This has been a slow (and very welcomed) weekend. Not much going on, save for:
Saturday:
Finished off the first campaign on Majesty for Android.
Traded in my Wii at GameStop; It was worth $36 in store credit (with double trade-in value).
Had lunch with Brian and a few of his friends; they were discussing EverQuest, XenoMiner and a few other geekery related subjects- very enjoyable conversation.
Wandered around Frys; bought a cheesy Puzzle Expedition game for the 3DS. It was a pre-owned game for $10- and I guess it was almost worth that amount. :)
Started reading book 11 of Wheel of Time series- Path of Daggers.
Tried to port my blog over to SquareSpace; no luck.
I concatenated all of my other blogs to WordPress with the intention of migrating over to SquareSpace. The import hasn’t worked right and WordPress actually seems pretty decent (save for customization costing $30/year).
Played MineCraft
Setup my Telescope and took several dozen Moon shots with my Canon T4i; it was a full moon. :)
Sunday
Worked out with Shannon
Downloaded EverQuest II- which I purchased years ago and is now free to play- and played for an hour or so; made it from level 1 to level 5. Queued up the 14GB full game download.
Found the Ender Stronghold in my MineCraft world and dropped right into the End Portal room. I now need to find ten (10) more Ender pearls to make enough Eyes of Ender to activate.
Went to see Diana’s new house. It has a Brinks alarm panel and a SimpliSafe alarm system. The later seems to be an inexpensive alternative to the Brinks system…
Tried to get a few shots of Jupiter through the scope; no luck with the Samsung NX100, a 16mm eyepiece and an Orion variable tele-extender.
I have been looking at the NinjaBlocks device but it looks like they are selling when they have enough to make a batch of 1000- and the next order ships in March… It appears to be a Raspberry Pi with a 433Mhz shield and in a cool case. Seeing as how most of the 433Mhz functionality is duplicated in either x10 or zWave (or a multitude of other devices) I am not sure if I want to try yet another system. If this would tie into the SkylinkHome wireless devices it would be very cool (as they have not released their gateway hub as of yet)- but I don’t think that is the case. There are too many similar function but protocol disparate devices… :(
In October 2007 I read an article on Engadget about the new Panasonic RP-WF5500 wireless 5.1 headphones. The article was brief and I was unable to find a review of the headphones online.
The headphones are 2.4Ghz digital wireless headphones that offer 5.1 surround sound via digital or analog inputs. The big benefit for me to the digital input is that it it can be passed through my receiver without going through the amplifier- giving the benefit of not having to control the audio through my receiver: I can turn the volume down on the receiver and control the volume on the headphones independently. My prior headphones were analog input only so I had to use a 3.5mm to headphone adaptor and plug it into the output of the receiver- disabling my room speakers and requiring the audio to pass through two amplifiers (one in the receiver and one in the headphones).
They specifications sounded very good and I had good hopes that this would almost be the ‘ultimate headphones’ for me (they lack noise cancellation so they are not the true ‘ultimate headphones’ for me).
I watched and hoped that they would appear on the shelf at my local Fry’s store- but no such luck. I did find them on AccessoryJack and GeekStuff4U for around $230 – $250, but this is a bit expensive for a new set of headphones that no one has really tested. I added them to my Amazon Wish list (via their universal wish list option) and someone was kind enough to purchase it as a birthday present for me. :o)
The headphones took a few weeks to arrive as they were shipped direct from Hong Kong- in a paper bag:
The contents inside were wrapped in a thin bubble wrap and the contents arrived fairly unscathed:
It really made me wonder how a set of headphones can travel around the world in a paper bag and FexEx/UPS can’t manage to do this for a 50 mile delivery.
Inside the box were the headphones, charging base, wall adaptor, a 6’ optical cable, a single AA rechargeable battery, instructions and warranty information (the later two matched the box as they were only in Cantonese).
The headphones are adjustable and the ear covers pivot and twist to make them more comfortable. They are covered with cloth and are very comfortable to wear. The headphones (with the AA battery installed) weigh about 9oz.
As a size comparison, they are a good deal smaller than my old Sony MDR-RF970K 900Mhz stereo headphones:
The headphones are simplistic in design; there are for two controls on the right headphone and charging contacts on the left headphone. The controls are a simple analog volume control and an ID button. The ID button is for pairing with the base station.
The pivoting action also controls the auto power-off function of the headphones (which I was unaware of until I started playing around with them). When the headphones are worn on the head, they power on (indicated by a red light on the right headphone).
As mentioned earlier, the headphones are powered by a single AA battery located in the left headphone. The single battery gives the headphones about 6 hours of use before needing a recharge.
The docking station has to digital optical inputs and an analog stereo input via 3.5mm stereo headphone jack (cable for the later is not included). There is also a digital optical output.
The base station has three buttons and a selector switch:
ID/Tuning: Syncs the headphones and the base (via matching ‘ID’ button on the headphones)
Bass Boost: Obvious use
Selector switch: Allows selection of Digital input #1, #2 or analog audio.
Surround button: Cycles through surround modes:
For digital inputs, Dolby Digital, DTS or MPGE-2 AAC are automatically selected. The surround mode toggles ‘Dolby Headphone’ mode on/off.
For analog input, the button will cycle through Dolby Headphone + Movie, Dolby Headphone + Music or straight stereo audio modes.
Dolby Prologic II converts stereo audio into a matrixed 5.1 surround sound- but I was unable to test as I do not have anything recorded in this format (I am not sure if this is for digital or analog inputs).
The headphones rest in the base and charge the battery.
Sound:
The headphones use a 2.4Ghz digital signal to communicate with the headphones. I was a bit concerned that there would be interference in my house that is saturated with similar frequency 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth, and wireless keyboard/mouse/game controller signals. Luckily my worry was unwarranted; I have been using the headphones for several weeks and I have not heard a single drop/pop/cross-talk in this time period.
The actual sound is very clear. I am not an audiophile by any standards (although I do rip my MP3s at 240kpbs as I think 128kpbs sounds like crap) but I am extremely happy with the sound quality. The surround sound is good- not spectacular- but I do not think I could honestly expect more from two separate speakers trying to emulate a center channel.
Range:
The range is rated at 30 meters (about 100’) but I find the signal to start dropping at about 30’ in a normal house situation. The 30m range is probably more the case in a studio type scenario.
Pros:
Consistent wireless signal; no drops/pops/cross-talk
Edit: This will be a rather long post detailing my experiences with personal ‘hacking’ an xBox 360; sorry for the length!
I have finally decided to try my hand at hacking an xBox 360. Rather than risk my own immaculate system I decided to try for a $199 used system from GameStop; the systems from there have already been opened, they have older DVD drives (better chance for finding one that can be flashed) and they have a 10 day money-back option.
The current state of xBox 360 hacking is as such: the copy protection that Microsoft uses in the 360 for is made up of two parts- software written for the 360 disk must be digitally signed (by Microsoft) and the DVD media type must read as ‘XBOX360’ (instead of DVD, DVD-R, etc) by the DVD drive. The first part ensures only signed code can be run on the system (no homebrew or hacks) and the later ensures that only specific media can be used in the 360. The first mentioned protection is still in place (i.e. no one has written a custom firmware that can run unsigned code for the 360- at least one that I am aware of) but the later has been the focus of most current xBox 360 hacks: the firmware on the various drives can be modified to present an ‘XBOX360’ media type to the system regardless of what type of media that is inserted.
This modification allows properly backed up xBox 360 games (with the digital signatures still intact) to be playable by the system. However, this is not very popular with Microsoft as it can allow the playing of pirated software as well. To counter this they have developed ‘hacked system’ detection tools that can be deployed via xBox live. If Microsoft finds a modified firmware in your xBox 360 it can result in a permanent ban from Microsoft Live (based on the serial number of the xBox 360). The firmware modifications as constantly being updated to provide ‘stealth’ for the system sp it does not get banded- but this is the classic crack-patch tug-of-war that goes on between hackers and companies trying to protect their products (like Sony with the PSP as a good example).
If you want to modify you xBox it will not allow the play of any homebrew software (as it did with the xBox classic); the sole function is to allow the play of duplicate copies of xBox 360 software. You should only use this for playing backup copies of software that you already own (i.e. this is my ‘Don’t copy that Floppy‘ statement for this post). Opening the xBox 360 will void any warranty in place with Microsoft (so if you get a RROD a few months later- you won’t get any help from them!)
That said, if you really want to modify your xBox then please keep reading.
The first step in this process is determining which DVD drive is installed in the xBox 360:
Each drive has a different method for hacking and can vary in difficulty. I chanced upon having a Samsung TS-H943A drive- one of the most forgiving DVD drives to flash; however, I also had one with firmware ms28- which has a read/write protected firmware and must either be physically modified or rebooted to put it into recovery mode.
Attentively you can go to the 360 DVD Drive database if you want to look at the manufacture date and not have to actually open the xBox 360 packaging.
Once you know which drive you have, you can can get a good idea of how difficult/easy the modification should be. You next should set about to opening the system and getting access to the SATA port on the back of the DVD Drive. Opening the systems was probably the hardest part for me as I didn’t want to damage the casing. There are tools that can be purchased to make this easier, but I am a tad impatient so I tried the modified CD case method to make my own ‘tools’; in the end I uses a small screwdriver…
There are countless tutorials (CleverMod, The Llamma’s Adventures, biline.ca, 360-HQ) of how to open the xBox 360 onthe web, but I think I learned most of what I needed from these two videos:
Once you get it opened and stripped you should have something similar to this:
You notice in the bottom right of this image is there is a standard SATA connector to the drive along side a proprietary power plug- so you will need to leave the drive connected to the power in the xBox 360 to allow for firmware reads/updates (the drive must be powered up). You will also need to have a video cable connected to the 360 as it does not boot up completely without a video cable attached (the far end does not need to be plugged into a TV, but I prepped it to allow for testing once the firmware update was complete).
You should ground your 360 to the PC that as the two devices are on different power supplies and there could be variances in power between them- and they are tethered together via a SATA cable. The odds are very rare that something could happen, but it is better to be safe. An alternative idea is to put the xBox 360 chassis in contact with metal from the PC chassis:
Now comes the tricky part; you need to download some firmware tools that can read/write to the DVD ROM firmware; usually this is not a big deal, but tools are mostly based on a DOS program called MTKFLASH and it must be able to see the SATA controller from DOS. This limited me to specific SATA chipset and gave me lots of headaches; I went through four different PCs and none of them seemed to work correctly. In the end I gave up a purchases a $12 SATA card with the VIA chipset from Newegg– this fixed all the issues I was having. (but in building this document, it looks like I could have used the Intel SATA controller in my Gateway laptop!)
Initially I tried to use MTKFLASH with various command lines, but I found Xtreme Boot Maker that runs under Windows that will make a bootable USB drive to take care of all the work for me (you will also need XBM Definitions update to use the newest 5.3 firmware- otherwise you will get ‘Import Failed’ if you try to go past v5.2).
There is also a software called iPrep 101 that offers a similar function to
Easy XBins is a combination IRC client/FTP client that sends a message to a bot in the XBins channel on IRC and lets you download the firmware/application you need (or you can install an IRC client, login to #xbins on EFNet and get connection info from the bot in the channel via !list command).
Once you have your hacked firmware of choice (XTreme 5.3 for me) you load it in the firmware (make sure you have the definitions update for 5.3), select the controller and select the destination USB drive. There are options of A,B, C and D firmware versions for Xtreme 5.3- these are all the same with variations on DVD speed (slow/silent or full speed- the later C and D options are dual-mode versions).
If you have a Samsung with the M28 firmware, make sure you check off the ‘Apply Bokes Patch’ option. I am not 100% about the serial number requirements and I entered them during read/flash as well. When all is good, click the ‘Create Disk’ and it will format your USB drive and make it bootable.
Shut down your PC and reboot to the USB drive inserted and boot priority set to USB Disk (also make sure your xBox drive is powered up and connected to the SATA card- if it is not available for initial system detection the software on the USB drive will not see it). After the system starts up you are present with two options:
xRead 1234567 12345
xFlash 1234567 12345
The former reads the current firmware in and writes it the disk. The later takes the prior read firmware and patches it to be written back to the drive.
The numbers following the command is the serial number of your xBox 360. This should be located on the back of your system by the video connector. Note: if you have a used/refurbished xBox 360 there may be a new serial number on the back- and the ones from Gamestop do not have the ‘-‘ in the serial number. To confirm, it should match the number in System -> Console Settings -> System Info in the xBox 360 menu.
The basic procedure is boot up with the USB drive and read the original firmware, then reboot everything and boot up with the USB drive and flash the drive with the modified firmware- make sure you reboot between the read and write of the firmware!
As mentioned above, the MS28 version of the Samsung firmware is read/write protected- so you must put the drive into ‘recovery mode’ by rebooting the 360 during flashing. To do this, run the ‘xRead 1234567 12345’ command as usual. When the prompt appears to press a number for the CD drive, turn the xBox 360 off and then press the number. Wait about 10 seconds and turn the xBox 360 back on. The drive will come up and the software will automatically start reading the firmware information (This works as the drive goes into recovery mode for a few seconds after it starts up).
To flash the MS28 you follow the same procedure as above but substitute ‘xFlash’ for the ‘xRead’ command. Here is a video of the above process from 360Mods:
After a successful flash, shut down the xBox 360 and PC, reconnect the internal SATA connector in the xBox 360 and verify it is working with a backup dvd!
Note: All xBox 360 games must be on dual-layer DVDs and they must be burned with CloneCD- I have not been able to get Nero to burn a successful copy as of yet. If you are obtaining your backup copies from UseNet then the files should be in CloneCD format- but make sure you are getting a backup for the correct region and format (i.e. NTSC over PAL, US/Canada vs. Japan, etc.)
In my research, I found the most helpful page for this project was 360mods.net website; they have pages with many tutorials (including the awesome xBox 360 Hacking for Noobs file) as well as video tutorials both the Samsung M25 and Samsung M28 (the one I have) firmware versions.
This post was specifically for the Samsung M28 firmware version- but I may try this on my xBox 360 Elite (with a Ben-Q drive) if I do not get banned from xBox live with the Fall desktop update!
Never fails; I places a pre-order for the Popcorn Hour A-100 on Sunday, and they announce pre-orders for the A-110 and B-110 systems on Monday…
The primary differences between the A-100 and the A-100 appear to be:
HDMI 1.3a support: i.e. additional audio codec pass-through support
SATA HD support: much better than IDE in the A-100
Optical SPDIF instead of coax SPDIF: not much difference to me- my receiver can assign either.
I contacted sales and they can cancel my A-100 order so I can place an order for one of the other units, but there are no details on shipping at this time- so it could be a week or it could be six months!
Since this model is brand new (read: public beta) I think I will stay with the A-100 until there are a few firmware updates (the A-100 has gone through 7 firmware releases since November of last year). My only concern with the A-100 is that it will soon be phased out as the A-110 is almost a direct replacement…
Yesterday I purchased another Klegg MediaShare from Fry’s in hopes that they had improved codec support (it was also an ‘open box buy’ for $85) in the several months since I last tried one out– but it looks like they have been pretty stagnant with overall support. It appears that device has been re-branded under several names (such as the Novatron IAMM NTD36HD and the Zio eUreka LX350HD) with compatible firmwares, but none of these vendors are offering the one codec feature I am looking for: mkv file support.
I returned the Klegg MediaShare to Fry’s earlier today.
While doing research for the Klegg firmware, I ended up at the Wikipedia entry for HD Media Players and at the end of the article they mentioned the Popcorn Hour player (cheesy name, but it sounded promising when they mentioned it in a HT Guys podcast). I found a good review (and video review) and it looks like almost everything I am looking for (plus some additional features such as YouTube, Flickr, and RSS feeds!).
I placed a pre-order today and hopefully i will be in the August 11th batch of shipments…
Holy crap; ask for something, and there it is! (gotta love the Internets!). I went back to PPCGeeks to look for another custom firmware and there is a link to the official Sprint HTC firmware!
Downloading now- and probably testing for the better part of the night…
I have become very tired of awaiting the ‘promised’ firmware upgrade for the HTC Touch from Sprint. A few months ago I tried a hacked version of the Alltel firmware that enabled GPS and EVDO Rev A (which worked pretty good)- but I have grown tired of its occasional lockups and slowdowns…
This firmware is a fairly interesting concoction; it allows me to chose a base firmware and add on various applications, themes and tool. (One nice feature is the ability to use the HTC Diamond applet on the Touch).
So far the results have been varied; the device seems to run faster, but I have issues with many applications being ‘unsigned’ and unable to be run on the device (which worked fine under the Alltel firmware!). I also have the occasional issue where I receive a phone call but I cannot click the ‘accept’ button (after the incoming call is over, the phone unfreezes and I can call the originator back).
All-in-all it is a mixed bag; lots of extra features, but lots of issues too (like being unable to set the default button action). Hopefully Sprint will eventually release a final HTC Touch firmware and I can use it as a base for the other applications I have found embedded within the PPC Kitchen firmware options.
I purchased a GP2X-F200 a few days ago and had it delivered 2nd day FedEx. Delivery was right on time so I can take it with me on a short vacation to New Orleans (close to my hometown of Covington).
So far I am not overly impressed with it, but I will have to play with it for a while to figure it out. My initial impressions are:
Pros:
Large Screen
Comfortable size
SHDC comparability (with 4.0 firmware)
Cons:
Screen quality (horizontal banding in movies- but may need to be re-encoded)
Button quality; d-pad is ‘mushy’ and my B button sticks quite often
Overall build quality (for example, the A and Y buttons are reversed on the unit I have- and the rubber port covers are cheap).
Non-rechargeable battery/short battery life
Game Configuration; not all emulators work correctly- I cannot even get MAME4ALL to start! (but I may need to install another library?)
Spotty manual; the manual I have is for both units- the F100 and F200- and apparently there is a ‘USB’ feature in the F100 that does not exist in the F200!
I purchased a Sony Vaio VGN-NR220E laptop that came bundled with Windows Vista Home. I was a little surprised that they sold Vista on a laptop with only 1GB of RAM. After upgrading to 3GB pf RAM (specs say 2GB max but the BIOS recognizes up to 4GB- but Vista will BSOD with this configuration) I still found it to be a bit sluggish.
An 8GB Express Card SSD drive used as a ReadyBoost drive did not help that much either, so I decided to downgrade the system to good old XP.
Unfortunately, Sony will only support this system running Vista- so there are no XP drivers on the Sony support site. Luckily there are others on the web with a dilemma similar to mine, so I looked to them for guidance.
My first challenge was to find an AHCI driver so Windows XP can see the hard drive; Without this the XP boot CD cannot see the SATA drive (XP can see a SSD Express Card, but will not install to this- Damn crappy-ass Sony BIOS restrictions!). I found the Intel floppy image for the Mobile 965 Express driver- which creates a ‘F6 Driver Disk’ to allow XP to see the SATA controller and attached drives. Insert the floppy in a USB floppy drive, load the XP CD in the optical drive and power up.
When XP setup starts, you will see ‘Press F6 to install a third party driver’- so press F6 (quickly). XP will chug on for a few minutes and then stop at a screen where you can ‘press ‘S’ to specify a 3rd party driver’. When you press ‘S’ it will search the floppy (only option!) for a driver and find several different drivers; select the one that reads:
Intel(R) 82801HBM/HEM SATA AHCI Controller (Mobile ICH8M-EIM)
I have heard that the are specific USB floppy drives that can be used (i.e. ones with drivers included in the default XP CD library) for F6 driver setup- and ones that do not 100% compatible will get stuck in a loop asking to insert driver floppy’ at a later point in the install. If you run into this situation you will need to make a custom XP CD and slipstream the appropriate drivers on the CD (I prefer to use nLite to build this).
The XP install finished and I was left with a laptop with a 800×600 display window and no network connectivity. I needed the drivers to enable the hardware to correct this. RatStash had a good article on downgrading a different model of Vaio; I used it as a reference but needed to change the Chipset & Wireless drivers to reflect the newer configuration:
Mass Storage Controller: TI PCIxx12 FlashMedia Controller (see Nautis Project package below)
I think this is a complete driver list (checked by re-installing XP), but please let me know if I missed anything. During the process of re-researching drivers to write this post I also discovered a nice page on Intel’s site that links to most of the necessary Intel drivers.
The Nautis Project has a ZIP file containing all the necessary drivers for the VGN-N320E Vaio laptop; I used this package to find the ‘Texas Instruments PCIxx12 Integrated FlashMedia Controller’ driver and remove the last ‘unknown’ from device manager.
I downloaded all of the above, copied them to a USB thumb drive and then copied them to my Vaio’s hard drive (do not try to run/extract these from USB thumb drive as this is VERY slow). Most of the drivers had ‘setup.exe’ files and a few of them were ‘.inf’ files that required redirection to from an ‘unknown device’ icons in device manager.
One unusual part during my first install had all of my USB port disabled in device manager (I think after the Intel INF update); I had to delete all USB devices (in device manager) and refresh with ‘Scan for Hardware Changes’ and everything was re-detected and has worked since- perhaps it was confused by an earlier default XP driver? (this did not occur on my 2nd install of XP)
Final result: the laptop seems a bit faster but battery life is about the same. The custom ‘S1’ and ‘AV Mode’ buttons serve no function and some of the ‘Fn +’ buttons do not work.
I used an extra 2.5" SATA hard drive so I can revert back by replacing my old Vista Home drive in the system- so I have left my ‘upgrade’ options open (so long as I am ready to remove 19 screws to replace a hard drive!)
19 screws to get at the hard drive (not counting the one on the memory door). The long one goes in the middle by the service tag and the two fat ones go in the far back corners (probably for LCD support)
VGN-NR220E system board overview
I am not 100% sure what this is- I am guessing it is either the TI card reader or a USB hub device
VGN-NR220E CPU and Chipset cooling detal
802.11g mini-PCIe network card (to be replaced with 802.11n or a WiMax card at one point in time)
I woke this morning to something that sounded like an off-tune radio station: it was my Philips alarm clock trying to emulate the sounds of the ocean. I think it tried the ‘gentle wake’ but I didn’t hear it until it sufficiently annoyed me. This is going back in the back and back to Target next weekend (unless the xMas return lines are still long). If Philips eventually releases a firmware update that allows MP3 music I may re-consider this purchase.
Why wait until next weekend to return? I ordered a Chumby today and it is 3-5 days until it is delivered; I will need an alarm clock until then.
I ordered the Black Chumby and this was placed on order #4109- so I guess they have managed to sell a few thousand of these guys so far…
Ok, I have had a few days to play with my Toshiba HD A3 and I decided to put up a little review for it…
The Toshiba HD A3 is an entry level priced HD DVD player ($199 – $250) that currently includes two free movies: “The Bourne Identity” and “300”. Both of these movies are pretty good (albeit one is over 5 years old) and do justice to the HD DVD format.
Hookup is very easy if you have an HDMI port on your receiver/TV; simply plug in an HDMI cable and the video and audio is carried across the single cable to the destination- done. The power cord is a (thankfully) a removable ‘8’ plug (with one side flat) as found on the PS2, ReplayTV and other such electronic devices. There is an RJ-45 plug for Ethernet connectivity (recommended). The rear of the unit also has component and composite video along side L/R audio and an optical SPDIF connector.
The HD A3 will only output 1080i for HD DVD movies (or upsampled DVDs over HDMI) but this works well with my Philips 42″ plasma TV as it only supports 720p/1080i. From what I read in the owners manual 480i/480p is the only signal that will be sent across the component cable from copy-protected media; this means that standard DVDs can do no better than 480p across this path. I believe that 1080i is still available across component as they have not activated the HDCP copy protection flag for HD DVD movies (why bother, AACS has been cracked each time it is update)- but don’t quote me on this as I have not tested this!
Once the system is powered on it takes about a minute to respond to the ‘eject disk’ button. Once a disk is inserted it takes another 30 seconds or so to recognize and bring up the menu. Now here are some basic complaints:
The screen indicates nothing until the ‘Welcome’ message has disappeared form the A3- so I wasn’t sure if I had cabled it correctly or not until the ‘No Disc’ display comes up. This is a very frugal display compared to most standard DVD players.
Network settings are hard-coded to a 192.168.0.x address- this should be DHCP out of the box.
Menus can drag a bit- almost like the GPU is choking while trying to render the menus
Standby to power on takes another minute or so- and another 30 seconds to recognize the disc…
Once I set the IP address of the unit I had it do a firmware update check- one was available and it started the update; and then rebooted and went through the ‘welcome’ cycle again.
For the discs there can be a TON of features in the HD DVD menus- Transformers for example has downloads, movie annotations and director commentary overlays- all of which are very interesting for a 2nd movie watch. There are also lots of behind the scenes thrown in that show how it looked from the actors point-of-view.
The HD DVD picture is much better than standard def TV- but I personally cannot tell the difference between 720p/1080i/480p upsampled to 1080i (even with my glasses on). I guess I have been spoiled by 720p downloads of most movies that appear almost identical in quality- so I am not overwhelmed by the video.
Overall this is a very good HD DVD player with a decent feature set. The player will automatically do updates and connectivity has been provided for most standards (no s-video). The HD DVD standard was finalized before release so this unit should play all features for all past and future HD DVD releases (unlike the BluRay ‘standard’ as some players will not support the new 1.1 requirement as it specifies persistent storage and a 2nd decoder for PiP rendering- look for these BluRay units on closeout as the new players come out!)
One thing lacking is an RS-232 port for remote control (for automated theater setups) but I understand this is available on their next up player (the HD A30 for $499). The HD DVD library is not as vast as the DVD library as many titles are still being converted and the format wars have created exclusive titles on both sides (The Matrix, Transformers, Battlestar Galactica on HD DVD- Pirates of the Caribbean, Underworld, and Ratatouie on BluRay).
The A3 is a great introduction to the world of HD for the typical user. I see HD DVD sales starting to even out with BluRay on Amazon, so I would think that both formats will be around for at least a few years (until the next 2160i format comes along).
Side Note: I do not see the point of making some of the titles HD format; why would anyone want a HD copy of ‘Blazing Saddles’ or “A Christmas Story”- these were filmed so long ago on such old technology that I doubt I would see any improvement in video quality. Given the choice of $30 for a HD copy or $5-$10 for a standard DVD copy I cannot see anyone going the former route (unless -like a fool- they like to be parted with their money)
The roommates seemed to like their gifts as well; I think I did pretty good at picking them out (I actually have one more gift to get- but the roommates surprised me and we opened gifts on the eve of Christmas Eve as Diana was not going to be around on Christmas day!)
For myself I also bought a Canon 40D and it is fracking awesome! I got a new camera bag and I kept my EF24-110 IS lens as my walk-about lens. I also kept my EF75-200 lens, but I will probably replace it with an IS version sometime before Dragon*Con.
I also picked up a Sony Reader (the PRS-500) as the new model is out and the old units are at closeout prices ($200 for the reader, $16 for the charging stand- down from $300 and $50, respectively). There was even the demo model on sale for $150 (with a charging stand!) but it looked kind of funky with the screen refresh…
The PRS-500 is pretty cool and fairly readable in bright light but it absolutely sucks with PDF Files! It renders the PDF exactly the same as it would on a computer screen- but the screen is a 4 color grayscale 600×800 6" screen (with no options for zoom!) I will probably return it as it really sucks for reading PDF files- maybe I will get an Asus Eee PC when they go in stock at BestBuy…
The included Sony software is Ok- after updates- but still lacks support for LIT and other type files. I found LIBPRS500 which acts as a decent Sony software replacement- it it crashes a lot during eBook conversion (on both Vista and OS X 10.5!)…
One thing that stuck we as odd during the last few days of xMas shopping were some places (namely MicroCenter) had gift suggestions with Mail in rebates (MIR)… So if I give a gift to someone I either have to rip off the UPC tag before I send it (and look like I bought a returned/closeout item) or tell them to hold onto the box when they open their gift (and look like a cheap-ass as I need the box for a rebate)- WTF were they thinking with having MIR with xMas gifts
I have been through several different wireless headphones in the quest for a really good device that I can listen to my TV to at night and not disturb my roommate (surround sound engineers seem to take pleasure in making sudden very loud noises in the L/R speakers while keeping the center channel volume to low to hear!). These have included:
RCA WHP150 900Mhz Headphones; analog tuning dial was very susceptible to frequency ‘drift’; not rechargeable.
Sony MDR-IF540RK Infrared Headphones; great sound but I was screwed once I got a plasma TV (IR background noise produce by the display). Had an integrated charger and an auto-off when the headphones were removed from my head.
Philips SBCHC8430 900Mhz Headphones; decent sound but had intermittent popping sounds; not rechargeable and not comfortable to wear.
I tried a variety of Bluetooth headsets, but this style of headphones usually don’t hold power for very long and is not very comfortably when laying in bed.
Today I found the Sony MDR-RF970RK on sale for $75. So far I am impressed:
Very good range and no static from frequency drift
At extreme ranges, static is noise-shaped so it is does not immediately sound like static
Inductance charging stand with magnetic catch
Very comfortable
Auto-off when removed from head
No background hiss!
The only down side is the audio does not sound as dynamic as wired headphones (or the MDR-IF540RK); there is bass and highs, but it sound almost like there is an equalizer turned on somewhere and the upper mid sounds are dulled. So far I have only tried this with my Mac Mini and iTunes so I will have to try them with other systems and see if this is repeated.
I eventually want to replace these with the Panasonic RP-WF5500, but it may still be a while before these make it to the states (or have these already been replaced by the RP-WF6000?)- and at $250 it will take a bit of courage to finally invest in these…
I finally bought a handheld scanner; I decided on the Radio Shack Pro-97 1000 channel model. It is one of the better analog radio system and has a pretty good price vs. features ratio. The next step up is the Pro-96 for digital radio signals- but it is almost 4x the price!
So far I have found a few channels relevant to Atlanta- I think one is the Marta system and the other one of the local fire stations. I also stumbled across the drive-through window of the Wendy’s that is about 2 blocks from my house (FM 469.01875); it is interesting how some people can be pretty damn rude to the people that are making their food! :o)
So far not a lot of use for the receiver, but it is defiantly something to learn with; perhaps one day I will get an amateur radio license and get a home radio system.
A friend at work sent out an email at work saying that he was selling his G4 Power Mac; the price was good and I have been wanting a decent Mac for some time now. Before the day was out, I had purchased the Mac and brought it home. The first thing I did was take it apart (of course):
64 bit PCI Slots (33Mhz only!)
Dual CPU heastsink
Heatsink + RAM
Power and IDE 2+3 detail
AirPort Card Interface
HD 1 & 2 position under power supply
Optical drive bays + system fan
Optical drive bays – open
Optical drive pays and HD 3 & Positioning
Detail of HD 3 & 4 installation
120x120x58mm System Fan
Speaker
I will say one thing for Apple; they spend a hell of a long time designing their cases; I am very impressed that I can remove a PCI slot cover without having to loosen the screw for the adjacent cover- a problem that I seem to have on every PC case I have ever used!
Other nuances include carefully routed IDE and power cables. The motherboard has three IDE ports- allowing installation of up to two optical drives and four 3.5″ hard drives. So far I am content with the included ‘super drive’, but I replaced the 80GB drives (one stock from Apple, the other a previous expansion) with a 120GB Maxtor and a 250GB Hitachi drive. I also upgraded the RAM from 512MB to 1.5GB (and soon on to 2GB if I can find some more 512MB DDR DIMMs!)
I was driving myself nuts trying to get the IDE drives to be recognized for OS X installation; the drives are set on cable select and I was trying different drives/cable positions/jumper settings as they were not visible as ‘available devices’ during the OS X setup. I later found out that I need to go under ‘disk utilities’ on the main menu and partition the drives so the installer can see them! After I figured this out I had OS X installed in about 20 mins.
The drive cages are identical- so I can take drives 1 & 2 and change position with drives 3 & 4 without having to take everything out of the cages! I believe that the interface for drives 1 & 2 supports UDMA 100 while the other interfaces (optical drives and HDs 3 & 4) only support UDMA 66.
Today I took apart the Mac again and replaced the fans in the power supply- roughly following the instructions on the xlor8yurmac website.
The 60x60x25mm fans in my system were Nidec TA225DC (Model M34418-16) fans; these are rated at 25CFM airflow and 31dBA of noise pressure. I replaced them with some Link Depot FAN-60125-B fans from Fry’s that are rated at 21.3CF and 27.8dDA. Not a drastic change in noise, but it does sound a little quieter than before (I believe one of the prior fans had a resonance going- now it is a more consistent hum).
a piece of padding to isolate the fans from the G4 case
Some scotch tape to hold it in place
Finally I installed a $15 USB card in the system to give me USB 2.0 ability; trying to sync my iPhone over USB 1.1 was going to take days! It silently installed in OS X and works great.
Future projects may include upgrading the CPU to a dual 1.8Ghz (currently a dual 867Mhz) or installing an AirPort Card; the later seems pretty useless as I have a 1Gbps LAN connection already. The former seems a little insane as this upgrade is in excess of $500- and for a little more I could get a used 1.8Ghz dual G5 system off of eBay! I would also love an iSight camera– but some places have this guy listed at over $500!
Sounds like the some of the new xBox 360 Halo Editions are being shipped with the 65nm CPU/Falcon chipset. I think the lot number is 0734- so hopefully boxes after this lot will all have the 65nm CPUs?
This morning I was finally able to access SMB shares and test the Apple TV for HD capacity; it choked on 720P MKV files and could not even load 1080i MKV files… A little research showed the CPU in the unit is a Pentium M 1GHz and the unit packs 256MB of DDR2 RAM… Some people are saying this is fine for 500MB MKV files (I am assuming VERY lot bit rate movies?) but a 4GB – 8GB file (the size of most 120min 720p movies) just won’t go…
However, during the process I learned a bit more UNIX:
EXTRACT AN APPLE ‘PAX’ FILE: pax -r -z -f Archive.pax.gz
INSTALL ATVLoader: sudo mount -uw / cd /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/PlugIns cd AwkwardTV.frappliance/Contents/Resources sudo chown root:wheel SetupHelper sudo chmod 4555 SetupHelper cd ~ sudo mount -ur /
The Apple TV is great, but if it cannot play my 720p movies then it is not any more useful than my xBox running XMBC. The Apple TV is a great appliance, but it seems to be designed for an ‘average Joe’ consumer that will not be pushing the unit to its limits- and I doubt that Apple will ever sell 720p high-bit rate HD movies on iTunes until the next generation of Apple TVs…
I guess I will return the Apple TV to Fry’s tonight and pickup an xBox 360 (to play the copy of Halo 3 I picked up today). I heard rumor it already has H.264 support and Microsoft is going to add XviD and DiVX support with the next update (or I can use TVersity to convert the files on the fly to WMV).