In the past when friends got together the old slide projector and the movie camera were brought out and friends shared pictures and movies.

Now that we are in the digital age the slide projector and the movie projector are going the way of the dinasour.

I thought it was time to leave the past behind and catch up to the digital age. Once I started looking at digital projectors I realized that I am totaly lost.

How about some posts on this subject from those who have made the switch? I've got a scanner to digitalize my slides and a program to put my movies on the computer. I want to be able to show both from a DVD.

Ed Burger

Hardware wise, you are going to need a frame capture board that will take the input from a VCR or other device via RCA cables, and allow the analog audio and visual to be converted to digital. Same principal as a scanner, but for capturing videos in analog formats such as a VCR tape.

You will need a DVD-R drive to burn your DVDs. If your computer did not come equipped with one; it should be a fairly new computer (I'd say less than 2 or three years old); otherwise, it will be too slow to support the transfer rate. You will also need lots and lots of disc space; you could easily fill a 20 GB hard drive with captured video and still pictures.

There is software that allows you to create a slide show out of still pictures, and add a background sound track to it; as well as take your captured video and burn either one to a DVD. From what I have been reading, the version of Media Center that will be built into certain versions of Windows Vista when it comes out next year will be able to do so as well, and it will be free with Vista.

If you have an older computer without enough disk space, DVD-R drive, and a frame capture board; your best best is probably to just purchase a whole new multi-media PC with all of this installed.

Windows Media Center computers can plug into a wide screen LCD monitor. With the appropiate hardware, you can use it as a media center to control your television, DVD player, and VCR. You can also capture programs off the television, and save them as MPEG files. But, I would purchase one already put together, rather than trying to build one.

There are LCD projectors; but I think for what you have in mind, a large screen television would work just as well, and would have some use when not sharing your pictures with friends. I haven't priced LCD projectors in a few years; but they were still running over $1,000; pretty pricy for occasional use.

-James Hefner
Hebrews 10:20a

Surviving World Steam Project

As James indicates, you have two options: digital projectors, and TVs.

Digital projectors have similar specs to monitors (800x600, 1024/768, etc.). You can get a 1024x768 projector for about $600. Prices go up as the projector gets brighter, the contrast ratio increases, the screen resolution improves, etc. The ViewSonic PJ452, to pull an example off the CompUSA site, also supports NTSC video (the US standard) and claims to support HDTV. However, for $600 that's probably a degraded version of HDTV - full "1080p" projectors are much more expensive.

If you have a newer TV (flatscreen), it may have a "DVI" port for accepting digital video input. This connector type has largely replaced the blue "VGA" monitor connector, and if you've bought your (desktop) computer in the last year, it will probably have a DVI port (white, square holes) and may or may not have a VGA (blue, round holes) connector on the back.

Storing your converted images/video: you can certainly run your files onto DVD (8GB) or CD (.7GB), but by the end of this year CD/DVD will be as obsolete as the floppy. Already computers are being shipped with HD-DVD (45GB) and BluRay (50GB) drives, (HD and BluRay are in a VHS-BetaMAX style fight), and on Monday Samsung announced a 64GB CompactFlash product.

Given how cheap hard drive space is (a 300GB drive is $80), if you place any value on your time and convenience, just leave it on a drive. I don't have a single byte stored on a CD or DVD - it's all on hard drive (multiple hard drives, as we mirror 3 computers onto 4 drives). If you have an older computer you don't use much and a home network, turn it into a storage device by installing a couple of big drives. Or buy a $100 NetGear SC101 "network disk," install your own hard drives, and plug it into your home network.

You might also want to look at a DVR (like TiVo, only for your own content) instead of keeping it on your computer.

The entire home theatre - home stereo "space" is in upheaval now, as component manufacturers very belatedly bring their hidebound products into the 21st century. (Two examples: my neighbor bought one of those $1000 all-in-one, programmable remotes recently. He couldn't program it, because it required a serial port to connect to a computer. I don't know when the last serial port was installed on a new computer, but I'm sure I had a lot less gray hair than I do now. Also, ZON labs has a fantastic whole-house system that uses CAT5 wiring and 802.3 pinouts, but won't connect to a home LAN. Go figure.) In the next year or two expect to see home theatre components that will finally connect to your home network and recognize shared hard drives (so that you can watch a video stored on your laptop without connecting any cables), and the ability to use your Internet browser as a "remote" to your home theatre components.

JAC