Practical Octavio Usage:Backyard Cinema

My mate Lachy and I have been wanting to find a use for the old projector my uncle gave me for a while now. In the end we decided to invite some of our friends around and setup our own outdoor theatre. This involved hanging a blanket from the eaves of Lachy’s house and sitting the projector on some chairs in front with a computer providing the video. For sound Jamie provided his prototype octavio beneath the screen with a long RCA cable feeding it from the computer. The teenage attendees (including fellow Octavio blogger Jamie) were treated to the classic Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

The octavio is the shadowed box beneath the person kneeling at the screen (the purple glow of the status light is visible in both photos). I will mention for theatrical effect that Lachy rang me the afternoon before and asked if he should setup some other kind of speaker system because he was unsure whether the octavio would be loud enough. There were definitely no complaints once the octavio was cranked and we turned it down from it’s full capacity for fear of annoying the neighbours. Dialogue could be heard by those chilling in the pool and the music was certainly punchy. I noticed that the difference in volume between music and dialogue was much more apparent on the Octavio than on average TV speakers. Definitely more “cinemaish” (cinematic?). Our friends were quite surprised at how loud and clear such a little box could be. I really couldn’t imagine a more suitable device because the octavio could easily be chucked unobtrusively under the screen without carrying the separate components of a normal hifi and having to wire the speakers.

Hope this blog was half interesting – we definitely enjoyed a movie on the warm summer night. We are trying to think of more cool stuff we could do with Jamie’s octavio so there should be more photo posts from us soon.

Jacob – VAF Octavio Cheerleader

Octavio is Big Star

As Jamie and Mike have already commented on – the Octavio has just made it’s first appearance on national TV on the South Australian Breakfast show Sunrise. We’ve been waiting for it to pop up on the Sunrise website and it seems to have just appeared here. Vases not included (take a look at that sexy photo).
Jacob for VAF

Octavio in Top 8 Gifts for Zuners

Harvey Chute of Zunerama just named the Octavio one of the best zune-related gifts available. If I didn’t already have speaker systems lying around the house everywhere I reckon I’d be pretty pumped if my parents got me an Octavio. I don’t even own a zune or iPod (though I sometimes borrow my dad’s) but it would still be pretty convenient running off a CD player or computer (like Jamie does) and would be a treat to take out at parties.

If I ever get any work doing more location recording for people, I’m thinking this would be a really useful way to provide basic playbacks to people at the time at reasonable fidelity and volume as it can be a bit awkward passing the headphones around to 5 different band members. Actually we’ve been discussing some posts we could do about the different uses of the Octavio. In a couple of weeks time, Jamie and I are due for a family holiday to Middleton (a little seaside town near Adelaide) and I think we should be able to bring a little recording setup (like we did last year) using a tape deck and the Octavio.

Jacob for VAF

Zunerama Octavio Photo Review

I just found this extremely comprehensive review of the octavio including some heaps of useful photos that demonstrate the octavio’s various features and the included acoustic skins. Sounds like some people are starting to treat the Octavio as a full blown hi-fi and not just a portable speaker system to take outside or put in the bedroom. After listening to the Octavio at a Jamie’s house, I agree with the review – it really has the capacity to fill a room with music and not just provide a little background noise. As zunerama was saying – I also found it quite suitable for a wide range of styles because it’s sound seemed more balanced than some of the other modern speaker systems I’ve heard.

This is definitely the best review I’ve seen on the octavio so far and the photos are very illustrative.

Jacob – VAF Fanboy (why?)

Conversation detected!

After a little searching on google groups to see what people have been saying about the new Octavio, I found three results. One of them looked like pornography, one seemed to be in spanish, but I also found a little conversation that occurred last year about the Octavio on an Australian hifi group. This was over a year ago so perhaps the Octavio was a little harder to find back then and appeared to be vapourware. Now I just need to find modern forums where the octavio may be discussed and learn to use yahoo pipes to find the conversation quickly so I can use my blogrss2.0web skills to do something…………… that we’re still trying to figure out. Jamie seems to have found a nice conversation too in the comments of this article. Interesting.

Happy surfing/aggregating

Jacob on behalf of VAF

First non-spam iPod Octavio Article We Noticed

As part of our school holiday experiment we started exploring yahoo pipes and we found heaps of spam and one nice article on the new iPod Octavio. Here it is check it out. Charles Starrett has written a basic review with nice pictures at the well regarded iLounge site.

Jacob on behalf of VAF

Hey Everyone

I’m a kid from Adelaide who just finished high school and am looking to earn some money in the holidays for all the usual teen activities like buying icecream and CDs (and various flatbreads and capiscums). Instead of getting a job at Macca’s we are kind of entering this crazy conspiracy that we don’t even understand where hopefully we get to blog for people instead of making burgers. I’m doing this (whatever it is) with Jamie (Yakface) and Mike Seyfang (Jamie’s dad) is the man who seems to understand things and know cool people that can pay us. Sounds like the first adventure is with Mr Vaf who owns a speaker company based in our hometown – I watched them talk once and most of it went over my head but the vibe was exciting.

Hope to come here again soon. Hope you’re all having fun.

Jacob (Salamano)