It’s an ever-increasing mobile world, and with it comes all the tech stuff we need to get things done. Being mobile means your tech will run off a battery or two. However there are certain items when you should care and other times when you don’t have to.

Point-And-Shoot Digital Cameras

Should you care? Yes.

I won’t buy a point-and-shoot digital camera unless it runs off AA batteries. It is the best and cheapest way to keep taking pictures. Yes, it does add bulk to the camera for the battery compartment, but that small inconvenience is more than worth it.

Camcorders

Should you care? Yes.

It’s always smart to purchase a secondary battery for your camcorder. If possible, buy the secondary with the camcorder at the same time.

Automotive GPS

Should you care? No.

Battery life for automotive GPS devices such as from Garmin, TomTom, Magellan or any other have always been terrible, and it doesn’t look like that will change any time soon. With the screen at full brightness (required for daytime driving use) and the speaker volume at 70% or higher, you’ll get at most 2 hours out of the battery no matter who made the GPS. Furthermore it’s always used in the car, so when the battery dies you just plug in the charger and keep on going.

Battery life on GPS matters for units other than for automotive use, such as for trail or maritime. The Garmin Oregon 550t for example runs off 2 AA batteries, and that matters a lot for a GPS of that type given its particular purpose (it does both trail and maritime).

Cell Phone

Should you care? No.

I know no one that carries around a spare cell phone battery with them. All wireless phones today have a relatively decent talk time concerning battery life. And yes, if you talk for three hours straight, of course the battery will die on you. But for shorter calls and texting, the battery should last for days so it’s not a huge consideration.

What’s more important with a wireless phone purchase is the rated talk talk time and standby time. This doesn’t necessarily depend on battery type, because two phones by two different manufacturers that use the same type of battery will have different talk/standby times.

General rule of thumb: The less features a wireless phone has, the longer the battery will last due to the fact the phone doesn’t have to "think" as much. This is why 10-dollar TracFones have unbelievably good standby times, since the phone has only the most basic of features. It’s also the reason older less-featured cell phones with a new battery in them seem to "last forever".

Laptop Computers

Should you care? Depends on type.

With laptops there are basically three flavors: The netbook, standard and the gamer.

With the netbook (9 to 12-inch screen), yes, battery options definitely count because it’s meant to be ultra-mobile. You should stuff a netbook with longest-lasting battery possible.

With the standard (13 to 15-inch screens), yes it counts. You should stuff that one with a 9-cell. Yes it will cost a pretty penny but it’s more than worth it.

With the gamer laptop (17-inch or higher with a powerful graphics card), no. Gamer laptops are well known to have inferior battery life because of the horsepower required to run them. And even if you stuff in the best battery available, you’d be lucky to get more than 2.5 hours of life before it needs a charge.

There’s a lot of people who have the desire to shoot video while driving, but then quickly give up the notion after realizing how much of a pain it can be. However it’s not all that difficult if you know how to do it in a safe way that doesn’t inconvenience you.

One way is to build a mount, like this:

There are a few immediate issues with the above method:

1. Both seats must be at the exact same angle in order for the bar to work.
2. Not everybody has a vehicle with headrests that extend (my truck doesn’t).
3. You have to physically fabricate the mount from scratch; it requires drilling, bolts, nuts and so on.

The second way – which is far easier – is to use a Flip secured tightly high on the passenger seat via a bungee cord wrapped around it.

I tested this and the result was surprisingly good.

(Note: The video below is admittedly boring. The point was to test shooting video this way to see if it would actually work.)

Although I didn’t get the angle quite right (it is pointing down somewhat), the video is clear and mostly stable. I purposely drove down a residential road with speed tables just to see how the Flip could handle bumps in the road video quality-wise, and it fared out much better than expected.

Flip camcorders do not record to videocassette but rather internal Flash memory, and has its own built-in USB connector for easy Flip-to-PC transfer. The newer HD models sell for $200, but the Flip Ultra (which is what I have) will record up to 30 minutes with its 1GB internal memory and retails for around $80 depending on where you shop. It also has the convenience of running off just 2 AA batteries. The 60-minute record time 2GB versions are 10 dollars more.

Also, there is the Flip action mount, however this may not work for in-car use (but does work great for bicycles and motorcycles).

So if you have the itch to shoot video from the car, now you’ve got some easy and moreover safe ways to do it.

To close out, here are things you should never do with camcorders and cars:

Holding a camcorder while driving. Dumb. Just plain dumb. It takes a hand off the steering wheel and concentration off the road. Bad, bad combination.

Putting a camcorder on the dashboard. Bad idea. Most of the time it will block your field of view and if there are any emergency situations where you have to make a hard stop or turn, the camcorder will go flying – and possibly hit you.

Mounting a camcorder near or on the rear glass. Blocks field of view in the rear direction. Bad idea.

Mounting a camcorder with suction cups to glass. Not smart. It will fall off. And yes there are some fools who have actually tried this.

If the camcorder is not secure, it’s just bad news all around. The steel bar method is rock solid. The bungee method keeps a Flip (and only a Flip or like type camcorder) very secured.

What about tripods?

A standard tripod is very bulky and will compromise the space behind the driver/passenger seats. In addition it’s not easy to set up at all.

The GorillaPod (in particular the Go-Go) is not secure enough for in-car use.

People see videos like these:

…and really want to do the in-car video thing. But trust me, this was not an easy setup. Not at all. Cool yes, but not easy.

The days of linear format camcorders are dying. Linear as it relates to camcorders is anything using slack that requires rewinding or fast-forwarding. And to be honest I’m not sorry to see them go. This is more or less the last in line of tech products to get "off the slack", so to speak.

There are many of you out there who still have MiniDV videocassette format camcorders. Since day one I have always hated MiniDV. It’s not the cassette itself I hate, it’s the fact the decks in camcorders that use them are notoriously unreliable. This is partly due because of the cookie-cutter style method of manufacturing that goes into these things (even the expensive ones).

For those that remember VHS camcorders, those things were built like tanks and lasted a good long time. You could pop in and out VHS tapes to your heart’s content and it wouldn’t bust.

MiniDV on the other hand is something you have to treat gingerly. It’s almost as if you have to say a little prayer each time you load in a cassette. "Oh please, don’t break on me. Pretty please. I treat you well. You know I do." Your prayers won’t matter because your MiniDV camcorder can and will break at the worst possible time and is very subject to Murphy’s Law.

Fortunately it’s relatively cheap to ditch the slack, say buh-bye to MiniDV and go with non-linear flash, optical or hard disk camcorders.

For the vast majority of you that do non-pro video recording, a Flip will work. I personally have one of these things. The fact I can get 60 minutes of very decent quality record time on a unit powered by two AA batteries is nothing short of miraculous. Granted, the zoom feature sucks and it can’t do close-ups very well, but the convenience more than makes up for it. And it even has a tripod mount. Currently they sell for just under $130. And yes, you should get one. By the way, the USB port on it is built in.

"But I need better quality", you say. Then go with optical (or more specifically, the 8cm DVD disc format). For under $300 you can get yourself quite a nice Canon.

"But I hate discs", you say. Then go with hard-disk based units. These aren’t cheap. The lowest price is just a tick under $350. From there they spike over $600 easily. Do they have the super-awesome quality you’re looking for? Absolutely. It is for all intents and purposes a pro-grade unit.

Ditch your MiniDV and step into the modern age. It’s time.

When the first consumer-grade portable video recording systems were introduced they were humongous and had extremely poor battery life. In addition to that they were heavy and gave you "camcorder shoulder" in short order.

As camcorders progressed in technology they started to become smaller but suffered from the same fate as their predecessors – they were stuck using linear recording mediums (VHS, Hi8, VHS-C, miniDV, etc.)

Further down the line, optical media was introduced in the form of direct-to-disc DVD both full-sized and 8cm-size.

For professional videographers, you still can’t escape tape. Not cost effectively anyway.

For everyone else, you can ditch your tapes and discs now by using a camcorder with built-in flash memory. No tapes. No discs.

Most people have seen the Pure Digital Flip camcorder. I have used one of these myself and can honestly say that yes, you will instantly love this thing compared to a traditional tape or optical media camcorder. First of all, it’s cheap (just over 100 bucks). Second, it’s stupidly easy to use. There is zero learning curve with one of these things. Third, everyone has USB and fourth (the best part), it runs on just 2 AA batteries. No need to hunt around for expensive proprietary camcorder battery nonsense.

For those interested it records up to 1 hour of video and yes it does have a zoom feature.

I know what you’re saying.

"I want HD in the palm of my hand!"

Ask and ye shall receive:

Above is the Sony Xacti HDTV tapeless camcorder. And yes it’s true-blue HD. The cost of this unit was last known to be $468. Yes, it’s a good coin for this but it is HD in the palm of your hand. Rock on, flash memory.

We all like the convenience of the Ipod. We like our cell phones. In short, we like small things when we’re on the go. Digital cameras have gotten super small. And now, video cameras have as well.

The Flip Video is a super small video camera that retails for only $150. In fact, it is easily small enough to fit into your pocket. I had an opportunity to give the Flip Video a try. So, is a compact, sub $150 video camera any good?

Continued

On the live stream I periodically get asked what webcam I use and how I get the image to look at good as it does.

I inform that yes I use a Microsoft Lifecam VX-3000. It does the job and does it well for live streaming.

However I will be the first to admit it’s not perfect. There are drawbacks to webcams, such as:

Tiny lens

The itty bitty lens only allows for the bare minimum of focal length. In layman’s terms that means anything over 10 feet away will most likely be out of focus. If you’re sitting in front of your computer, you’re good to go. If it’s far away.. well.. don’t expect a perfect picture.

Light overcompensation

Aside from the manual focus ring on most webcams, all functions of the webcam are software based. While this is convenient it is at the same time very frustrating.

The single largest complaint of anyone who uses a webcam is that “static” appears when the light is too low. What the webcam tries to do at that point is “grab” light from anywhere in the frame, and if it finds none it will literally fabricate pseudo-light which appears to the eye as static.

Minimal data transfer

Your webcam is most likely connected via USB 2.0 spec. As anyone knows, USB is great but not exactly fast concerning transfer speed. Your best bet is to stick to 320×240 resolution. Some webcams do 640×480 (and even 800×600 for some), but the end result is that you’re pushing thru USB 2.0.

If you ever wondered “Why does my video look so much better at a low frame rate compared to high?”, it’s because the lower frame rates allow for higher bigger-data frames at the expense of frame rate.

The advantages of using a camcorder

Big lens with true optical focus

The larger lens makes a huge difference, and additionally has true optical focus. Even if you were standing 50 feet away from the camera, you would still be in focus.

Auto-focus

The vast majority of webcams don’t have auto-focus. Camcorders do and they adjust very quickly.

Colors that look more “real”

Again this is from the larger lens; it’s able to capture more of what the true image looks like and the difference can be seen easily.

Firewire

Firewire (IEEE 1394) is obviously superior to USB in every way. You can transfer much more data over the wire.

Vastly superior microphone

The on-board microphone on almost all camcorders have built-in noise reduction and compression. If you’re right next to the cam it’s almost the same as speaking into a vocal microphone.

It’s sadly true that on even the most expensive webcams the microphones are absolute junk. Not so on camcorders.

Any disadvantages?

There are two.

The camcorder is bulky and usually requires to be mounted on a tripod. If you can deal with the bulky-ness of the camcorder, go for it.

Connecting devices over Firewire, while great, may sometimes cause your computer and/or software to “think” about it more because of the high data transfer rate. USB 2.0 never has this problem. While it’s true you can run a Firewire-based webcam and still multitask without issue, periodically you may encounter a software lock-up (usually your camera software). This happens no matter what OS you’re using, be it Windows or OS X.