Xbox 360: What to expect?

Introduction

In the past it has been Sony who has bragged about the multimedia capabilities of its Playstation 2 and Playstation 3 consoles. In the case of the PS2, most of those promises never actually came to pass. In the meantime Microsoft has been rather low key on how the Xbox and Xbox 360 can handle other features besides games. Via Xbox Live the Xbox 360 has been the platform for downloading high definition trailers for movies and TV shows and they even allowed people to download an entire 40 + minute retrospective episode of the sci-fi series Battlestar Galactica (although that episode was a regular 480p resolution segment).

With the Xbox 360?s first anniversary coming up on Nov. 22, and perhaps more importantly the launch of the PS3 and Nintendo Wii coming in the next 10 days, many people wondered what Microsoft would do to counter the launches. Today, we can reveal that beginning on Nov. 22, Microsoft intends to go much further in making the Xbox 360 more than just a gaming machine. On that they will begin offering high definition movies and TV show episodes for download with around 1,000 hours of programming available for download to the console before the end of the year. Last week FiringSquad spoke on the phone with Scott Henson, the director of platform strategy for Xbox Live, to find out more about their plans and other Xbox 360 news.

While our chat with Henson covered several topics, we will cut to the chase and report on what Henson told us about their high definition video download plans. Microsoft has contracted with a number of movie studios and TV networks to have some of their programming available for download. Pricing for the service had not been nailed down prior to our conversation with Henson last week but we were told that Xbox 360 owners will own the TV episodes they will download while the feature films will have a rental structure (the amount of rental time was not revealed in our conversation). Basically anyone with an Xbox Live membership (Gold or Silver) will be able to download high definition movies and TV shows onto an Xbox 360 hard drive. Since each purchase is tied into a person?s Gamertag, they can also sign on to their profile when they go to a friend?s Xbox 360 and download it to that hard drive and watch it there.

Now for the catches. As one might expect, these high definition movies and TV show can only be played on an Xbox 360 console. Henson told FiringSquad that they cannot be transferred to a PC, HD-DVD disk, flash drive or any other medium. Also there?s the rather small 20 GB hard drive that the console has (and only about 13 GB can actually be freed up) which will only allow for a handful of movies and TV episodes to be stored. As many have asked already, we inquired to Henson if there were any plans to introduce a larger hard drive for the console (rumors of 60 GB and 100 GB hard drives have been floating on the Internet in the last few weeks). While Henson said that there were no announcements they could make at this time, he did say that if they heard from Xbox 360 owners that they wanted a bigger hard drive to store more movies and TV shows they would consider it.

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Harker Interview

Introduction

Bram Stoker's novel Dracula remains one of the most influential and adapted pieces of literature of all time and now game developer The Collective takes one of the novel's supporting character and put him in the spotlight with Harker, an upcoming vampire themed action game that is early in development. FiringSquad got a chance to chat with the game's senior producer Nigel Cook to find out more about their plans for Harker.

FiringSquad: First, The Collective has been very busy this year with two games (The Da Vinci Code and Getting Up Contents Under Pressure) out earlier this year and it was recently announced that it would merge with Shiny Entertainment's team. How do you feel about the current state of The Collective's team?

Nigel Cook: The Collective is now stronger than it's ever been. We've had steady growth over the years, and this is especially important recently given the increasing size of teams to reach the Xbox 360 and PS3 platforms. We have fully made the leap to these consoles, and are prepared to make great games!

While The Collective and Shiny will do a lot more collaboration in the near future, and will be co-located, we will remain as separate development teams, each with our own personalities and our own strengths. Our two groups have a lot of respect for each other, and feel we can both benefit from this collaboration.

FiringSquad: How did the idea for Harker come about?

Nigel Cook: As a successful independent studio we reached a point in the growth of the company where we wanted to try something new. Rather than working on another movie license, which of course has its own challenges, we chose to develop a series of internal game ideas for next generation consoles. Out of the top few, Harker stood out from the crowd, not only as a title that has its own segment; being a Survival Horror game with a heavy Melee combat, but also is a game that has Action Game content that is something the Collective Studios has gotten really good at.

FiringSquad: Of course, comparisons will be made between Harker and an early Collective game Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Was there a worry that the team was doing something that was the same as the earlier title?

Nigel Cook: Buffy was developed many years ago and has a combat system that was an excellent mix of ranged and melee combat in a very action orientated game from which we have learned a lot and enjoyed developing in the process. What we learned from developing Buffy does not mean we will replicate any content directly into Harker. Rather, we are taking our knowledge and learnings from Buffy to create an all-new combat system for Harker that heavily focuses on the up-close brutal punishment and execution of Vampires.

FiringSquad: What can you tell us about the storyline for Harker and its main character?

Nigel Cook: Harker is a character from the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker. In the novel, Jonathan Harker is written as an attorney who, though ill equipped, is forced to battle evil. In Bram Stoker?s novel, Jonathan Harker is portrayed as an ordinary man who in spite of himself, manages to survive. In Harker the game, we?ve taken our inspiration for our main character from the novel, but we are casting him in an entirely new light.

For the game, the motivation for Harker attacking and killing Vampires is still in an attempt to save his wife Mina; however, we?ve decided that the forces he faces have made him into a hardened, ruthless hunter, a flawed character.

Harker?s sole reason for living is to kill every single last Vampire. His poor wife Mina is hovering somewhere between life and death. The actions of the Vampires have literally thrown Harker into a rage, an all consuming passion for vengeance.

The story revolves around Harker?s search for each and every Vampire involved. During the course of the game, there will be a number of surprising twists to the plot that will keep the player guessing just what the motives of the enemy are and, indeed, who can be trusted.

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GeForce 8800 GTX/GTS Overclocking

Introduction

Shortly after publishing our GeForce 8800 GTX/GTS Performance Preview article, we received quite a few requests for more info on our GeForce 8800 GTS overclocking experience. Quite a few of you were curious to see more performance numbers in games like Oblivion, while others wanted to see GeForce 8800 GTX overclocking results.

But the number one question we received by far was how we were able to achieve such high scores with the GeForce 8800 GTS. No one expected the overclocked GeForce 8800 GTS to be able to match, and in some cases outperform the GeForce 8800 GTX. After all, the 8800 GTS has a narrower 320-bit memory interface versus the 384-bit memory interface present on the GeForce 8800 GTX, and 32 of its stream processing units as well as one ROP have been disabled from the factory by NVIDIA. Not to mention the lower clock speeds for the graphics core and stream processors.

All this should mean that even a highly overclocked GeForce 8800 GTS shouldn?t be able to catch up to, much less outperform a stock GeForce 8800 GTX right?

Based on our testing last week, it looked like this wasn?t always the case. But we?ve since gone back and re-run our overclocked benchmarks and couldn?t replicate the astounding numbers we were seeing previously, even though we were using a different GTS card that was overclocking to even higher clock speeds!

Quite frankly, we?re still surprised by this, as we repeat our performance runs three times and take the average score for all of our official results. Under our latest round of overclocked testing, even the highest of those three runs didn?t equal the average we recorded previously in some games! Again, we?re still at a loss to explain the disparity, but we wanted to pass this info along as we know that many of you are currently debating between the two GPUs and want as much info as possible on this topic.

Fortunately, the news isn?t all bad for the GeForce 8800 GTS, even under our latest round of testing there are cases where it comes close to matching the GTX in performance, but often this occurs in cases where the graphics card is CPU-bound, such as in the case with Pacific Fighters and LOMAC, or in Quake 4 at 1280x1024. Remember that at lower resolutions with a card as powerful as the GeForce 8800, you?re often CPU-bound, particularly with titles that aren?t shader-intensive. We also still believe that with further driver updates, NVIDIA?s driver team will likely be able to wring more performance out of GeForce 8800.

As we?ve mentioned before, in order to overclock the GeForce 8800 cards, you?ll have to download NVIDIA?s nTune utility. The Coolbits registry hack doesn?t work and only prompts you to download nTune. In particular, you?ll need nTune 5.05 or better to overclock the GeForce 8800.

This isn?t a big deal if you already own an nForce motherboard, as nTune provides built-in overclocking options and BIOS settings for your motherboard all from within Windows, but for those of you who have already upgraded to P965 or 975X Core 2 motherboards this may be a bit of a disappointment as nTune is a 30MB+ app. In fact, it seems that as a result, some GeForce 8800 owners have turned to ATI Tool instead to overclock their graphics card.

NVIDIA plans to enhance nTune to make it more appealing for GeForce 8800 overclocking in the near future though. One feature that?s been mentioned is the ability to independently set the clocks for the graphics core and stream processors. Right now in nTune when you overclock the graphics core, you also overclock the stream processors by a fixed percentage.

We?d also like to see NVIDIA integrate GPU temperature monitoring on the same page as GPU clock speeds, as it has been done with Coolbits in the past. Currently the two are located in two totally different parts of nTune.

View the original article here

Superman Returns Interview

Introduction

The history of video game is littered with the corpses of awful titles based on DC Comic's best known super hero Superman. Electronic Arts via their Tiburon studio hope to change that with Superman Returs, their upcoming open world PS2, Xbox and Xbox 360 game that's based on the recent movie but plans to add a lot more for gamers. FiringSquad got a chance to chat with the game's supervisory producer Jeff Peters to find out more about their plans for Superman Returns.

FiringSquad: First, the Superman Returns game was originally going to be released around the time of the movie's release in theaters. What happened that caused the game's delay?

Jeff Peters: Through a series of internal reviews and external playtests, we gradually came to the conclusion that a few more months of development could push our game from 'good' to 'very good' or 'great'. Playtesters really liked what they saw, but they wanted more - more stuff to do, more variety in the buildings, etc. The delay allowed us to spend the summer addressing the feedback received, resulting in a more polished and cohesive gaming experience. Our focus with this product was to always to create the best game possible, and this was a collective decision to allow us to do that.

FiringSquad: This will be EA Tiburon's first non-sports game in quite a while. Was it intimitating for the studio to work on an action game rather than a football title?

Jeff Peters: Think of it as expanding a successful portfolio. It was more a creative challenge than anything else with our goal to take the successful lessons learned while building Madden over the years and branch out into more action-oriented fare. The team was mostly assembled from the ground up by bringing together seasoned action-game developers from within and outside of EA. Most of our designers, for example, had previous action game experience, so these learnings allowed us to overcome the hurdles you face when developing in a particular genre for the first time.

FiringSquad: Superman video games in the past have had a reputation for not reaching their high expectations. Was the team conscious of the history of the previous Superman games to avoid the mistakes of the past?

Jeff Peters: Everyone was very conscious of the history of the previous Superman titles, almost to the point of excluding anything that had a remote association with a previous title! Anyone who brought up the word 'ring' or 'kryptonite gun' risked a possible cube ransack. Inevitably, we did have to include some elements from Superman's gaming past (melee combat, rescuing citizens, etc), but for the most part we stayed away from the clich?s that sunk the earlier titles. The main problem with Superman as a video game character is that he's three-games-in-one-guy: flight sim, fighting game, and projectile-based action game. All of these play mechanics are part of Superman at any time (based on who the chararacter is) and creates some design difficulties with making sure none of these areas is more powerful than another, and, on the most simplistic level, you inadvertantly run out of buttons to make all this work together well. He's probably one of the hardest characters to translate successfully to a video game, but I think we found a good mix.

FiringSquad: What can you tell us about the storyline of the game and how it differs from the movie version?

Jeff Peters: The core storyline mirrors that seen in the film. However, there are several sequences added to the story, which fill in gaps in the film's timeline (for example, what was Superman up to during his time away from Earth?). There are also additional story threads which parallel the movie plot, specifically the introduction of various Supervillains attacking Metropolis. In the end, we finished with about a 50/50 split of movie content and original content, which felt about right.

View the original article here

Razer Tarantula Review

Introduction

Ideazon?s Merc gaming keyboard remains my current favorite while playing games. Combining the big keys and designs of a gaming pad with a fairly standard work keyboard layout has worked out very well. I can type reviews and previews on the keyboard during the day and shoot virtual terrorists in the head at night with the oversized movement keys and well placed buttons on the left side.

So when gaming mouse company Razer first announced their plans for their entry into gaming keyboard with the Tarantula I was more than intrigued. I?m a big fan of their gaming mice products and even though their recent headphone recently was a little bit disappointing I was looking forward to seeing what they would do for gaming keyboards. After all, a mouse is basically a PC input product so creating a companion keyboard would be a natural fit. When I actually got a chance to use Razer?s Tarantula, however, it was something of a surprise. It was more than what I was expecting from the company?and also a little less. That?s confusing, I?m sure but stay with me; it will all make sense.

The first think I quickly noticed about the Tarantula was its size. It?s a big one. It?s not quite as long as the Merc keyboard (20 inches to the Merc?s 21 inches) but it still takes up more desktop space because the Razer is wider than the Merc. It?s also very, very black with a shiny hard plastic finish that makes you be very careful while handling the product. You just don?t want to scratch it at all.

Unlike the Merc, the Razer Tarantula doesn?t really have a dedicated section devoted to just gaming buttons. Indeed the keyboard layout is pretty conventional for the most part but there are some interesting differences. The main one is the 10 keys (5 on the left and 5 on the right of the main keyboard layout) that are specifically made for the Tarantula?s macro set up (more on how that works later). Those buttons along with the Razer logo on the bottom center of the Tarantula, have an electric blue light glow coming from them that gives the keyboard an eerie presence to it in the dark, much like Razer?s Diamondback mouse. There doesn?t seem to be a way to disable the glow, however.

Installing the Tarantula may give you a bit of a fright at first since Razer is requiring you plug in two included USB cable connections in order for the keyboard to work (it?s possible that the reason for this is that glowing light effect takes up a lot of energy but we don?t know that for certain). Thankfully the Tarantula makes up for it by providing for two on-board USB ports that are placed on the top right hand side of the keyboard which is perfect for plugging in your mouse and whatever other USB device you might want (alas these ports are only USB 1.1 and not 2.0 ports). The USB cables also come with headset and microphone cables as well. If you plug both of them into the appropriate openings on your soundcard you can then plug in your headphone-microphone combo into the keyboard itself through the use of two such ports located next to the keyboard?s two USB ports.

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Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 Quad-Core Performance Preview

Introduction

Up until a few years ago, clock speed was the number one barometer used by many to judge a CPU?s performance. It was a pretty simple formula: higher CPU clock speeds means better performance. With their Netburst Pentium 4 architecture, Intel in particular was shooting for breakthrough clock speeds. Intel had hoped to eventually hit 10GHz with Netburst. As you all certainly know by now though, Intel?s plans for Netburst were never fully realized; ultimately the Pentium 4 never hit 4GHz.

While clock speed is certainly still important today, both AMD and Intel have realized that clock speed isn?t everything. After all, both companies have hit brick walls in frequency scaling with their CPU architectures in the past. This dilemma presents an interesting challenge to both companies ? how do you dramatically improve CPU performance without relying on hitting higher clock speeds? The answer both have come up with is simple: integrate more processing cores into the CPU?s die. With two CPUs built into the same CPU die, the CPU can perform twice the amount of work as a conventional single-core CPU.

That?s the theory at least. Of course by now we all know that you?ve got to have software that?s capable of taking advantage of that second processing core, or else it ends up spending most of its time idling.

In 2005, dual-core processing was all the rage. Both AMD and Intel introduced CPUs with two processing cores built-in to the CPU. Initially there was a dearth of software capable of taking advantage of dual-core, but over the course of the past 12 months slowly but surely dual-core software has been steadily trickling in, particularly when it comes to audio/video encoding and 3D rendering.

Kentsfield: Two cores inside


Now in 2006 we see the debut of the first quad-core CPUs. Intel?s first out of the gate with today?s launch of the Core 2 Extreme QX6700, previously known by its codename ?Kentsfield?. Intel had originally planned to release the Core 2 Extreme QX6700 in the first quarter of next year, but decided to move the release up by a few months to make it in time for the holidays.

By the end of the first half of next year, AMD plans to release their first quad-core CPU codenamed ?Barcelona? (it has also been referred to previously as K8L), but until then they plan on relying their upcoming 4x4 platform. AMD?s 4x4 technology is expected to be released later this month, but it isn?t a quad-core CPU. Instead 4x4 is composed of two dual-core processors.

Ultimately with a 4x4 system you?ve still got four processing cores, but its spread across two processors and thus you?ll need a two-socket motherboard. (AMD can?t affordably integrate four processing cores into one CPU die until their smaller 65-nm manufacturing process is ready.) With Intel?s Core 2 Extreme QX6700, you?ve got four processing cores inside a single socket, in fact the QX6700 is compatible with most of today?s existing Core 2 motherboards?

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Rogue Warrior Preview

Introduction

Bethesda Softworks is best known for its series of RPGs in the Elder Scrolls series that it developed in-house, but the company is also a publisher of a number of other third party titles, including this year?s Pirates of the Caribbean movie game and the upcoming Star Trek: Legacy. Next year Bethesda re-enters the first person shooter genre with an all new title called Rogue Warrior. At a press event earlier this month FiringSquad got to see a brief glimpse of the PC-Xbox 360-PS3 game in action which is being developed by Zombie Studios (Shadow Ops: Red Mercury).

If the name of the game is a little familiar, it should be. Rogue Warrior is the name of the best selling non-fiction book written in 1992 by Richard ?Dick? Marcinko where he recounts his former military life of 30 years as founder of the counter-terrorist SEAL Team Six where he and his team were sent into missions around the world, from Africa to the Middle East to Central America and more. Later he was a leader of Navy SEAL team Red Cell, which was designed to test out the security of military bases by staging simulated raids on them. Marcinko is a very controversial military figure and in fact was sentenced to federal prison in 1990 for 21 months on charges of defrauding the US government over the price of military weapons contracts for hand grenades (Marcinko maintains in his book he was set up as part of a witch hunt by a number of senior military officers who he claims were embarrassed by the raids on their bases as part of his time leading Red Cell). After writing Rogue Warrior Marcinko co-wrote a number of fictional novels under the Rogue Warrior series, and served as an advisor for moves like The Rock, GI Jane, and TV shows like 24. He is currently the chairman of Red Cell International, a private security firm

Bethesda Softworks wanted to get back into making action games (its last entry in first person shooters were a series of games based on the Terminator movies 10 years ago) and got together with Marcinko to secure the video and PC game rights for the Rogue Warrior series. They then enlisted Marcinko and other former and current Navy SEALs to work as active consultants. Zombie got the heads-up to develop the game itself. Marcinko attended the Rogue Warrior game press event and he comes across as a person who doesn?t quite fit your normal assumption of a Navy SEAL. He?s clearly strong but not the silent type with a full beard, long hair and wearing beach shorts in a room of game journalists wearing jeans. However it?s clear that he knows his stuff and while he admitted to FiringSquad he doesn?t play video or PC games himself he will be a major source of info for the Rogue Warrior dev team

The game itself takes place a few years in the future and has a storyline that?s about as topical as you can get these days; the rise of a very hostile North Korea. In the brief but live game demo (we were not allowed to actually play the game) we got to see an opening in-game cinematic where a fictional version of Marcinko and three other Navy SEALs are being transported via a mini-sub to a mission inside North Korea, specifically a shipbreaker yard where old hulks of ships are being torn apart for scrap. It doesn?t take long for the mission to turn sour for the SEAL team, as their plans for a swift extraction go haywire due to a firefight. The demo ended with another in-game cinematic showing the full scale invasion of South Korea by North Korea. The bulk of the game will showcase the fictional Marcinko and his team trying to find a way to get out of the war-torn country to get back home. Naturally, the North Korean military has other ideas.

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Hidden Game Inside YouTube Videos

The classic arcade game Snake lives on through YouTube with a clever new version hidden in certain videos.

To find it, you need to go to a video in the gaming category, click inside the area of the video, and then hold down the left arrow key.

Shortly after, a trail of white dots will start scrolling across the video, with a single blinking white dot that you need to steer your snake across.

Its kinda difficult to do on a busy background, but chances are somebody will post a plain black video to make it easier.

Enjoy!

posted by: jmet, 12:12, June 19, 2010
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PS3 Move Bundles Get Cheaper Already

Sony is reportedly preparing to introduce a lower-price PS3 bundle containing a 320GB PS3, Move controller, Eye camera, DualShock controller, and a game for just $399.

Now if you don't need the 320GB edition, Microsoft will be selling the same bundle except with a 120GB version for just $349.� If you would just like the Move controller, it is only $49 while buying it with the Eye and a game cost $99.

posted by: jmet, 12:29, June 16, 2010
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DVD Ripping & Jailbreaking Now Legal

�Every three years, the DMCA or Digital Millennium Copyright Act gets reviewed and�laws are added and subtracted.� This years review process seems to be going in the right direction as congress has added five new exemptions to the DMCA this year that might allow the breaking of DRM legal�if used for fair use rights.

Jailbreaking cell phones is really where all this started but has since lead to legalizing the�breaking of DRM on video games, e-books, and DVDs as well as bypass external security measures on some computers.� If you paid for the device, you should be able to use it how you see fit.

Please don't forget though, this doesn't make piracy legal.

posted by: DVDGuy, 15:01, December 13, 2009
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Disney Gets Involved with Social Networking

Walt Disney is supposedly making a deal to acquire Playdom Inc. for more than $500 million to get more involved in game play on social networks.

Disney is very serious about using Playdom to develop a bigger presence in games on social networking sites such as the hit game "Farmville".

The two companies have been in negotiations for over two months, but Playdom has scheduled a board meeting next week to decide whether to accept the buyout offer.

posted by: jmet, 12:40, November 18, 2009
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USB Powered BD-ROM

Plextor just debuted their USB-powered external Blu-ray drive that allows users to watch high-definition movies on any Blu-ray capable PC or laptop.

The device comes bundled with Cyberlink -high-quality Blu-ray and DVD playback software that provides a full Blu-ray experience in 3D, including the ability to upscale standard videos to HD-like and 3D-like visual quality.

The PX-B120U external BD-ROM is now available at the Plextor site for only $99.99.

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Studios Open Up to Digital Content Safe

A new copyright system that protects digital content similar to way a bank uses an account number is coming that allows you to watch your movies on virtually any device.� It is being called:� UltraViolet.

The standard will be backed by most movie studios including Warner Bros. and technology companies like Microsoft so companies who lock buyers of video content to limited numbers of devices, such as the iPad or Apple TV can no longer corner the market.

The concept is to create a digital locker that stores tokens that are proofs of purchase of DVDs, Blu-ray discs and video downloads. When a consumer buys a video online or at a store, he can watch it anywhere else, including on any mobile device or TV set without the hassle of copying his personal files.

Movie studios are pushing the benefits of being able to buy video content once for use on any device to offset the decline in DVD sales.� Specifications for a proposed common file format will be released soon, and testing of the system with an unnamed retailer will begin by the end of the year.

Having a way to access your movies and TV shows anywhere regardless of hardware is sure to take off and become very popular.� Looking forward to hearing more about this...

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New Laser to Replace Blu-ray

Sony recently announced they are developing a new type of blue-violet ultra-fast pulsed laser for optical disks that would increase storage capacity up to 20X of current Blu-ray Discs.

This means that a blue-violet based disc could hold up to 50 movies or an entire season of a TV show on one disk.

The adoption process for Blu-ray is going at a snails pace, so I wouldn't look for this technology to come any time soon.� Just know it is possible.

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XBOX 360 250GB HD for $79.99

Shop4tech.com is offering the Microsoft Xbox 360 250GB Hard Drive Module in Gray for $79.99.�

If you apply the coupon code "VIP18", it cuts it to $65.56 plus you get free shipping.� This is the highest capacity hard drive module available for the Xbox 360.

FYI - Coupon expires July 24.

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Hotter than a Kenwood in a Cutlass

The Mitsubishi 3D TV starter pack starting to ship from Amazon this past weekend.

The Mitsubishi 3DC-1000 which includes a 3D Adapter with remote, two pair of Active 3D glasses with matching emitter an HDMI cable for a reasonable price of $399.99 (which is already sold out by the way).

Just for being an early adopter, Mitsubishi is throwing in a Disney demo 3D Blu-ray disc too (I know your excited).

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YouTube Auto Switches Depending on Browser

YouTube has now started to test new code that will allow it to switch automatically between Flash and HTML5 depending on what browser you are using.

HTML 5 would be the first choice and then it will only force Flash when the video requires features HTML5 can't yet handle (like those annoying ads).

Unfortunately only the developers currently have access to the new code, but YouTube plans to roll it out to everyone in the future.

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Google Bumps Recording Limit Cap

YouTube announced today that it has increased the time limit of uploaded videos from 10 to 15 minutes.

"Well, we�ve spent significant resources on creating and improving our state-of-the-art Content ID system and many other powerful tools for copyright owners. Now, all of the major U.S. movie studios, music labels and over 1,000 other global partners use Content ID to manage their content on YouTube. Because of the success of these ongoing technological efforts, we are able to increase the upload limit today"

Bumping up that limit also increases bandwidth and storage costs; theoretically the longer clips will also give the site more chances to sell more ads.

Ah hah!� The truth shall set you free!

posted by: jmet, 13:19, September 30, 2009
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Streaming Redbox Coming Soon

Rumors are floating around that Redbox is looking to expand its distribution method by adding a streaming movies service .

Some are speculating that Redbox will charge half of what Netflix does, bring it down to about $5.50 a month.

There's not much to more to share about the service itself at this point, but Redbox is expected to announce more details in October.

posted by: jmet, 06:29, April 8, 2010
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RIP DTVPal DVR

Dish Network has stopped selling its DTVPal DVR, after weeks of offering it at discounted prices.� Unfortunately Dish has no plans to replace it.

The DTVPal was the only affordable over-the-air ATSC dual-turning DVR on the market, but lacked some important features which I guess goes to show you sometimes price isn't the determining factor.

The method used to record programs wasn't very user friendly as you�had to schedule recordings by time slot and channel, rather than show not to mention you only received limited guide data over-the-air.

Hopefully something new and better will come along shortly.

posted by: jmet, 13:15, April 7, 2010
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New XBOX 360 4GB for Under $200

Microsoft just announced that a shiny new 4GB Xbox 360 with 4GB internal flash memory, matte finish, and built-in WiFi will be selling for $199.99.

The built in WiFi and the ability to store and save games to a USB stick should make this console one of the best selling.

The new console will hit the shelves on August 3rd.

posted by: jmet, 05:18, June 19, 2010
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Firmware 3.41 Bringing New Feature to PS3 Store

Sony has revealed some details about an upcoming firmware update for the PS3 that adds game and video recommendations to the PlayStation Store.

Now when your researching specific titles,� there will be a new "You May Like" section which lets you browse similar content that may interest you.

Recommendations are based on purchases of other PlayStation Network members who have bought the same item you're looking at.

posted by: jmet, 10:23, April 27, 2010
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3DS Launch Details Released

Nintendo announced today that the 3DS will launch on September 29 and could possibly ship out before 2011.

As for the other details, there wasn't much except the 3DS will have a much larger screen, an analog control pad and a gyroscope for tilt-sensitive game play.�� It will also be able to access the internet through the built in Wi-Fi connection.

As usual, Nintendo is pretty tight lipped on all the details.� I am actually surprised they said as much as they did regarding the 3DS.

posted by: jmet, 12:44, June 23, 2010
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Disc Free Streaming for the PS3

Netflix is making good on its promise to bring a streaming service to Sony�s game console that doesn�t require a disc.

�Before our next call in October, we expect to be launching a major new version of our Sony PS3 user interface which doesn�t require a disc and is dynamically updated continuously with the latest Netflix UI improvements.�

Unfortunately for Wii owners, Sony hasn't commented when or even if the Wii console will have something comparable.

posted by: jmet, 11:43, January 14, 2010
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3D Camcorders Coming to Consumers

3D movies are now coming out left and right and 3D TVs are taking up alot of shelf space at electronic stores.� It was only a matter of time before 3D consumer camcorders would begin to hit the market.

That time was this week as two camcorder makers, Panasonic and DXG USA announced 3D camcorder products.

Panasonic HDC-SDT750
Panasonic HDC-SDT750

Panasonic's 3D offering, the HDC-SDT750, is a camcorder-lens combo expected to sell in the United states for around US $1,400.

When a user wants to shoot in 3D, they simply attach a 3D conversion lens to the camcorder.� Without it, the camcorder just shoots in regular 2D.

posted by: jmet, 11:44, February 2, 2010
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Pirate Party Starts an ISP

The Swedish Pirate Party has plans to start its own broadband ISP that gives customers that warm fuzzy feeling of being invisible while browsing those risqu� sites.

The "Pirate ISP" is already beta testing in the city of Lund and all proceeds will be used to fund the group's anti-copyright efforts.

The unexpected news comes shortly after the party revealed a clever plan to protect the popular torrent site, The Pirate Bay, with parliamentary immunity by hosting the site from "inside" the Swedish Parliament.�

posted by: jmet, 13:30, August 26, 2009
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Multi Functional DVR by Monsoon

Monsoon has introduced a suite of revolutionary TV place-shifting devices that allow you to watch and control live home TV from broadband Internet or data network connected PC or even a mobile phone.

Monsoon gives you the freedom to watch home TV whenever and wherever you want:

Personalize your TV viewing experience Enjoy your Microsoft Media Center TV experience in any room in the house without requiring a TV connection in those rooms Watch TV on multiple PCs, in multiple rooms, simultaneously Wirelessly watch TV on your deck or in the workshop Users can watch TV in the home and from the airport at the same time Turn Windows Vista or Windows XP PCs into PVRs. Pause, fast forward, rewind, record TV onto your PC�s hard disk or burn TV programs onto DVDs for later viewing No monthly subscription fees

You will never miss your favorite TV show again.

posted by: jmet, 12:03, September 29, 2009
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Using a UK PayAsYouGo SIM when you are a foreigner

[Updated June 1st to correct ATM information and to add PayPal option]

Recently I had the need to buy and use a UK PAYG SIM card for my phone, so I could make calls and access the web in the UK without the gigantic costs involved with my US SIM card. As I am no longer a UK resident, this was surprisingly difficult, although I did succeed eventually. Although my experience was with Vodafone, a friend had similar issues with Orange.

Buying the SIM was the simplest part: went into Carphone Warehouse, gave them UKP10 and got a Vodafone�SIM with UKP5 worth of minutes on it. All I had to do was top it up with more money then add a �Web Pack� (cost: UKP7.50) which would get me data access for a month. I was told to do this online.

Got home to a web browser and went to register my new SIM so I could top it up online. This was not possible, as it requires a UK credit/debit card (which I actually do still have) registered to a UK postal code (which I do not: my card is registered to my US address). I called their phone support, spoke to a human being and was told the UK postcode was indeed required, so online top-up was not going to be possible.

The solution was to find an ATM (in English that�s a �hole in the wall�) with a green �Top-Up� logo, put a card with a chip on it�in there (see below), and top-up from that. I had to enter my SIM�s phone number (twice) and so I could add UKP10 to the account. That done I called �2345� which is the automated customer service number and turned UKP7.50 of that into a �web pack� so I was set for a month's worth of web access. Luckily I still have a UK card, else this option would have been unavailable to me: when I tried with my US card, all Top-Up options were absent from the list.

If you do not have a "chip" on your card then topping up can only be done in two ways: in a cellphone store, by handing them cash, or via a web site that will take something other than UK cards. I found this site that claims to accept PayPal for top-ups, but I have not personally verified it. Use at your own risk.

The lack of a smartcard (or "chip") on my US cards was not only a problem in the ATMs for top-up,�but was sometimes�a problem any time a human being was involved in a card transaction. The USA isn�t interested in reducing card fraud so our cards have no chips on them, but of course every card reader in the UK requires a chip. UK staff are often confused when handed a card with no chip, though they can usually find someone who knows what to do with it eventually. The only other places where my US cards didn�t work at all was at a petrol pump specifically marked as �chip&pin only� and a machines at cinemas to buy tickets.

Other things I learned: once back in the USA there is no way to top up the card (as no ATM offers it) and you can�t call �2345� to switch any outstanding balance from minutes to a web pack as that number doesn�t work when not on the Vodafone network. When I next visit to the UK I�ll know the drill to getting on the web a lot quicker than it took me this time.

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Zune in my Boxster: Part 2

I've been enjoying my Zune installation for a while now, but I had one thing that bugged me: operating the touchpad with the player mounted in the ashtray was a bit tricky when stationary, but very tricky when moving. It was also time to post some pictures of my handiwork.

Fortunately Soundgate have now released a remote control for their Zune car kit, called the Remcore, so I got myself one. Fitting it was easy enough: open up my dashboard (for the last time I hope) and insert the plug into the socket on the Soundgate box. Harder than that was deciding where to put the control: it had to be easily accessible while driving. After a little experimentation I chose a spot on the "batwing" - a dashboard piece�at the front of the center console so nicknamed due to its shape. This also allowed me to run the cable without having to drill any holes in anything. The remote comes with a little bracket that allows it to be removed and handed to passengers, I guess, as it has a long cable attached. As I can carry a maximum of one passenger, and they are sitting right next to me, I didn't use the bracket and instead stuck the remote directly onto the plastic with double-sided tape.

(Note in the picture the Remcore is the all-black control to the left: the silver switch in the center of the batwing is for my hands-free bluetooth kit). With the ashtray closed, the stealthy nature of the install is clear:

In use it is great: I can easily control play/pause/next/prev without taking my eyes of the road or even opening the ashtray to try and see the screen. If I want to change my music selection (when stationary) then I pop open the ashtray and navigate around. The remote takes a little getting used to as the middle button is play/pause and the top right button is equivalent to the middle of the touchwheel, but I can live with that. If I had more time and skill I would probably try and craft a nice tinted window in the lid of the ashtray so that I could see the screen without even opening it and yet keep it invisible when turned off. However I have neither required attribute.

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More HD DVD players than Blu-ray players in America. Still. In 2009.

It's crazy to me that the biggest reason that Blu-Ray had a luke warm reception in the first place, was down to the fact that Sony kept bringing out new profiles, and each time it was more than likely that your very expensive Blu-Ray player would need to be replaced with another player.

It's nice to see that Sony has given us a couple of years to invest in new profile 2 hardware, just for them to bring out a need to buy a new player all over again!!!

This is at the heart of what is spoilling Ble-Ray's adoption in to the market, with high prices being the second reason.

On the other hand, if Microsoft release a new Xbox, it would be stupid to not move to a Blu-Ray based storage system - lets face it, DVD is out of steam already, and not all the world has ultra fast broadband connections, and not to mention the fact that MS's movies are not available in many countries.

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Tricks and Tips for using the VMR9

A few months ago I did some work involving the VMR9, and I hit several brick walls. Many of these brick walls I hit about six months previously when working on a PC application for HD DVD playback (no, there were no plans to ship it, even then), but I hadn�t taken enough notes of the solutions back then and had to re-debug them all over again. In case you hit these same problems, or I do at some point in my future, here they are and how I solved them. I do not claim domain expert status in this area, nor should you treat my claims here as gospel. I also cannot explain why these changes fixed things. However they worked for me and might for you.

I was trying to build a graph that rendered video into a custom allocator/presenter, using the VMR in renderless mode. The issues were:

Failure to QI the VMR for IVMRMixerControl9No video output when the VMR is in renderless mode at all on Vista, identical code worked fine on XPWhen I fixed that above, I could get MPEG2 video to render on XP but not WMV, and Vista still rendered nothingThe solutions turned out to be:

QueryInterface on the VMR9 for IVMRMixerControl9 returns E_NOINTERFACE until you call SetNumberOfStreams on it.

If you ask the VMR to use YUV in renderless mode on Vista, nothing will render. The fix is to not ask for it. (Duh).

The order you set up VMR9 for renderless mode is critical. The original code that worked OK for MPEG2 on XP but not at all for WMV was as follows (error handling omitted for clarity):

spGraph->AddFilter(spVMR,L"VMR");

spVMR->QueryInterface(IID_IVMRFilterConfig9, &spConfig);

spConfig->SetRenderingMode(VMR9Mode_Renderless);

After much experimentation the code that worked in all cases was:

spVMR->QueryInterface(IID_IVMRFilterConfig9,&spConfig);

spConfig->SetNumberOfStreams(1);

spConfig->SetRenderingMode(VMR9Mode_Renderless);

spGraph->AddFilter(spVMR,L"VMR");

I can only guess that when you add the VMR filter to the graph you must have already set up the custom allocator/presenter. Why Vista is more fussy than XP, and why MPEG2 behaved differently than WMV I cannot begin to guess at.

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Why HD DVD Really Lost The Format War

NO... It is MY fault...

for the last 30 years I have pushed a string up hill trying to get the world to record video to optical discs.. My good friend Kilroy Hughes would listen to me, dirnk with me, and laugh we me at NABs etc.. but would not successfully learn from me that the BD medium is the right way to go... for reasons that:

1)its first and formost a RECORDING format (neat for download and burns of the future)

2)Toshiba does not know marketing

3)Microsoft thinks servers not burners

4)Hollywood has very few tech-heads... the last were working at Pixar, who morphed into Disney...who must listen to Sir Stevie Jobs

5)and the best... 50 gigs is a bigger number than 30 gigs.. and SOON 200 gigs is bigger than 50 gigs... now THAT should have been the killer issue for folks in Redmond.

YET... I have been strongly in the camp that HD-i is the RIGHT way to go on the puter side, the only mistake was to believe that CHEAPER is better...

If any of you who read this want me to help them through this recovery period, and to build a "compromise" that will work for everyone... You can rattle my cage at anytime

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The Sinclair QL is 25 yrs old today!

Chances are that you have never heard of the Sinclair QL. However if you are as old as me and European then you may have a soft spot for this 68k-based machine launched twelve days before that other 68k machine from the fruit company. It was my first 32-bit multitasking machine, with a real operating system (shame about the keyboard and storage device though).

I got one of the fruit company's 68k machines not long after the QL as an advance from my publishers and used it (running MacWrite 1.0)�for my two QL books (one of which is quoted on the wikipedia page!) and wrote assembly language code for both platforms. My University 3rd year project was a debugger for the QL and I wrote an assembler too, which eventually turned into HiSoft Devpac for the QL, Atari ST and CBM Amiga once I got a proper job. So I guess I can thank the QL for my decades of work in the�development tools�field.

My parents attic still contains my disassembly of one of the QL operating systems (FB I think), though I know they would like me to dispose of it and much of the other detris from my past, though my QL hardware stayed at HiSoft as I recall. I think I still have some microdrive cartridges somewhere.

For the nostalgic see this page�for the 25th Birthday rememberance, thanks for the info Urs, I would have no idea otherwise.

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Andy's Random KIN Tips Page

Both my wife and I are happy KIN users so I thought I would share some information that might be useful to others about the KIN phones. Note that I am not attempting to replicate or duplicate the official support pages, but instead share additional information. As things come to me I'll try to add then to this page.

Caveat: this page is not condoned or endorsed by Microsoft or the KIN team. Your mileage may vary. Void where prohibited. Etc.

The built-in hands-free car kits we have used successfully are the Sony Ericsson HCB-30 (very old but that's what I have) and the Parrot CK3000. Although the KIN supports audio-over-bluetooth, neither of these do as the S/E is too old and the Toyota that has the CK3000 is incapable of accepting a useful�aux input (can you believe it? Toyota's in-car-audio story has been broken for a while).

We love the iGo range of chargers and cables, and the A97 tip (micro usb) works fine on our KIN ONEs. On a KIN TWO (which neither of us have) it is a tight fit though. With the splitter we can charge both phones with a single cable. We can also charge our Zunes with a different plug of course.

I don't have a part number but Verizon stores sell a hard case for the KIN ONE. I have the transparent one but noticed that the hole used for the external speaker is covered up, greatly reducing the ringtone. I carefully used a Dremel to make the hole that someone forgot to, to make sure I can hear it when my wife calls :-)

I don't usually edit comments on my blog but I will be making an exception here. Please don't rant about KIN or anything else, and please don't ask about things until you have tried the official KIN help pages first.

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Two Fixes You Must Have for Visual Studio 2008 SP1

The SP1 release of VS08 regressed some functionality compared to the original release, in a couple of critical areas. As a result it is highly likely you'll need the following two patches for it. I know many of our team who hit these issues, cursed, came to me (because I am the "VS guy" on the team) and then became happy when I pointed them to these:

Update for Debugger Stepping and Breakpoints�- note if remote debugging be sure to patch those binaries too.

Update for Crash/Hangs when undocking windows or changing layouts

Hope you find these as useful as we did.

Please note it has been many years since I have worked on VS itself, so don't go crazy asking all sorts of other VS-related questions in the Comments. This is what I know. And that is it: I'm just a customer like you these days.

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You Know You're Getting Old When: The Copyright On Your First Book Expires

According to British law the copyright on my first book expired last year, after twenty-five years. Not only does this make me feel ancient, but it compels me to recall the heady days of 1983, when I created my tome�"Master Your ZX Microdrive".

I was a nerdy University student who spent most of his time in Central London hanging out around the publishers of the early computer magazines & books. In the summer of 1983 the magazine Popular Computing Weekly got a scoop on some new Sinclair hardware: the ZX Microdrive. As with several of their scoops (e.g. the�QL)�it was a leak from the printers who were making the user manual. They got me a copy of the maunal, and I wrote a "review" of the ZX Microdrive that was published in July without even a sniff of the actual device. The�magazine appeared�on the very day the product was launched, which made the publishers very happy. I used a pseudonym of "Bill Hoskins" for the review, the surname coming from the family whose house I lived in during my student days. (The internet does not appear to contain a copy of this fine piece of journalism, which I will try and fix when I find my copy).

By this time I had done a bunch of articles and reviews for PCW and other magazines, and had built a rapport with the small staff of Sunshine Press who published PCW. To my complete surprise they suggested I write a book about the Microdrives for their rapidly expanding computer book business. This was despite that fact that�I had never written a book before and of course there were no Microdrives yet to be had. Naturally I said yes.

Around the beginning of August 1983 Sinclair shipped a review sample of the Microdrive and its Interface 1 to Sunshine, who sent it on to me. It was the summer, so I was living with my parents in their small hotel and I spent the next four weeks feverously working on my book. I had already read the (leaked) user manual numerous times but wanted to know so much more, so I took the next step: disassembling the ROM. There was 8K of Z80 assembler, which I dutifully printed out then analyzed, byte by byte, to figure out how the hardware did its thing and how the system was modified to support it. I have to say the design was cunning: no bytes of the original 16K BASIC ROM were modified. The book itself was written on the Spectrum, using what passed for a word-processor (Tasword). Each chapter was saved to a pair of alternating cassette tapes as I edited them, then printed on my dot-matrix printer every once in a while for more serious editing. Apart from writing the text, I was simultaneously writing sample programs to go along with the book. I felt it needed something meaty, so I modified a database originally written by another Sunshine author to work against these new "advanced" storage devices.

After four weeks I did the final printout, made a couple of photocopies and mailed them to Sunshine. Less than four weeks later the book was on the street, and proved pretty successful. I produced a 2nd Edition when the first run sold out, and in the end it sold around 10,000 copies and was translated into seven foreign languages. I made about ten grand out of it, which was about the same as a year's salary for computer graduates of the day. Someone in the old eastern block (Poland I think) once wrote to me and asked to translate the book into his native tongue, but he apologized he had no hard currency to pay me. Instead he proposed sending me some records (those vinyl things) of Polish music: I declined the music offer but said he was welcome to do it for free, so long as he sent me a copy. I never did see one.

Computer books were rather simpler back then: mine had about 140 pages and was about a centimeter thick: that helped me write it so quickly of course. The way the books were typeset was also primitive: the manuscript had to be manually re-typed into green-screen terminals at the typesetters. I did take my Spectrum there to see if we could somehow get the text out of the parallel printer port into their gigantic mainframe, but without success. The listings were entered as scans of my master printouts to avoid errors.

Eventually after some years the book got remaindered, and as per my contract I was offered the chance to buy the final copies on the cheap. I bought two hundred for a quid each, then did a deal with Your Spectrum magazine: they would advertise, sell and ship the books, having been autographed by me first, and we split the profit. A sweet deal, we sold 192 copies in the end.

The book opened useful doors to me: apart from publishing two more for Sunshine, I sent early proofs of the more technical chapters to some software companies so they could add Microdrive support to their programs. One of them, HiSoft, hired me for a summer job in 84 and I ended up staying there for seven years. As an advance for the second book I asked for an Apple Macintosh (which had just been released) and I wrote both other books using MacWrite 1.0. I contracted with Sinclair themselves to write some software that shipped on Microdrive cartridge: I was so green they had to tell me what to charge them, and I couldn't believe it when they suggested five grand. I should have haggled...

About a decade after the book came out I somehow ran into the artist who did the picture for the book's cover (and many other Sunshine covers). I asked if he still�had the art, and he did, so I offered to buy it. He gladly accepted, then told me to go to some bar the next night, give the money to the barman and I'd get the picture. Despite my skepticism I turned up at the requested location and got the original art, no questions asked.

A quarter of a century later (OK now I really feel old)�I still have the cassettes containing the chapters and the programs, but no way to read them. I somehow lost the original manuscript, which is very annoying, though�I recently discovered a PDF of the book that some unknown person has created. I have no idea why, but whoever you are, I thank you. Also when did I change from "Andrew" to "Andy"? I seemed to use both versions at this time. Who came up with the book's title? I have no idea. These and other mysteries will likely never be solved, ah well.

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A Personal Guide to Ripping CDs with Zune

Over the holidays I ripped about sixty CDs with the Zune software, and it wasn�t as smooth as it should have been. Here is what I learnt, which I hope will save others time and frustration.

It had long been a plan for the holidays for me to manually compare the substantial CD collection my wife and I have accrued over the years with the collection of MP3s we have on our home server. Over the space of many hours I worked my way through the physical collection (only recently did all our CDs migrate to the same room) and compared it to the collection of bits we have. Having determined which discs were missing, I then ripped them using the Zune software to MP3s. Note that these notes were based on software version 3.1 running on Vista Ultimate 64-bit. YMMV.

The bulk of our collection was ripped in the past�using various versions of Music Match. It wasn�t flashy, but it worked at a reasonable speed with good results, so much so I paid some dollars for the Plus version that ripped things faster. However in recent years the software got bought out twice by other companies and messed with, and today it calls itself Yahoo! Music and is remarkably useless to me. That, combined with my recent Zune-love, made me try our own Zune software for the large task ahead of me. Turns out there are some issues with how and when the software works out the metadata for the rips (metadata is the extra information associated with the album such as its name, artist, the track details and the album art) and here is what I learned.

Turn off auto-rip
The most important option turned out to be to disable the "Rip CD automatically when inserted" option. With it enabled, I would stick a CD in, the rip would commence seemingly ok, but I happened to notice a bunch of "01 Unknown Track.mp3" files sitting in multiple "\Unknown Artist\Unknown Album" directories, like this:

Usually it was just the first track, and it happened on about 20% of the CDs I had ripped. Further investigation revealed that the rip appeared to start before the software had actually finished reading all the metadata from the internet. This made the files as described, which had to be manually renamed, moved to the correct location and the MP3 Title tag set correctly (using Explorer�s Property page for the file). What is weird is that usually the rest of the MP3 tags would be correct (Album and Artist), so I could figure out which album it should be to fix it. Anyway, turning off auto-rip allows you to verify that the software has figured out the metadata, before you click the �Rip now� button. Judging by postings on the Zune forums I am not the only one with this problem.

Wait For the Metadata
With this learned, I started to really watch the software after the initial CD insertion, and I noticed that often it would display UNKNOWN ARTIST and yet have the correct album name, track names and album art shown. My solution for this was to eject the disc and re-insert it: this would cause the software to actually get the artist name correct. Again turning off auto-rip ensures all the data is there and correct before you start the rip.

Missing Album Art
Even with this regimen, I was noticing that some album art was failing to show up at all. Ejecting the disc didn�t help and trying the same disc in Windows Media Player would also fail to show the album art, so I guess the database has some inexplicable holes in its album art collection. I even had one album where the art was shown successfully for Disc 2, but not for Disc 1. The fix for this is to wait for the rip to complete, view the album in the collection then right-click it and select "Find Album Info". Try and do this on as large a monitor as you can, as the Find dialog is not movable, and you�ll want to be able to see at least some of the Track list in the main window (or have the CD case to hand) to make sure it matches the choices offered. Although the art might be missing on the initial search, it will often show up in the Find dialog, so look through it to see if you have a "better" match to your album and if you find one with art, select it, click Next then Finish. Be sure the number of tracks is the same and also the names of the tracks match the ones on the CD case.

Compilation Metadata
Compilation CDs require additional care in my experience. In every case for me the initial metadata pull had correct track names, but showed no Artists for the tracks. If I brought up the Edit dialog on the album I would sometimes see data for the Composer (which I could care less about frankly), but the Song Artist would be "Various Artists". This is highly annoying, but the fix is to use the "Find Album Info" as described above, and usually the track data it pulls will contain the correct Song Artists. Sadly the Find dialog does not display the Song Artist info, so the only way to tell if you got some is to try each likely suspect in turn. Be sure to use the Find option before any hand-edits you make to the metadata as any changes you make before pulling new info with Find will be lost.

Random Annoyances
There is another annoyance with the software that I hit with one particular torture-test compilation, a set from the UK in 1993 called "Young At Heart". It is four compilation CDs, so I had the Song Artist troubles described above on every disc, plus there are about a million �Young at Heart� albums in the world so the Find dialog was unwieldy, and the Zune UI appeared to have no way to display titles longer than around 18 characters. It truncates long names with a sexy-looking fade to grey, but offered no way to see the full name short of actually switching to the item. You can see how well this works in the screenshot below:

If I didn�t like this compilation so much I would have saved a frustrating hour of my life and given up trying to get an accurate rip of these particular discs. [In the process of writing this very post I discovered that tooltips do actually appear if you hover over the text itself: hovering over the album art, which is what I was trying in vain for the last few months, gets you nothing].

When a rip finishes the Zune software makes no effort to tell you via a sound effect or anything. This means if you have a busy life and can�t just sit in front of the PC watching it rip, you have to keep coming back to check on progress to see if it�s done yet. A simple sound effect on completion would have been much appreciated.

Conclusions
Frankly I miss the old Music Match as a CD ripper. I could try another program, but many of the programs out there that�I have tried in the past choke on my collection due to its size, so I figured I�d try the Zune software for ripping as it does an acceptable job of tracking my collection (though its performance is poor). In retrospect I guess I was crazy to persevere like I did, but now I have learnt the tricks I�ll stick with it, and maybe others in a similar position will have an easier time in the future.

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Converting Zune playlists into Windows Media Player playlists

For some inexplicable reason Zune playlists (ZPL) are different from Windows Media Player playlists (WPL). I foolishly made a Zune playlist and wanted to burn a�data CD with it, but the Zune Burn feature only makes audio CDs.�I tried loading the ZPL�into WMP, but it failed. After 60 seconds of comparing two files, here is what worked for me. YMMV:

Open the ZPL in your favorite editor (e.g. Notepad). In the first line change

zpl version="2.0"

into

wpl version="1.0"

Save As the file�with a�wpl extension.

I could then load the new WPL file into WMP and easily burn a data CD, for use in my car.

WPL files at least are somewhat described on MSDN, I can't find any definitions for ZPL files though they appear to be identical save for the header and the file extension. ASX files are yet another Microsoft playlist format which I have had some experience of.

Note that this shold not be considered Official Microsoft Documentation. But its the best I can do, hope someone finds it useful.

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My First Commercial Software: Kempston Joystick Conversion Tape

1983 were much simpler times in software. Here is how a student turned a quick hack into his first commercially released software and made his first money in the business. That student was me.

Back in 1983 Kempston Electronics produced a joystick interface for the ZX Spectrum, which allowed Atari-style joysticks to work with the most popular computer of the day. However, existing software had no way of working with this new hardware so in these early days it was cool hardware that honestly couldn�t do much. I picked up a joystick pretty soon after it came out, and found myself wanting to use it in my existing games. My favorite game of the day was the Psion Flight Simulator, a wire-frame �3D� representation, so I fired up my debugger of choice (Devpac) and searched for the IN instruction that read the keyboard. Those found I disassembled the keyboard code and figured out how to replace it with IN instructions to map the joystick movement to the game code.

For some reason (and I can�t honestly recall why) I decided to call Kempston and tell them of my achievement. Turns out they were very excited too, and offered me �250 for it right there on the phone. To give an idea how much this seemed to me, as a comparison the government was giving me a Full Grant of �1400 to cover my living expense for a year, and I actually had trouble spending it all! Naturally I was giddy at the idea of more money and proceeded to produce similar hacks for six other games, along with loaders that circumvented their copy-protection (so that I could patch the code), and created Joystick Conversion Tape 1. In due course I did this for a few more times and produced Tapes 2 and 3. I got royalties for these and I forget how much this totaled, but it was definitely a great time-taken vs reward result for me. (There are few things that you can�t find anywhere on the internet, but a picture of Tape 3 is one of them).

In due course the Kempston Joystick came to dominate the market and was a huge success, and I distinctly remember a notable sight when I was helping set up at a trade show once. Kempston�s owner, Ab Pandaal, was emptying a surprising amount of joystick boxes from his shiny red Ferrari parked in between the wooden folding tables that made up most of the �stands� of the day. I got to know Ab pretty well over the years: I did software for his Spectrum printer interfaces and scanner software for the Atari ST. He was the first person I knew with a Ferrari, and the only person I knew with two Ferrari�s until I got to Microsoft in the crazy 90s.�I do know that at one point Coin Controls, who made the actual joysticks, offered Ab �2million for his company and he turned them down, which I'm sure he regretted later. Software development is a lot more complicated these days, Kempston Electronics are long gone now and I often wonder whatever happened to those early entrepreneurs like Ab.

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Playing Ripped DVDs with Media Center Extenders

At last I have succeeded in getting ripped DVDs to play from my Xbox 360's Media Center Extender, and here is how I did it. First off let me explain my goals:

I want to be able to play my kid's DVDs via my home network, so they can avoid trashing the shiny discs any more than they already havePlayback needs to be from something other than my PC, so my kids don't trash thatI also want to avoid transcoding the DVDs into another format, because my time is extremely limited (thanks to having two kids)I'd like the original DVD menus and Extras to be available.

Ah well,�3 out of�4 ain't bad: the last goal is still unattainable.

Requirements

Media Center on Vista SP1Media Center Extender (I use an Xbox 360, I assume the 2nd gen extenders will also work but I don't have one)The ability to edit XML files (e.g. Notepad)Ripped DVDs

How I Did It

First off I ripped the DVDs to my file�server. I'm not going to tell you how to do this.Next I enabled "DVD Library" which lets you play ripped DVDs on the Vista machine itself in Media CenterNext I got my Xbox 360 to see my Media Center on my Vista (64-bit) box. This was substantially harder than it is for most people as I run a Domain Controller on my home network, plus the files are on a file server, not on my Vista machine (here is a link to the magic for those with their own domain controller). Once I got it working I was crucially disappointed to see that "DVD Library" did not show up on the Xbox.The trick to getting "DVD Library" to show up is revealed here. This took me longer than it should because although "DVD Library" showed up on my Xbox soon enough, the only content was the Apollo 13 and Vertigo clips that come with Vista. No amount of me messing with the Extender Settings could change this. However, turns out I was an idiot: pressing the Info key brings up a sub-menu with "Add Movies" on it. Once I did that and added the share from my server, I was in business.Getting rid of Vertigo and Apollo 13 proved impossible except by removing the files physically from my Vista machine.

More Info

I created a new share on my server, called DVDs, to separate the kids rips from the general pool. For each desired movie, I made a new directory (whose name is what shows up in the "DVD Library"), and into it I placed:

Folder.jpg - disc artwork borrowed from Amazon, cropped to DVD-shape when requiredVIDEO_TS.IFO - zero length file requiredThe hardest bit: working out which VOBs are the actual movie. For each one, I created a hardlink MPEG from the VOB in the original rip directory.Foo.wvx - XML file as described in the link above. Only a few elements are supported, described in the Playlist section of this page. The name of this file makes no difference, the extension does though. For each VOB you worked out above, add an Entry/Ref section as described.

Hints & Tips

When playing DVDs this way, there is no trick play, and chapter skipping just seems to jump 30 seconds or so. Also when there is a transition of one MPEG to the next, there is a few seconds of blackness. Anamorphic DVDs look great, 4:3 ones as well as expected, but non-anamorphic widescreen titles have black bars on all sides.

If you find the ASX spec you will see all sorts of goodies, but they are mostly ignored unfortunately. Its hard to find the spec, but this link works sometimes and this one at other times.

Don't use Windows Media Player to work out which VOBs are which: it is too smart and recognizes its a DVD rip. I used Nero's Showtime instead. You can use WMP to check the WVX file works, but note that it will choose a seemingly random audio track for each MPEG file. Don't be alarmed, MCE chooses the right track when it plays them, WMP is broken in this regard.

I had problems using a VIDEO_TS directory: just placing the listed�files directly into a suitably named directory worked much better for me.

In an ideal world you could play ripped DVDs on Extenders out-of-the-box, but you can't and some hoops are necessary. These hoops are worth it for me though. I can dream about DVD menu support I suppose...

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How Do You Debug A Movie?

How do you debug a movie? Before I get too old and forget, here is the story of one bug that I had to find when playing King Kong in the Xbox HD DVD player. It concludes with yet another reason I am so glad we�re not doing a Blu-ray player.

The HD DVD team originally wrote the player software for what became the Toshiba A1 series HD DVD players. Those players were basically x86-based laptop boards with an optical drive and video decoding hardware added, running Linux. Toshiba wrote the audio/video pipeline and we wrote the rest of the player. After that initial Toshiba release we really got going on a version for the Xbox 360, which shared much of the codebase but had some notable differences, plus we got to write our own AV pipeline. Progress was rapid (thanks in no small part to the ninjas that the Xbox team had lent us to get things going) [and yes Ninja was their official job title] and soon the Test team were running real movies from shiny discs through the player.

I ended up with a particular bug in King Kong which involved picture-in-picture (PIP). I got it because I owned PIP and its positioning logic, and the bug was that at a particular point in the movie (12:08) when PIP had been enabled, the PIP window was supposed to disappear. Well the video disappeared, but a black PIP-sized rectangle was left behind for about 12 seconds. This was a Universal title and used one of the earliest versions of U-Control to cause certain things to appear and disappear from the display at certain times. There were other times when this same weird rectangle would show up, but this was the first one.

The first thing we did with a problem like this was to look at the source. HDi used ECMAScript (aka Javascript) and the source code was right there on the disc. The .js files were usually packed into an .aca file (think ZIP file without the compression) and sometimes it might be AACS encrypted, but as a player manufacturer we legally had "the keys to the lock" so that was not a barrier to us reading the source. (The .aca file was also multiplexed into the audio/video stream so that usually the player does not have to pause playback to load a script, or a bitmap, which was important as seek times on optical discs are generally terrible).

The U-Control code got a lot more sophisticated over time, but the basic premise was that there was a list of timecodes and a list of actions to perform when those timecodes were hit. These actions included things like fading PIP audio up and down, showing and hiding PIP video, displaying overlay graphics and the like. The first place I look was the most obvious: add some logging to the PIP alpha code and see what and when it was being used. If PIP video was present in the video stream it was always run through the secondary video decoder, but you couldn�t see it as it started with an alpha value of Transparent. In order to see it, the js code would change the alpha value to Opaque (or in the case of U-Control it faded up the alpha from one to the other over a few frames). The logging revealed that in the failing case at 12:08, the alpha API was being called with 255 (opaque) instead of zero (transparent). As there was no actual secondary video stream at that time, we rendered an empty stream (ie a black rectangle).

At some point we learnt that King Kong was going to be bundled with the HD DVD drive itself, so we had to make very sure every aspect of the title worked perfectly on our player. Pressure: I can handle it.

I next spent a while poring over the U-Control logic: this was the first such title I ever had to debug, but it was made a bit easier because there was a bunch of debugging in the .js file itself, put there by the original authors. All I had to do was change a debug variable to true, and a bunch of debug spew was printed as the title ran. In order to "edit" js files on a read-only disc packed into an .aca file we had debug code in the player that allowed us to substitute "our" version of any .js file (read from the Xbox hard-disc) instead of the one from the optical disc. That way we could play with the title code to add debugging or change logic, and see the effect on the movie immediately.

The logging showed that there was a problem parsing the timecode: The�JScript function parseInt("08") was returning zero (it was parsing the seconds part of the timecode), and clearly the code was expecting it to return 8. Further investigation revealed that our JScript engine (cloned from the IE one) treated zero-prefixed numbers as octal, and as �08� is not a valid octal number it returned zero. Toshiba�s ECMAScript engine (which they wrote from scratch) didn�t think it was octal, so returned 8. (In the early days all HD DVD title development was done on Toshiba A1 Emulators: special players with all kinds of extra, like hard discs and debug tools. Only later did authors start using Xboxes to test, and very much later to develop against). This confusion over parseInt and octal was not new to web page designers it turns out.

So I changed the parseInt function code in the script engine to default to decimal, and now King Kong worked fine. The player was released and shipped along with a copy of King Kong and everyone was happy. Well, for a while. At some point the Test team ran an ECMASCript compliance test on the player, and discovered that my "fix" to parseInt actually caused a test to fail, so the code was revisited and a better, more compliant fix was made, that kept King Kong working and also conformed more exactly to the ECMAscript spec (and hence to the HD DVD "gold standard", the Toshiba A1).

This particular bug was a player bug, as were many. However there were other categories of bugs, some caused by the title authors themselves. Often we would identify them at "check-disc" time (ie a pre-release copy of the disc some of the studios would send us) and we could tell them what to fix in their code before the disc was mastered. However sometimes we would be too late, or it would be from a studio that didn�t send us check-discs, so we would have to add specific modifications to the player that only kicked in when a particular title was played, and then push a player update out over Xbox Live.

Over time our methods for debugging title problems got more sophisticated, and much of what we learnt ended up in the HD DVD Emulator that I created. That way title authors could themselves debug issues with their code and content without having to burn and rush us a check-disc. Of course if there was a suspicion of player bug then we�d have to get involved in the investigation.

I am so glad we didn�t do a Blu-ray player. The poor folks who have to work out why BD-J titles don�t work correctly don�t have the luxury of seeing the original author�s source code, with comments and debug info. All they have is compiled Java bytecode: ug.

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Using a Zune 80GB as a Car Video Player

Following on the theme of trying to make it easier for my kids to watch movies in the car but without the hassle of the pesky shiny discs, I decided to try using a Zune 80GB as a car video player. This is clearly outside its design parameters, because the Zune Car Kit has no provision for video output as one example. Despite this "outside the box" usage, I persevered anyway, and here is my story.

Our family vehicle is a 2006 Toyota Highlander Hybrid, with the touch-screen nav system and in-car DVD system. While it works, the DVD system was designed by a team that did not have any young children between them, and as a result has severe usability issues with that specific scenario. I'll spare you the details, but if you have young kids you can imagine how much fun it is to have them yelling at you because they can't see the screen (as the remote to turn it on�doesn't work from the front seats) or because the screen is obscured by a huge dialog box with an OK button (which inexplicably appears every time you start the system). The only good news about the Toyota system is that it has an external AV jack at the rear of the center console. Even if the DVD UI had been not been designed one night down the pub, there is still the hassle storing and tracking the physical discs, keeping the kids away from them, and the impossibility of changing them when on the move (unless an adult is in the rear seats). A friend recently had his kids manage to stuff�four DVDs into the single DVD slot in his Honda: there's an expensive repair in his future.

The First Zune Trip (30GB version)

I started by borrowing a friend's Zune 30GB which handily came preloaded with a bunch of kid-suitable content as he'd already ripped a bunch of stuff for his young daughter. I bought a program to convert my DVDs at his recommendation, though I'm not going to name it here becauses it's not exactly legal or reliable. I used said software to add a few more movies to his Zune for our forthcoming July 4th trip. I used the Zune Cable Pack to connect the AV output to the car, and the usb cable to our 12V "cigar lighter" socket via an adapter we already had for our cellphones, and embarked on a 7 hour roadtrip. In retrospect I should have tested this on a short journey, or at least got it going before we left. I did neither, which is how we came to pull off the highway to deal with unhappy kids.

The first issue is simple movie selection: an adult in the front negotiates the movie choice with the kids in the back, then selects it on the Zune, hits Play, then immediately has to go to the Settings menu to turn on the TV output. At this point the LCD goes dark, and while the kids can see the Zune UI on their screen in the back, the adult in the front is left literally blind. If your kids can read this is probably workable, but mine are 2 and 5 so this is not an option. The trick at this point is to just hit Play on the device. Fortunately this much had been figured out before we left.

The second problem, which caused us to exit the freeway to fix, was that there was no sound. I hadn't bothered to read any documentation for the Zune, so it took me a little experimentation before I discovered how to change the volume on it. This feat acheived, we resumed the movie (with sound) and hence our roadtrip.

During playback the kids were very happy: picture quality is of no concern to them, so the 320x200 default Zune resolution is just fine on their 7" LCD in the car. At some point I hope that the children of an HD DVD veteran will truly understand what picture quality is all about, but at 5yrs old its not the time.

We were on our second Zune movie when the next problem occurred: the Zune battery died. Despite using the USB sync cable with our 12V adaptor, the Zune had not been charging at all. It looks like the Zune requires a high-power USB port, and our car adapter fakes up a low-power USB port. Oops.

We reverted to our well worn and well watched DVD collection for the remainder of our trip.

Switching to Zune 80GB

The Zune 80GB that we had ordered (a bargain at $234 via this offer) showed up the day we returned from our trip, so I proceeded to copy the converted movies to it. However, instead of just copying them (which takes almost no time), the Zune software insisted on transcoding the videos. This takes about 1x time (ie a 2 hour movie takes 2 hours to transcode�on my PC). What was weird is that the exact same videos copied without transcoding to his 30GB Zune. I'll spare you the details of how I figured this out, but the Zune 80GB only accepts WMV video in WMV9 format: formats such as WMV7 and WMV8 (which the converter software creates by default as its a lot quicker to convert) have to be transcoded. The Zune 30GB accepts these formats directly. The Zune documentation�lacks pretty much any technical information, and video is no exception, the best I could find was this KB article which you'll note doesn't actually tell you about which formats will copy directly and which require transcoding. The WMV9 format at 320x200 seems to take around 300MB per hour, which is reasonable.

General Zune Observations

I love the device itself, but I am not a fan of its PC software (a very dumbed down Windows Media Player-like clone) or its lacking documentation (see this page for an example of telling you less than the actual UI does).

When categorizing video files you can set certain metadata (Type, parental rating etc) for the files (though I took some time figuring out exactly how), but the edits you make don't get written in the WMV files themselves, they are stored in the Zune database somewhere. WMV metadata is read by the software if you have managed to set it, but never AFAIK writes it back to the file. This means that if you copy the files somewhere else, those metadata edits won't be copied.

The Zune software only offers primitive filtering on the metadata anyway: its support for TV series is good (you can give it the Series and Episode numbers and navigation on the device consumes this), but although it will display the parental rating�it won't let you set it, nor can you filter by it. In order to separate the few non-kids movies from the kids ones I left ours categorized as "Others" (the default) and marked the kids either as TV Series or Movies/Family. In general Microsoft's support for editing WMV metadata is very poor, Vista's Explorer Properties tab is about as good as it gets (and that isn't very).

Zune only supports playlists for audio files, not video files. This is a weird restriction, as Microsoft have at least two formats for playlists (ASX and ZPL files) either of which would suffice for video. This would allow the easy creation of "edited" movies by skipping the scary bits, for example, without having to resort to actually editing (and then re-encoding) the video.

I got a different 12V-to-usb adapter which was claimed to be Zune 80GB compatible but in fact was not. The Zune appears to have very special requirements for its usb charging, and I'm still looking for a solution that doesn't require $$$.

Requests for the Zune Team

If in-car video becomes a supported scenario for the Zune team, here's what it needs to be successful IMHO, and it isn't much really:

Let the LCD stay on when TV Out is selected, at least until you Play a movieHave a car dock kit that supports 12V charging with AV output

An actual Zune car dock that fits the latter specification is shown here but its an annoying Flash site ie looks great but is content-free. Its also not for sale yet, but it looks promising and the price is good (considering the Zune Car Pack costs an amazing $80).

Conclusion

If your kids are old enough to operate the Zune�themselves then its a good choice for in-car video. If your kids are too young for that, then the Zune is not a perfect choice for in-car video, but its usable. You need a bit of patience to set it up and have to cobble together sufficient hardware to connect it. It is better in every respect than an in-car�DVD player, as there are no discs to carry around or trash, plus its portable and can be used out of the car too of course.

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