Their Canadian distributor can be found here: CPCAM, they are also currently holding a promotion for the newest camera, the AVN80X.

The AVN304

Unboxing

It comes in a regular sized camera box and is very well packed, keeping everything protected throughout shipment. The box includes the Camera, power adapter, a very nice mounting bracket, software CD (I never actually used this, so don’t know exactly what it contains), and installation guide.

The installation guide was easy to follow and covered more than you’ll ever need to know about getting the camera set up (as it is really quite easy).

The product box

Opening the box...

Hardware

The camera itself is solidly built and does not feel cheap. The components inside it are also very nice high quality.

It uses a Panasonic Live MOS Image Sensor which supports resolutions from QVGA (320 x 240) to SXGA (1280 x 1024). It has a white LED for illuminating dark areas and the lens has a nice wide viewing angle of 75° to get as much of the scene in as possible. Finally it has a built in microphone so you can record the sound as well. Of course there is more to it than just this, but you can go check the official specs to see more: http://www.avtech.com.tw/english/cctv_spec.aspx?ID=AVN304

All of the contents

Using the Mount

Merit of the Live MOS Chip

Installation

The installation guide isn’t overly important for this camera, it was actually extremely easy to get up and running. The time it took for me to go from plugging it into my network and watching the streaming video was approximately 3 minutes. It would have been a little shorter if I didn’t have to look through the installation guide for the default username and password to log in to the camera for the first time.

The software gives you some nice options for configuring the network as well as other handy things like quality, user accounts, DynDNS support (this is also covered quite extensively in the installation guide which is handy for new users to the DynDNS service), and a bunch more.

Usage

It couldn’t get much easier to use. You plug in the IP of the camera on your local network or the DynDNS url or however you had it setup remotely and log in. I would like to point out that every single time you log into the camera you need to fill out a captcha, this is pretty annoying and I did not think it was very necessary to have. [Update 07/04 - It has been brought to my attention that under "General -> Online Configuration" you are able to disable the captcha!]. Also when the stream starts you need to enter your username and password against for Quicktime, another annoyance but nothing deal breaking.

The interface is clean and easy to use. Some of the features are represented by icons with no text, but you quickly learn what they represent and it makes recognizing them a breeze afterwards.

You are able to adjust the focus depth by rotating the lens on the camera itself which is nice. I would have liked to have seen a remote way of adjusting this from the web management panel though. This again, like many of my critiques of the camera is quite minor as usually once you install it and adjust the focus it shouldn’t need to be touched again until it is moved.

Usage Overview

The Annoying Captcha

[Update 07/04 - It has been brought to my attention that under "General -> Online Configuration" you are able to disable the captcha!]

Tons of Configuration Options

Features

It incorporates some really nice features, some of these are:

Digital PTZ: Allows you to zoom in and then pan and tilt around.
White LED: Allows surveillance and recording even during the night.
Face Detection and Tracking: The camera can automatically detect faces and zoom in. You can also have it set to start recording only when faces are detected which I thought was a pretty nifty feature.
Digital Smart Zoom: Similar to above except instead of zooming in to faces, it will detect movement and zoom in to capture that. This could be quite handy when used for surveillance purposes.

Viewing

One of the great things about the AVN304 are the number of ways you are able to watch the video stream remotely. You can connect with just about any browser (though some of them do not support all of the features, Digital PTZ for example) or with a large selection of mobile devices (either through their native browser or the EagleEyes software provided by ACTECH.

Currently the handsets supported are iPad, iPod, iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Symbian, and Android. This should cover almost anyone who wants to watch their camera’s stream on the go.

Example Interface and Quality

Verdict

I’ve actually had a blast playing around with this camera. It has a lot more features than only the ones I’ve covered above, like the ability to send recordings to FTP servers. I’ve used it quite successfully broadcasting one of our local board game meetups over the net as well as just around the house for fun to get a feel for it. The quality of the picture is just superb, no problems with it whatsoever.

If you are in the market for a digital IP camera, the AVN304 is quite the contender and from my research it’s one of the best on the market today, and the price is reasonable for what you get. They offer a $4.99 version of their EagleEyes software which has a larger address book (20 entries compared to 2) and allows time search and playback. Personally I feel that the Plus version should be the only version and it should be free. After purchasing the camera the software to properly utilize it should be free, but this is minor enough and may change in the future.

The unit is selling for somewhere around $200 USD which is a pretty good deal considering the features included.

The Future

AVTECH isn’t stopping here, I had a quick chat with them about their plans for the next revision of this camera and they have lots of great ideas of what can be added. A few of these include an increase in the image sensor from one megapixel up to two, add UPnP (Port Mapping), push notifications and messages on devices, and a feature I think would be wonderful – two way audio.

Seriously, go check this out. If you are interested in getting your hands on one go ahead and apply for the program, I know I am

I played League of Legends for a little while, but again, I got bored after a month or two. My biggest problems with it were the length of a single round. Every round would be 25-60 minutes. Hell, if you had a leaver (which happened FAR FAR FAR too often) or a really terrible player, you couldn’t even forfeit the match until 25minutes in. Real pain.

So, I started looking again and came across BLOODLINE CHAMPIONS. Oh my god I love this game. It’s a team based arena combat game that is just amazing.

It has some really awesome features that put it above the the other games in the genre.

1. Zero randomness. No chance to dodge, no critical hits.
2. Pure skill. Goes in with above, but everything is aimed, if you miss a shot, it’s your own damn fault.
3. Recovery health. You can never be healed for more than 40% of your max health at one point. Which means if you drop to say 20% hp you can only be healed up to 60%. This prevents games from lasting too long and encouraging turtling.
4. Fast paced. Each round lasts about 1.5minute, with a game being best of 5. Nice and speedy.
5. Lots more. Go try it already.

One of biggest negative points of the game is it is hard to get into with some of the skilled players out there. Fortunately there are some great guides in the forums and on a fan-site BLC-US. BLC-US and BLGaming both have weekly tournaments. Official tournaments are starting this month and you can see some information them at glhf.gg.

If you happen to download the game, send me a message. My in game name is Shobo.

iTunes Link

Enjoy!

Click Here to visit the contest page for full details.
Unfortunately I’m not creative or artistic enough to take part.

A friend of mine thought this would be a wonderful way to rank your boardgames and a nice change from the usual 1-10 scale we use over at BoardGameGeek. I took him up the challenge and I’ve already started work on GameOff, I don’t have anything to show right now but things are coming along quite well.

I’m doing things a little differently than FlickChart when it comes to the ranking algorithm though. I’m currently playing around with a slightly modified ELO rating scheme that seems to be working quite well. This may be tweaked as things progress, but right now it seems pretty solid. Also, not only am I keeping track of just your personal rating, but a global one as well. This way we can track an overall list as well as everyone’s own individual.

Hope to have a bit more information soon, so keep checking back – I’ll be needing some people to help test!

Reiner Knizia’s Teocalli is a solo strategy game in which the player attempts to quickly and efficiently build temples utilizing dice rolls.  The player will roll special dice depicting colored symbols that match those on the temple layouts.  Matching rolled dice with those in the temple layouts will allow the player to build temples and earn rewards in points, wild card dice, and additional turns.  Maximize your score while pushing your luck and mitigating bad rolls with clever play and strategic decision-making.  And due to the shifting nature of die rolls, Teocalli is a different game every time!  Compete with friends for the high score, or challenge yourself to establish a all time best!

The game, specially designed by Dr. Knizia for iOS, has been implemented in an intuitive, easy to play style which will provide hours of fun for any fan of strategic games. The game may be found at: iTunes Link.

iOS is an exciting medium for the implementation of board games, new and old, and I hope you all enjoy this new title, Reiner Knizia’s Teocalli! I had a lot of fun working on this project, big thanks to Reiner Knizia for letting me use his design. I hope you all enjoy it!

PS: The art was done by a fellow boardgamer Gary Simpson. He was just wonderful to work with.

I picked this up at Origins after a quick demo at the Z-Man booth and ended up getting 3 games in (2, 5, and 6 players). The box says it plays 3-8 but I actually played it successfully with 2. The time on the box is correct, and it will play in about 45-60 minutes (including explanation!).

It’s super easy to play. You have 10 horses, each with different odds and a special power. Two dice, a D6 (0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 3), and a D10 that represents each of the horses on it’s sides. On your turn you roll the two dice and move that horse forward the amount rolled. You also check the cards of the horses you own, which have a row of numbers on them. If the number rolled matches a number on the card, your horse also moves forward the number on the die. This only happens when YOU own the horse and YOU roll the die, so owning a horse will make them move a little quicker. There is a ‘No Bets’ area for the last 1/4 of the race where bets can no longer be placed on that horse. This can be frustrating where there is a horse real close you’d like to bet on this turn, and you end up rolling and moving him into the no bets zone  Everyone does have a “reroll” token that they can use to reroll ONE die once per game which could help you in this kind of situation though.

If you roll a 0, you do not move any horses, but instead you get to steal an action card from whoever owns the horse you rolled, if it is unowned, you draw a card from the deck. If you own it, tough luck.

After you’ve moved the horses you get to choose between 4 actions:
1. Play a card
2. Sell 2 cards to the bank for $5
3. Place a $5 bet on a horse
4. Buy an unowned horse

After that, you draw a card and it’s the next players turn.

That’s all there is to the game, once three horses cross the finish line the owners collect money based on their position ($100, $75, $50) and then you calculate the payouts for the bets on the winning horses. Most money wins.
It doesn’t seem like much, but our games ended up being extremely rowdy with a lot of cheering and funny looks from the other gamers in the room.

The cards have some humorous titles like Jockey Itch (send any horse back two spaces) or Grandma’s Dividend Check (collect $10). The cards have many different actions like sending horses forward, backwards, collecting money based on different factors, stealing cards, placing bets, etc. There is a huge stack of cards included and adds a lot of fun to the game.

All in all, this is a very light horse racing game that plays in a short time that is a blast to play. One of my highlights of the convention!