00:00So today we're going to be taking a look at the Coast Duo. This is a new camera from
00:05iRI and it's a kind of document camera type of thing like the MagnaLink S.
00:09We can connect it to multiple devices including Windows PC, the Chromebook and iPad which is nice
00:16and so it has USB-C connector that's actually baked in to the camera. If it wasn't stuck here we go.
00:23It also comes with an extender and also a USB-C to USB-A adapter so depending on what your device
00:31has available you can plug it in many different ways. There is software which you would use to
00:36control the camera. A couple of interesting things about this camera currently I have it in the base
00:43which if I take it out here we'll be able to kind of take a look at that and so this is the base and
00:49this will give you a nice weighted base to hold the camera but what if we don't want to use the
00:54base? Well that's okay because the camera's got its own tripod and so we can go ahead and fold out
00:59the tripod and use it on the tripod instead. I mean this is already pretty cool but wait there's more.
01:06We can actually interchange a little piece here between the base and a table clamp and so if you
01:14want to clamp it onto your table I should have really adjusted this to be the right size before we
01:19started filming but we'll just simulate this so we can go ahead and slide the camera on and it can
01:24be clamped onto the table. So some really neat ways of changing this. There's still more though because
01:30if I apply some pressure to the top the head will go down and if I pull, I pulled a little bit too hard
01:38there, the head will go up so it's on a telescopic neck and you can get it adjusted exactly at the height
01:45that you need in order to see your document or to look into the distance because it can do distance
01:50as well as near magnification. Very cool stuff indeed and I haven't seen a design quite like it and I
01:57also have to mention extremely lightweight so if you're looking for something to carry around between
02:02lectures or between meetings then this could definitely be the device for you. But why don't
02:07we jump in and take a look at what it can do? Now one thing that really confused me when we got the
02:19Coast Duo is the fact that there are three different modes and one is used for close-up and one is used
02:25for the distance and one is a mirror view. Now the reason that this confused me is because I kind of
02:31ignored it and the result of that was I was in the distance mode and I didn't realize and I was using
02:37it to look at things close up and the things that I was looking at close up were upside down and the
02:43button to flip them around was grayed out. I wasn't able to use it. Now this is normal behavior when you're
02:49in the distance mode you cannot rotate the image but I didn't realize that these different modes existed
02:54and therefore I just thought there was a problem with the camera because my document was upside down.
02:59Turns out that I was the one at fault and so if you need to if you are looking into the distance or
03:06looking up close you need to make sure you are in the appropriate mode so that you can have the
03:11image the right way around. So just something to bear in mind maybe it was just me who didn't realize
03:15this but just in case it's you as well then now you know what the problem is.
03:22So one of the cool things we can do with the Coast Duo is pan around using the touch screen of our
03:26device. Now you can connect this device to Windows PC to an iPad and to a Chromebook and you might not
03:32necessarily have a touch screen depending on how you've got it connected. We have it connected to
03:36an iPad over USB-C and an iPad it turns out has a good touch screen. So there's a couple of ways that
03:42we can magnify and one way will allow us to pan around as well. If we do optical magnification using
03:48the buttons on the camera then that's not going to help us pan around. It will zoom in and we can move the
03:53document itself but we're not going to be using the touch screen to pan around there necessarily.
03:57However we can also do digital zoom using pinch zoom on the tablet and if we do that then we can pan
04:04around and so we could you know instead of having to move the document we can just move our finger on
04:09the screen and that might be a nicer way for us to read. Now we can combine optical and digital
04:14magnification and so theoretically the optical should give you better quality especially at those higher
04:20magnifications so you can kind of combine those and get stuff exactly how you want it in terms of
04:25clarity but also the ability to pan around using the screen. Very nice stuff.
04:33So the Coaster Duo does have a number of features the types of things that you would expect including
04:3810x optical zoom which is accessed from the camera itself as well as digital zoom which we can
04:44utilize using pinch zoom and then we can kind of pan around. We have various different color modes to choose
04:49from. We can adjust contrast, we can actually flip the camera so we're looking through the iPad camera
04:55rather than the Coaster Duo itself and we can do a freeze image, we can record video, we can save
05:01pictures. So the same type of things that we have seen with devices of this ilk in the past but there
05:06are a couple of features which make this unique that I really like so let's go ahead and take a look at
05:12what those do. So the first of the unique features that I really like is the ability to change the
05:19frame rate of the camera and this does affect how well it works in different lighting conditions
05:24basically if we have it set to work in low light conditions then the frame rate has to be lower but if
05:30we are in good lighting conditions we can increase the frame rate of the camera and that helps us with
05:35ghosting issues. Now these options are accessible from a menu and if everything's working properly
05:42then that will be to the far right. At the top of the menu we have the kind of lowest frame rate but it
05:47will give us the best operation in low light conditions so I'm going to go ahead and hit that
05:52one and we will see the frame rate issue here if I move my hand underneath there's a lot of ghosting and
05:58it's very blurry and this is what the low frame rate results in this kind of blur when we are you know
06:03moving quickly underneath this will also make a difference if we're in a high contrast mode let's
06:08say and if we move the document from left to right and it kind of goes super blurry and very kind of
06:13choppy but if you are in a low light condition maybe the sacrifice is worth making because you can
06:19actually see the document even in the low light and yeah the frame is not ideal but you know it's a
06:23compromise. Now if we change and we'll go up to 60 frames per second here this would be for bright
06:28conditions which we have in the studio here very nice lighting conditions this is going to give us the best
06:33frame rate and therefore the least ghosting so again we're moving this you know high contrast
06:38white or black text underneath here and as we move it around no issues at all doesn't really blur out
06:43or anything like that which is really nice and if I just change out of there go back to regular color
06:48if I move my hand quickly underneath we're getting no ghosting at all we're having no issues there
06:53seeing a fast moving object so that's a really unique feature to this and I like it a lot it gives you
06:58a lot of flexibility in terms of using this camera in different scenarios and for looking at different
07:02types of things. So one of the other unique features about the Coast Duo is the ability
07:09to look into the distance and to correct for the angle of things that we are looking at now in order
07:13to do this I have spun the iPad back around and the controls are the right way around now and that's
07:18because when we're looking into the distance we don't have the same issues with things being upside
07:22down so everything is the right way around and I'm looking at a document in the distance and I can see
07:27the document there we can zoom in on it and stuff like that but it is a little bit skew if it's a
07:32little bit lopsided compared to us because it's over to the right side compared to where we are
07:38so let's see if we can correct for that I'm going to hit one of the buttons on the screen and it will
07:42bring up a grid and I can move the grid into position and we want to kind of outline the boundaries
07:48of the thing that we're looking at in the distance once we've done that we'll hit the check mark
07:52and now it looks like we are looking at the document straight on which is really super clever
07:57I can still magnify it I can still kind of have a you know have a look around and stuff like that
08:04and it just looks like we're looking at it straight on so really clever rather than having to be right
08:07in front of the teacher or right in front of the presenter you know at work or whatever
08:11we can be at an angle and correct for that with the software
08:17okay so that was the Coast Duo and as we saw it has a lot of unique and cool things about it
08:21the design is really fantastic you can set it up exactly how you want it and it also has some
08:26things in terms of adjusting the angle of images and also changing the frame rate which are pretty
08:31unique to this this device as far as I know at least it also has all the basics magnification and
08:36colors and you can shoot video and you can take pictures all of the things you would want a camera
08:40like this to do and in a package which is very lightweight and cheaper than some of the other
08:45competition it should also be noted you can get an OCR version of this device which will read
08:50printed text aloud to you now we haven't got that unfortunately but I'm sure that that works well
08:54in this day and age so do I recommend this camera well yeah it's lightweight and it does what you
08:59want it to do so why not give it a try if you get the option to do so and why not also join us on
09:05TechConnect Live that's our live show and we do it every other Thursday at 11am central if you're
09:10watching this video when it releases the next TechConnect Live is the Thursday after so please tune in 11am
09:16central and you can see myself and my colleague Cory talk about assistive technology check us out and
09:22we look forward to seeing you in the next video
09:32hey so how about this Jonathan we take out the base here and now we've got ourselves a sweet little
09:38selfie stick extend the head oh yeah I got it pointing right toward me and now I can do all of my vacation
09:45selfies nice
