clockwork s'Mart

Its something in human nature, we like to browse – looking in windows at all the shinny stuff. Of course we all love a bargain and feel really pleased with ourselves when we get something cheap, but there its always something else nagging in the back of our minds; that little voice saying “but I want it now!”

But hey! we can help you out with at least one of those little voices; check out this great little iPhone app that will scrape the net for the best prices.

RedLaser; scanning the safe way

I was testing out a new application for the iPhone called “RedLaser” (£1.19 from the iTunes App Store).

The developer says “The RedLaser app lets you search for online prices using Google product search. You can also keep a list of products and send them to yourself or a friend (because sometimes you just need to check things out on a bigger screen.)”

With this little app you can scan a barcode for a album, DVD, camera or a book and moments later results from Amazon (in your country) and a Google search showing the best prices.

In HMV (a well known music store in the UK) I decided to perform some price checks using the new app. The first image shows the shop price, second the barcode snapped from the application, the third shows the results and in this case the fourth shows the cost of the album from iTunes. Check out the screen shots below;

I tried again with a DVD and the app performed the magic again – showing pricing from a number of different sites, iTunes again was the cheapest at £10.99 but remember you get just the movie as a file which is limited to authorised devices associated with your iTunes account.

Overall the application worked a treat, although you need a steady hand when scanning the barcode.

I’d like to point out that HMV do some great deals – where the physical stock works in our favour. You can for example get 4 DVD’s for £20, and that’s them just clearing stock – a problem that iTunes don’t have!

Time for a transformation

I’ve found two tools for the Apple iMac that I think you will find interesting, I use for converting the physical into virtual, RipIt and Elgato Turbo.264 HD

RipIt allows you to.. yup you’ve guessed it rip a DVD, but not just the main movie file, it will capture the whole DVD allowing you to open the image as a full “virtual” DVD within the standard Mac DVDplayer – including all the extra’s! But at the moment its not iTunes friendly but all the same its a snip at only $19.95

Of course you must always follow all the associated copyright laws and you must own the DVD’s – this site in no way condones the act of illegally copying DVD’s.

… next

Elgato upgraded their hardware encoder a while back to support the HD format, and I have to say the Elgato Turbo.264 HD is a neat bit of kit that you can pick up for around £100. The small dongle fits in a spare USB slot and when the drivers are installed will take the a majority of the media crunching off the iMac CPU and nail it with its onboard dedicated hardware encoder.

The user interface is simple, clean and easy to use; either connect your camcorder or drag and drop the media (or DVD image created by RipIt) and away you go. There are a number of profiles, and if you want the movie to be suitable for iTunes I recommend AppleTV with Chapter markers.

Typically a 90 minute film will take between 30~40 minutes to covert, you can even get Turbo.264 HD to drop it straight into iTunes automatically if you want.

Recap

So, we’ve looked at a simple application for the iPhone that will help you get the best prices for your physical media and gadgets; searching through thousands of sites to get you the best price.

If you just couldn’t wait and bought the DVD, we’ve also checked out a very smart application and hardware to get your DVD’s into iTunes with speed and ease.

Future of Media

A while back I blogged about the future of print when Amazon released the Kindel2, it was evident that people liked to have something physical to read rather than a virtual book stored on a device.

Now I would like to ask for comments on peoples thoughts; in the digital world we live in do you still prefer physical things you can touch and feel, or are you happy with it’s digital counterpart? Will you pay a little more just to have it in your hand NOW?