it represents great value for money.

Product: Pinnacle SoundBridge
Price: £99.99
Supplied by: Pinnacle Systems UK
Contact: +44 207 294 0140

Archos 504 Multimedia Player Review

Will the Archos tempt me away from my beloved iPod? I must admit, to say it was interesting is an understatement, with some very nice experiences along the way. On test was the 160Gb version of the Archos 504, yes, you read that right, 160Gb of storage.

The unit sports a 4.3 inch widescreen, capable of displaying 16 million colours. The screen is nice and bright, evenly lit and offers adjustable brightness levels. My only minor complaint was that there were not enough levels to choose from. Staying with the screen, it is very glossy, so you do get some reflections, but adjusting the angle is not a problem. The size of the actual unit is a little bulky feeling, not as pocketable as a 5th generation iPod, mainly because the size that the hard drive adds to the unit, but also due to the weight. Build quality was spot on, with a very nice brushed metal finish.

On the audio front the 504 supports MP3 and WAV files, photo viewing is also supported, plus you get MPEG4 and WMV video playback out of the box. To playback H.264, MPEG2 and VOB files you need to purchase optional plug-ins from Archos, which at the time of my review were not available.

Playing back music was superb, the sound through a decent set of headphones was rich and the on-screen display gives you a lot of information and options. There is also a built-in speaker, but this is very tinny and does not give a lot of volume, so although I do not think you would use it much, I suppose not a lot of competitors players have a speaker at all. Movie playback is awesome, the fluidity of motion scenes is great, colours are rich and again you have a lot of options. Photo viewing is also great, you get thumbnails of all your files, which are magnified slightly as you move over them for easy selection. When viewed full size the colour and definition is spot on, plus moving to the next photo is done in style with beautiful transition effects.

Where the Archos 504 takes things one step further is with its' ability to record programs. To do this you need to purchase the optional DVR Station, which serves many purposes. Use as a simple dock allows you to synchronise the 504 with your PC or Mac (for Mac please read on), it also allows you to charge the unit. The back of the DVR Station is laden with many sockets, composite video in and out, S-Video in and out, Audio in and out, Digital SPDIF out, plus Component video output too. Wow, now that is a lot to choose from. Once connected you can view content on your TV, but the exciting part is the ability to record and schedule recordings. The DVR Station is even powerful enough to bounce IR signals off a wall some 15 feet away, then back to your set-top box to change channels. The resulting recordings are nothing short of superb, with great visuals and sound.

Now, I use a Mac and an iPod every day. To get content over to the Archos, I simply plugged in via USB and set the unit to 'hard drive mode'. It then appeared on my desktop as an external drive. I then dragged folders and files from my iTunes library into the appropriate folder on the Archos (eg. Music, Movies, Photos etc.). This worked great and even pulled across and displayed my album art. The only downside was the lack of support for .mov files, so I guess once that plug-in comes this will be sorted.

So, will I give up my iPod. Well, the truthful answer is no, but I would love to have an Archos 504 as well, if I could afford it. If I didn't have an iPod already, then I would strongly consider this as an alternative, but only if I was going to put the recording features to good use. The Archos 504 is a superb product and I would strongly recommend you try and get a look at one.

Take a look at my two part video review below. The Archos product page is here.

Part One

Part Two