Author: George Mikhaiel

Battery Operated Lighting Options

Calling all filmmakers, photographers, hairstylists and party starters! Have you ever needed a wireless light to brighten a subject? To light a party? Well we have the products for you. This video showcases various options for battery operated lights to suit any of your needs. These lights are perfect for when you don’t have an outlet near by, or for on the go shootings. All the links for the battery operated lights we carry are available below.

Links:

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Finding the Perfect Light Stand for You

Here at Big City we have a lot of stands, all with different sizes and weights. From tall ones to short rolling ones. We have anything to fit you film or photo needs. Links to all the stands shown in this video are below.

All the stands we carry.

 

Difference between Fog Machines & Hazers

                                         Fog Machines

The way a fog machine works is by heating the fog fluid or juice in order to create fog. Fog juice is pumped through thermostatically temperature controlled heat exchanger that vaporizes the fluid into thick clouds of fog. All fog machines require around 5 minutes to heat up, which can be the problem with most cheap models. They tend to generate fog, but will need to take pauses to reheat before they can make fog again. Different fog machines create different types of fog. Fog machines are more likely to set off fire alarms. A smaller fog machine will tend to have a smaller wattage, which is fine for a small house party but probably won’t fill up a large stage. For example a 700w fog machine is perfect for an at home partier and a 3000 –1500w machine is perfect for a wedding or banquet.

                                          Hazers

A hazer also uses fog fluid, but the fluid is sent into an enclosed chamber where an air compressor shoots the fluid into a vapour, which is then blown out by a fan in the form of a vapour. Hazers never produce thick clouds, in fact you can barely see the haze in the air. Their main purpose is to add atmosphere and dimension to any performance area through lighting effect enhancement, they also work great with lasers. Hazers are less likely to set off fire alarms but it’s not guaranteed. It’s always good to do a bit of research before renting/ purchasing one.

Different types of Fog/Haze Machines

Normal Foggersfog machine toronto canada foggers

These smoke machines are regular ones you see. It creates a cloud of smokey fog 5′-10′ tall. The longer you run the machine, the bigger and higher the fog goes. Because this is heated fog the mist with be slowly moving higher as you run the machine. These type of foggers are the cheapest priced ones available.  The very cheap units probably won’t have DMX control, but there are many cost-effective models that do.

 

NOTE: It is not a fog effect that will lay low, this fog will rise due to the heated vapour.

                                               Low Foggers

low lying fog machine rental toronto canada

Now how about that epic looking ground fog? How do you do that? Well since we said to make fog you need heat, but heat rises… That means we need to cool the fog after producing it with a fog chiller.

NOTE: Chilled fog will only lie low for as long as it is cold, once it has warmed up it will rise back up into the air.

There’s also another option where you could use a low-lying CO2 fog machine. They work perfectly without the fog rising, but are expensive and need to be monitored as they could cause breathing problems.  Water based ones like the ADJ Mr. Kool II are much more friendly to use. (and cheaper)

Haze Machine

stage haze machine hazzer toronto canada rental hazer

Haze machines create a fine haze and tend to stay in the air longer – the particles linger in the air for a long time before disappearing making them ideal for use at parties and concerts. They produce a less noticeable effect than smoke or low fog machines, as they are designed to emphasize the lighting effects allowing you to see rays and patterns you would not normally see. For example the laser effect at a party.

 

 

 

 

Purchase/ Rental links:

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A Better & Thinner Soft-box Light

Calling all you photographers and filmmakers! Are you tried of constantly having to setup your big, thick and bulky soft-box lights? Do you want dimming and colour temperature controls too? We here at Big City we have the lights for you! These soft-box lights are 3 inches thick (at the knob, 2 inches rest of fixture) and completely LED, hows that for convenience?  All the pricing and availability is linked below.

Links:

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Project Valerie – The World’s First Triple Monitor Laptop

 

Project Valerie is a Razer laptop with three,  4K monitors and a built-in mechanical keyboard. The 17.3-inch monitors slide out automatically of it’s sides of the main screen and adjust it’s angle when the laptop is open. Sadly as with most of Razer’s CES concepts, we don’t know for sure this 12K multi-display laptop will ever be released to market.

The concept takes the 17-inch Razer Blade Pro laptop which is powered by Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1080 and uses Nvidia’s G-Sync technology and slaps two extra mechanically controlled monitors to it. The co-founder and CEO of razor Min-Liang Tan said in a prepared statement, “The complexities of a traditional multi-monitor setup are a thing of the past with Project Valerie.” Since all the monitors are native, the ability to connect more through the HDMI is still an option.

 

 

The system uses a unibody aluminum chasis that measures 1.5-inches thick and weighs 10 – 12 pounds. It’s unclear if those measurements include the two additional built-in monitors or are just for the base system. Razer has a history showing up to CES, showing off products and taking home awards, but those products don’t always go to market. Instead, Razer likes to use CES as a way to test new ideas and grab a lot of international attention for it’s self and other products it makes.

 

Here’s a video from Razer:

Samsung’s Version of the “Apple AirPods”

Apple released their new wireless earbuds mid December 2016. Samsung, being Apple’s leading competitor, then released an updated version of their wireless earbuds, the IconX version 2’s. These wireless earbuds are preferred by many runners and jogger as, unlike AirPods, they have different sized gels that fit into almost any ear. They also come in pink, black or grey.

 

Specifications:

  • Storage capacity: 3.4GB for up to 1,000 songs
  • Sensors: Accelerometer and proximity
  • Mics: Two mics per earbud with ambient sound option
  • Water resistance: IP67
  • Battery life: 7 hours of stand alone music playback or up to 5 hours of Bluetooth streaming from your watch or phone.
  • Battery Complicity: 82 mAh for each earbud & the battery case has a 340 mAh battery.
  • Wireless connectivity: Bluetooth 4.2
  • Earbud dimensions: 21.8 x 18.9 x 22.8 mm and 8 grams

What’s in the package?

  • Two earbuds, left and right
  • A charging case with integrated battery and USB Type-C port
  • USB Type-C cable
  • USB Type-C to USB Type-A dongle
  • Small/medium/large silicone earbud tips and wings

 

Key Features:

When closed, there are indicator lights on the front of the case to let you know if it’s charging or not and there is a lid release button between them. At the back you will find a USB Type-C port centred on the case for charging. On the right of that is the Bluetooth pairing button that will be used to setup connections with Android or iOS devices. Around the outside of the earbuds are touch sensitive sensors. With a variety of taps, swipes, and other actions to carry out various functions. For example, a single tap plays or pauses a track, a double tap plays the next track or answers/ends an active call, a triple tap action plays the previous track, a touch and hold will launch the menu readout where you can choose to start a workout right from the headset, and swipes up or down control the volume.

 

Price and Competition:

The 2018 Samsung Gear IconX goes for $134.99 CAD while Apple’s AirPods go for $219.00 CAD.

Other competing truly wireless earbuds include the Bragi Dash Pro that has 4GB of storage and automatic activity trackings. These are priced at a rather high $329. The Jabra Elite Sport headset is priced at $249.99 and can also be found for sale down to $199.99 at times.

The BEST Folding Phone Available Now

We are living in a brand new era. Phones have been the same box like shape for the last 10 years. The idea of a phone being able to fold into a mini tablet has always been a fantasy. Well this year that fantasy is becoming a reality with the Huawei Mate X. The first foldable phone where the display bends too, revealing a nice looking mini tablet for your media consumption needs.

 

 

Picking up the phone you will find a bar along the side. That contains the cameras, finger print sensors and internal chips / hardware. The phone is running Huawei’s flagship mobile processor, the Kirin 980, as well as 8GB of RAM and a 512GB storage drive. Storage is also expandable with Huawei’s Nano Memory, up to 256GBs. This phone also has 5G cellular connection antenna in that side bar, giving it the title of “World’s Fastest 5G phone.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Huawei Mate X has two main screens (or two main halves) – a bezeless display on the front, and a smaller display that fits next to the sidebar on the back. The former measures 6.6-inches with a 19.5:9 aspect ratio and 2,480 x 1148 pixel resolution, while the rear-facing screen is 6.38-inches with a 25:9 aspect ratio and 2,480 x 892 pixel resolution. When opened completely it has a 8:7.1 aspect ratio and 2,480 x 2,200 pixel resolution.

 

 

 

In terms of battery this phone packs a lot. It has a 4,500mAh unit, which is split between the two halves of the displays. It also has Huawei’s 55W SuperCharge tech which allows it to be recharged from zero per cent to 85 per cent capacity in just 30 minutes.

One thing to not look forward to about this phone is the price. The Huawei Mate X goes for $3425 CAD, which is almost three time the price of a very premium flagship smart phone.

 

 

 

Samsung Galaxy S10 | Everything you need?

The new Samsung Galaxy S10 was announced on February 20th, 2019. This phone comes packed with everything ‘new’ you could ask for here in 2019. Samsung hasn’t been a fan of the ‘notch’ design trend and can now say they never were part of it. The s10 comes with a 93:1 screen to body ratio, with a camera cut out on the top. Its finger print sensor, *cough cough Apple*, is indebted into the screen. Did I mention it has a total of 4 cameras?

Samsung’s camera game is through the roof, with 3 rear cameras and 1 for the selfie. Many people wonder why smartphones are getting more cameras side by side. The answer is that it allows for more depth when taking a photo. Having those cameras will not only give better perspective and picture quality, it will also give you that background blur that shows up like you’re shooting with a professional DSLR.

 

 

 

Smartphone manufactures have been pulling they’re hair trying to figure out where to put the fingerprint sensor. Some have removed it completely and opted for face unlocking techniques. Others have thrown it on the power button, making it more chunky, or even stuck it on the back making annoyingly hard to reach. Finally, we’ve found a solution. A display built in finger print reader, that takes up the whole display! Although other phones have similar tech, using light from the display to read the fingerprint. Samsung is the first company to use an ultrasonic sensor. This sensor uses small vibrations to determine the small groves on your fingers. Quite impressive right.  This also means the display doesn’t have to be on to unlock it and it could still read your finger if they’re wet.

Manufactures are clearly running out of ideas. Some are just releasing the same phone but with a newer name and a slightly faster processor. Everything is a boring slab of metal with nothing exciting. Samsung changed that and is definitely gonna be waking up to more profit.

HTC Vive – Still the VR Top Dog?

The HTC Vive is far ahead of its competitors that it’s hard to explain the experience to others who haven’t tried it yet. It’s kinda like explaining a video game or movie to someone who hasn’t watch any film before.

Virtual reality is still growing, and because it’s still new, there is the problem of low variety of games. But this issue will be resolved as time goes by and bigger and better titles become available.

The HTC Vive requires a pretty high end gaming computer to run. A PC with an Intel Core i5-4590K and either a Nvidia GTX 970 or AMD R9 390 GPU are the bare minimum in terms of specs. But if you’re a PC gamer chances are that you’ll have a beast of a PC and this would be an accessory. Kind of like a getting a new controller, mouse or keyboard only a lot more premium.

 

The HTC Vive destroys it’s competition like the Playstation VR and the Oculus Rift in terms of build quality of the headset, the controllers, and the sensors. The HTC Vive comes with quality foam around the lenses to provide comfort compared to plastic that the Rift has. The controllers were made to interact with the games to provide a more real experience. There are two sensors that come with the HTC Vive that have to be mounted/clipped high above the player for the best experience. The Rift and Playstation VR both come with one which means out of the box you can’t play stand up games, which takes away from the overall experience.

 

Other competitors like Samsung Gear VR or Google Cardboard are all about making VR available to budget people who have never experienced VR  before. Whereas the HTC Vive is geared toward people who have experienced it and want to enjoy the best of the best.

 

Pros:

  • Best VR experience
  • Intuitive controls
  • Software partnership with Valve

Cons:

  • Still a bit pricey… about $699.99 (CA) to be exact
  • Requires a high-end GPU
  • Less comfortable than the Rift

 

 

Grow Lights

Are you a flower person? Do you love your greens? Well we have just the lights for you. These lights are grow lights, which means they help your plants grow faster and stronger than usual. In this video we showcase different sized and different watt LED grow lights. Hope you enjoy!

Links to all lights are down below

Links:

24w LED Grow Light Bulb

45w LED Grow Light Panel

100w Waterproof LED Grow Light

150w Waterproof LED Grow Light

 

LG’s New Rollable TV

 

Last year LG had introduced a rollable TV as a prototype, but now it’s a reality. Consumers will be able to order their very own rollable 4K signature OLED TV sometime this spring. But it doesn’t retail for cheap, this is a premium TV which means it’s going be pretty expensive. The company’s “wallpaper” OLED TV started at $8,000. This is a lot more impressive, which means it will be significantly pricier than that.

 

This TV is here when you need it, and could disappear in seconds if you don’t want it. Not everyone wants a black screen to be the centre of attention in the living room. Manufactures are starting to realize that. Samsung came out with “The Frame” which becomes a piece of art hanging on your wall when not in use.

There’s a mode on the TV where the display will roll down to about one-fourth of the panel. this mode would reveal on-screen music controls and the option to control your smart home gadget.

 

 

 

 

Owning a rollable TV doesn’t mean you sacrifice performance. There is no difference in terms of picture quality between this and a rigid, standard OLED. LG is putting this up along side its other premium products, in terms of contrast, brightness and features. All of the OLED bells and whistles, like perfect blacks, great viewing angles, and a wide variety of vivid HDR colour.

 

 

 

 

Cool String Lights

Are you looking for something to spice up your room? Maybe for a holiday event with lots of guest you’d like impress? Well we might have something for you. In this video, we showcase three mood enhancing lights for whatever project or event you have. Many different colours and various different options available.

Links to all the lights are shown below.


5m Waterproof RGB Rope Light with Remote Control

10m (33ft) LED Silver Wire String Fairy Light

Warm White 50 Mini LED Light String Set