Category: Technology
365 Adventures in 2011: Day 364 – Tron Meon
Disney really missed a merchandise opportunity with this one. For Christmas, “Santa” got me a Meon picture maker, which is similar to a Light Brite but instead of illuminated pegs, this has glowing colored wires that can be bent and shaped over a picture. And while Disney has licensed their Cars and Princess franchises for Meon kits, they didn’t come out with a Tron one, which seems like an obvious choice for this new toy, and certainly the first thing I thought of when discovering it.
So despite the fact that my kit came with Star Wars backgrounds, I was determined to make it a Tron Meon. I found online a perfect light cycle promotional image for Tron: Legacy, printed it to the correct size, cut it out, and spent a couple hours outlining the red/orange and blue areas with Meon wire. The result is a purely awesome light-up Tron display that I will surely change out for more Tron pictures in the future. But for a while, I’ll enjoy this one.
365 Adventures in 2011: Day 356 – Projector Mounted
It took a few hours but I finally got the new 3D projector mounted, aligned, and calibrated in our home theater… and it looks great! Not only is the 3D aspect fun, but it’s also a step up from the previous projector in general, as it’s 1080p instead of just 720p. The other projector looked wonderful, but this one is even better. I look forward to watching many movies on it in the new year.
(Anyone want to buy the old one? Still for sale, if the price is right.)
365 Adventures in 2011: Day 354 – New 3D Projector
My new projector arrived today. It’s an Optoma HD33 1080p 3D projector. With it, I bought 2 pairs of Optoma RF 3D glasses and a 25-foot HDMI cable. I didn’t want to take down the old Yamaha 720p projector from the ceiling mount before making sure I wanted to keep this one, so I set it up on a step stool with cables running everywhere, hooked up to the $70 open box buy Blu-ray 3D player I got from Best Buy a couple weeks ago (normally $300-400).
The result: Pretty darn amazing. Tron: Legacy looks STUNNING when blown up to nearly 100″ and displayed in 3D. Like any 3D presentation, I’m still a bit disappointed by how much darker the image is when wearing the glasses, but even big movie theaters have that issue. Short of that, everything about this projector is perfect and I think I’ll be keeping it. I’ll be hanging and calibrating it in my home theater soon to give it a proper evaluation.
It’s pretty amazing to have full HD 3D in my own home. I always thought 2 projectors would be necessary for this type of thing. Hopefully Universal’s Terminator 2: 3D attraction film will be released to Blu-ray 3D some day.
My Yamaha 720p projector is around 6 years old and I think it’s worth around $800 if anyone is interested in buying it from me. It only has around 310 hours on the bulb, so it’s practically new. I originally bought it for around 3 times that amount.
But I think my favorite part of the new projector is the stunned/amazed look on the girl’s face on the box. I wonder what she’s watching.
365 Adventures in 2011: Day 346 – Coming soon to a theater near me
This is my home theater projector. 720p HD. LCD. It has treated me well over the last 6 years or so. But now a new one is on the way, with newer technologies built in. It should arrive early next week. I’m not sure if I’ll keep it, but if I do, it’ll be a nice early Christmas present for myself. More to come. (Anyone want to buy my old one?)
365 Adventures in 2011: Day 345 – More Dripping Icicles
Our dripping icicle lights looked great in our front tree. But they only filled about a quarter of the branches. So Michelle bought 4 more strands and we hung those, filling most of the tree. And now it looks three times better! This photo doesn’t do it justice, as it just looks like the icicles are all lit up. But they do drip downward in a pattern, sparkling along the way. We’ve had a few neighborhood compliments on them already.
