David's Blog

We had a fun event at Best Buy for the launch of TFU. The game didn't go on sale until Tuesday, September 16th. The party started at 8pm on Monday the 15th and went until midnight when the game could be distributed. It really felt like a mini-Star Wars convention with all the costumes.

George was there...which is always fun for any Star Wars geek.

I took a picture with the cutest Hoth soldier I've ever seen...

My favorite part of the launch party were the droids. These guys are part of the Astromech club...and their work will blow you away! They built their own R2-D2's from scratch...and the attention to detail is amazing! I took a bunch of video:

• R2 D2: youtube or original
• R2's Smoke: youtube or original
• R2 360: youtube or original
• R2 inside: youtube or original

Here are a bunch of photos of R2...

They also had a mouse droid running around and I got some video of that.

The mouse droid and its operator

Tie Fighter Pilot and Obi Wan catching up

Playing TFU before it is released

My Mom...Unleashed!

Mom (wearing a very cool and unique Javva the Hutt shirt), Speeder Bike Storm Trooper, Imperial Officer, and my buddy Myra at the entrance to Best Buy.

Mom, Chewbacca (center), and Ben (worked on TFU)

They had a stage setup up in the back of Best Buy with various celebrities talking to the crowd...

• George 1: youtube or original
• George 2: youtube or original
• Hayden...the guy behind TFU: youtube or original
• Sam...the secret apprentice: youtube or original

Crowd favorite Bobba Fett begged me for a photo with him. How can you say no to a bounty hunter...

Autographs! They had the cast and developers on hand for autographs...

Very cute Adrienne Wilkinson as "Maris Brood"

Cully Fredricksen as "Master Kota"

Lead Engineer Cedrick Coullomb (also author of the must-have utility "unlocker")

David Collins (voice of Proxy, Audio Lead) on left and Art Director Matt Omernick on right.

I got got a bunch of autographs from my co-workers. Amy Beth Christenson (Senior Concept Artist...she is simply amazing) asked me for *my* autograph, which was very cool!

Of course they had everything TFU on sale at Best Buy...

The whole point of the party was for people that wanted to get the game as soon as it went on sale at midnight. I got pictures of the front of the line...and almost the last guy (#998). They only gave out 1000 tickets...then there were people waiting after position 1000 hoping to get the game without a ticket. Wow!

Sony provided an 18 wheeler loaded with PS3's for the event...

We had nice press coverage...

The Gas Unleashed...to the right you can almost see the storm trooper blasted off his feet.

Technorati Tags: Star Wars, The Force Unleashed, Best Buy, Launch Party

Posted on September 28, 2008 8:35 PM | Permalink| Comments (0)

A buddy of mine (Chris Franka) asked me how I got the "Rockstar" achievement in GTA4.

I didn't know what he was talking about so I looked it up on the Internets.

Apparently, you get this achievement when you kill a Rockstar developer (creators of GTA4) in a multiplayer game!

It's actually not as impressive as it sounds, since it is a viral achievement. Once you kill a Rockstar developer, you are added to the Rockstar developer list and anybody that kills you also gets the achievement and is added to the list.

It is very likely that I killed someone that killed someone that killed someone that killed someone that killed a Rockstar developer.

I am a self-confessed achievement whore. I *love* getting achievements...this is one of the best/most creative.

Technorati Tags: Xbox 360, Grand Theft Auto IV, Achievement Points, Let Sleeping Rockstars Lie

Posted on July 3, 2008 12:13 AM | Permalink| Comments (3)

I made the plunge yesterday and picked up a PS3 to use as a Blu-ray player. From what I've read, it is the best player out there and it is relatively cheap ($400).

There are some things I really about the PS3 when compared to an Xbox 360:

• Quiet operation! I don't notice the PS3 at all...and that is my #1 issue with the 360.
• Web browser...I can watch glorious 320x240 youtube videos stretched out on my HDTV
• Slot loading drive...no tray
• Solid unit...360 feels cheap in comparison
• No power brick like the 360 has...just a cable to the wall outlet

I picked up the remote for the PS3 and figured I would use it to program my universal remote.

But you can't do that.

The PS3 does not have an IR port...it does its communications via bluetooth!

The cool thing about bluetooth is you don't have to do line-of-sight like you do with IR...which is nice.

The *bad* thing about bluetooth is...no other universal remote can send out those signals! So now I'm stuck with two remotes....grrrrr!

Help is on the way, though. There is a product called IR2BT that will take IR codes from your universal remote and convert them into bluetooth signals that the PS3 can understand! The product is out of stock, but I'm getting one as soon as they are available.

Now that the format war is over, I am switching to Blu-ray as my primary format. I picked up several discs this weekend including:

• Digital Video Essentials
• The Shining
• Terminator 2
• Memento
• Blade Runner
• Reservoir Dogs
• 2001
• Close Encounters
• Full Metal Jacket

I am going to continue to use my 360 for gaming. The PS3 doesn't have anything that I'm really interested in with their current line-up.

In October, Little Big Planet comes out for the PS3 exclusively...and I *will* get that. It looks amazing...

Technorati Tags: Playstation 3, Little Big Planet, Blu-ray

Posted on June 2, 2008 10:44 PM | Permalink| Comments (5)

I picked up Grand Theft Auto IV this week.

This is reported to be the most expensive video game ever made...$100 million...and I'd believe it based on what I've seen. You can tell a lot of work went into this game.

When I started playing, it brought back memories of playing the previous versions...but with much better graphics in HD and more attention to detail.

And that's a good thing...because the previous versions were already well done.

One of the most fun things to do in GTA 4 is just explore and see what you can do and the consequences for your actions.

One new feature I really like...if you are trying to get to a location in town and you steal a luxury car, the car's GPS voice instructions will let you keep your eyes on the road instead of looking at the map.

I'm going to be playing this one for a while.

Technorati Tags: Grand Theft Auto IV, Video Games

Posted on May 4, 2008 12:53 PM | Permalink| Comments (2)

I finished Half Life 2 this weekend.

This game is old by video game standards (it came out in Nov 2004).

It is one of 5 games on "The Orange Box."

The first game I played on "The Orange Box" was "Portal," and I loved it. It is one of the best games I've played in the past 5 years.

HL2 is huge. I spent much of my time in awe over the expansive environments and the effort involved creating props that you sometimes just fly by. The attention to detail is amazing.

I certainly enjoyed it...but it may have been too easy. I never felt like any part was really challenging using the default settings. In some ways that is good...because I never got too frustrated...but when I finished the game, I didn't feel any sense of accomplishment that I normally feel when I beat a difficult game.

I'm guessing most people have played this already...but if you haven't, it is worth checking out...it holds up well for an "old" game. This game feels like an interactive movie.

Now I'm on to playing HL2 Episode 1.

The Orange Box is a great value and full of great games...definitely a must have (and I still have 3 more games to try).

Technorati Tags: Xbox 360, The Orange Box, Half Life 2

Posted on April 28, 2008 12:36 AM | Permalink| Comments (1)

Here is some new HD footage (run this full screen) of the The Force Unleashed in action.

The whole show is 21 minutes with lots of great video and reveals about the game. There is also talk about the voice of Darth Vader by "Chad Vader", the new TFU toys coming out, and the Wiimote lightsaber addition. Definitely worth watching the whole program.

Technorati Tags: Star Wars, The Force Unleashed

Posted on April 13, 2008 12:23 AM | Permalink| Comments (0)

At Microsoft's lobby bar today, Microsoft showed a "teaser" trailer for the previously unannounced Xbox 720.

There were no specifics, just a lot of canned animations showing off "movie-like special effects," photo-realistic people, and real-time soft body dynamics.

I know it is way early (no release date), but the 720 can't get here fast enough! It's hard not to get excited about the nextgen consoles.

Check out the trailer here.

Technorati Tags: Xbox 720, Video Games

Posted on February 22, 2008 8:56 PM | Permalink| Comments (5)

Gears of War II was announced yesterday at GDC. It will be coming out in November of this year. Here is the trailer...

And here is a demo of what the new game engine for GOW2 will be capable of...meat cubes!

Technorati Tags: Gears of War

Posted on February 21, 2008 8:18 PM | Permalink| Comments (2)

I bought the Orange Box recently for the Xbox 360. The Orange Box consists of 5 games. The first game I tried is called "Portal." The video above gives you an idea of the concept behind Portal and what game-play looks like. This video was also shown at the SIGGRAPH Electronic Theater in 2007.

It took me about two sittings to finish Portal. Some people will be annoyed with how short it is. I love that it didn't take forever since I don't spend a lot of time playing video games.

Portal is an amazing game and unlike anything you have played. It seems like a first person shooter...but you don't have a gun and nobody is trying to kill you. It is actually a mind-bending puzzle game.

The game's sense of humor is part of the charm. It is so well done.

I can't stress this enough...you *must* try this game! It may be my favorite game since I first tried "The Sims." This is a fun and very satisfying game!

Portal (part of "The Orange Box") is available now on the Xbox 360 and PC and coming soon to the PS3.

Technorati Tags: The Orange Box, Xbox 360, Portal

Posted on November 30, 2007 1:59 AM | Permalink| Comments (2)

I started my next Xbox 360 adventure this week: Halo 3.

This is a *big* game for the 360...it made $170 million on opening day in the US. That makes Halo 3 the highest grossing entertainment product in history...and that includes movies! Amazing.

I've never played any of the previous Halo games, so I'm curious to see what all the hype is about.

I understand that multi-player is a big part of Halo's draw...so if you have an account on the 360, add me as a friend (and send my your real name so I know who I'm dealing with). My Xbox gamertag is "rgba."

Technorati Tags: Halo 3, Xbox 360, Video Games

Posted on October 9, 2007 9:41 PM | Permalink| Comments (0)

I'm a big fan of the DVD board game Scene It?. I found out that Scene It? is coming to Xbox 360.

But what is more interesting are the 4 wireless controllers that come with it...The Big Button Pads.

The 4 colors make it obvious which player you are. The big button makes buzzing in simple.

A controller with a big button doesn't seem very useful beyond trivia games...but there's more going on here.

The big button is actually a 4 way direction pad. Since this controller is wireless, you can rotate it so that you have the A, B, X, Y buttons on your left or right...an ambidextrous game pad.

I bet this controller will be used for the simpler games available on Xbox Live Arcade that don't use the shoulder buttons, triggers, or 2 joysticks. It should make the 360 more approachable for the less hardcore gaming crowd.

Technorati Tags: Xbox 360, Scene It?, Big Button Pad

Posted on September 24, 2007 11:12 PM | Permalink| Comments (0)

I finished BioShock yesterday. I don't want to give anything away in case you might play this game...there are a lot of fun surprises.

In short...I loved it.

The story line was incredibly deep. Probably the thing that sets this game apart the most is the art direction and the architecture...it is beautiful to just look around the very detailed buildings of this underwater city from the 1940's.

The game is very dark in its mood and disturbing in its images and sounds. It's very creepy. It's rated "M"...so don't play this game around kids...you might scar them for life! There are scenes that remind me of some of the more gruesome parts of the movie "Seven."

This game reminded me of several movies I've seen. I already mentioned "Seven." Others include...

• Blade Runner
• Dark City
• X-Men
• Of Mice and Men
• Aliens
• Lost (I know, it's not a movie)
• Gattaca

This is the first game I've played where you are judged by your actions. You can be a good guy or a bad guy...and each choice will give you a different experience.

I chose to be bad my first time through. I'm going to play the game again, but this time I'm going to be good.

I played on the easy level first...and it was virtually impossible to die. I was more interested in the story, so I'm not disappointed with the lack of a challenge. Now I'm going to replay on the hardest level (which gives you 40 achievement points if you can do it).

This game is certainly discussion worthy. Several of my friends and co-workers are playing it and I hear conversations daily about the game.

I'd put this game up with Gears of War as a must own 360 game (also available on the PC). Go get it!

Technorati Tags: Bioshock, Review, Xbox 360

Posted on September 5, 2007 11:11 PM | Permalink| Comments (1)

Bioshock came out yesterday for the Xbox 360. I played the demo and it looks/sounds amazing. There is quite a buzz about this game. I ordered it online and should have it by Friday.

Technorati Tags: Bioshock, Xbox 360

Posted on August 22, 2007 9:20 AM | Permalink| Comments (0)

I heard about this today...Madden NFL 08 (which was released today) runs at 60 fps on the Xbox 360 and 30 fps on the PS3.

You can really see the difference in the HD video (WMV or Quicktime) when it shows them running side-by-side at 25% speed.

This is *HUGE* because the PS3 was supposed to be superior to the 360, and thus was worth the high cost.

I've read that EA's NCAA Football 08 as well as 2K Sports' All-Pro Football 2K8 both run at 60 fps on the 360 verses 30 fps on the PS3.

It will be interesting to see if this trend holds up with games by other developers coming to both platforms at the same time:

• Blazing Angels 2: Secret Missions of WWII; Ubisoft Romania; Sep 18, 2007
• Sega Rally Revo; Sega; Oct 9, 2007
• Conan; Nihilistic; Oct 2007
• Tony Hawk's Proving Ground; Neversoft; Q4 2007
• Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare; Infinity Ward; Q4 2007
• Grand Theft Auto 4; Rockstar North; Q1 2008

Technorati Tags: PS3, Playstation3, Xbox 360, 360, Frame Rate, Madden NFL 08

Posted on August 15, 2007 12:11 AM | Permalink| Comments (5)

Big ups to E-dog for sending this in. It has some cuss words in the captions, so it may not be work appropriate.

Posted on June 15, 2007 1:14 AM | Permalink| Comments (0)

My Xbox 360 has started writing its own blog. It only has one post as of this writing, but more will follow. My 360 refers to me by my Xbox Live gamertag, "RGBA."

Read my Xbox 360's blog here.

The 360 keeps track of a lot of information. As long as you don't keep it private, this data is used to generate all sorts of crazy things...my gamercard on the top right of this page, gaming statistics, rankings, and, apparently, a blog! This blog is computer-generated using actual information about how I've used my Xbox 360.

To have your Xbox 360 start its own blog, register here. It takes about two days for the first post to show up.

Posted on January 4, 2007 11:44 PM | Permalink| Comments (2)

I owned a PS1 and I still have a PS2. I decided to switch camps for this generation of consoles and move to the Xbox 360.

I have no doubt that I made the right decision.

I tried out a PS3 demo unit at a GameStop. The controller is almost exactly like the PS2 version, which is not a bad thing. I like that the controller is now wireless and the shoulder buttons are analog triggers (like the 360's). I couldn't try out the tilt feature because the games I played did not support it. The PS3 no longer has support for "rumble", which is disappointing.

The games looked like Xbox 360 games, which is underwhelming considering the price difference, extra year of development time, and bold claims by Sony. Here's a website that compared games that are released on both the 360 and PS3...they look almost identical!

One of the selling points for the PS3 is its new Cell microprocessor. It has been called a "supercomputer on a chip."

Both the PS3 and the 360 get much of their processing power from multiple chips processing in parallel. The PS3 can process 8 threads at a time compared to the Xbox 360's 6. A *big* difference is the PS3 is asymmetric, which means the processors have different abilities and the software developer must take care in deciding which processors runs which thread. This is not an issue for the 360, because each processor has identical properties. Writing multi-threaded software is *really* hard. With the PS3, you also have to manage which processor is doing what and try to make sure the best processor for the job is always finished doing its previous work to avoid bottlenecks. The home user will not notice this issue, but software developers will.

I've also read that the PS3's Cell processor is crippled because of a design defect. If true, it could be another headache for software developers.

But forget the processors...they are not as important as the media would have you believe. For 3D video games, the biggest bottleneck is the graphics card. A game can only run as fast as its slowest component, and that will usually be the graphics card. PS3 has a custom Nvidia card and the 360 has a custom ATI card. These cards are very close in terms of specs and performance. I believe this is the most important reason why you will not see much difference between what a PS3 can do and what a 360 can do.

I see the hardware as essentially equal between the PS3 and the 360...which is bad news for Sony. Sony is a hardware company, Microsoft is a software company. If the hardware is equal, then this battle is going to play to Microsoft's favor. Examples of 360 software that make the platform shine are achievements (like the coins you collect in Mario, but available across all games), Xbox Live (networked gaming; game, video, music downloads), Xbox Live Arcade (retro/casual games), plus tools and libraries to make software developers happy.

I've heard the magic number is 10 million: first console to reach 10 million sales becomes the dominate platform for that generation. The 360 is expected to reach 10 million before the end of the year.

Posted on December 22, 2006 10:57 AM | Permalink| Comments (3)

There was a lot of buzz surrounding the launch of Gears of War, so I picked it up when it came out to see if it lived up to the hype. Without question this is the game to have if you want to show off what next-generation games look like.

I played the single player game off and on when I had time and was progressing very slowly. Then I visited my buddy Chris Franka in San Antonio this past weekend. Chris also has an Xbox 360 and Gear of War. We ended up playing in cooperative mode on his 60 inch screen...my view was the bottom half of the screen and his was the top half. Playing single player is a lot of fun, but cooperative is even better! We played for four hours, took a break to watch the Cowboy game and watch Borat, then continued playing until we finished the game. In all, it took us about 8 hours on the easy level.

I was able to transfer my "gamertag" from my home Xbox 360 to Chris' over Xbox Live using the "Recover Gamertag" option. I had to type in my Xbox Live email address and password to complete the transfer. The main reason I did this is so that any achievements or progress I unlocked in the game would be stored in my account, so I could take it home with me. FYI: Typing email/passwords via the Xbox controller is painful...just plug in a USB keyboard instead.

The game has several familiar elements from Sci-Fi/Adventure films: Aliens (troop transport), Starship Troopers (the Locusts), The Matrix (The Reavers), Star Wars (Jack the robot, some of the theme music), Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (mine cars), Escape From New York (traveling deserted city at night), and more.

Probably the most amazing aspect of this game for me is the attention to detail. You can literally spend hours just looking around at all the background/unimportant architecture. I am replaying the game on medium difficulty and it doesn't get old because there is so much to look at.

The game play has some unique features that make this game shine. There is no jumping up and down to avoid getting shot like in most shooters. You can't "orbit" an enemy. Instead you spend much of your time hiding behind cover trying to get headshots to kill your enemies. It feels more realistic than other shooters I've played.

The sound effects and music are great and really help set the mood.

This is definitely my favorite Xbox 360 game. There is a lot of hype behind this game, but I think it is well deserving. Highly recommended.

Here is the ad for the game...

Posted on December 18, 2006 10:45 PM | Permalink| Comments (0)

I received "Superman Returns" from Netflix yesterday. This disc is a HD DVD/DVD combo...HD DVD on one side and a regular DVD on the other. I figured this would be a good disc to test the difference between HD DVD and DVD.

I used my 5 MP Sony CyperShot to capture the images. I captured two scenes from 8 feet away (my normal viewing distance) and the same two scenes from 1 foot away (to better show the detail from HD). My TV set is 46". I did not use zoom for any of the shots. The images were captured in jpeg, so there may be some compression artifacts from my camera that are not in the source material.

The first shot I captured is of a newspaper clipping. I captured this one because of all the small text. Click on these images to see the full resolution...make sure you aren't zoomed out (i.e. should be viewed at 100%) or you won't get the full effect.

This image is from the Superman Returns HD DVD (1080p) on a 46" TV from 8 feet away.

This image is from the Superman Returns DVD (480p) on a 46" TV from 8 feet away.

I am a bit surprised by the results...the images are not that different! HD DVD is a bit sharper, but not significantly.

The next shot is of Lex Luthor in front of a elaborate model train setup. I chose this shot because it has a lot of detail.

This image is from the Superman Returns HD DVD (1080p) on a 46" TV from 8 feet away.

This image is from the Superman Returns DVD (480p) on a 46" TV from 8 feet away.

Same results...the HD DVD is sharper...but not dramatically.

These results are specific to my situation...a 46" TV from 8 feet away. The further you sit or the smaller your set, the less advantage HD DVD has over DVD. The converse is also true...a bigger set or sitting closer will accentuate HD DVD's better image quality. I can't get a bigger TV for quite some time, but I can sit closer. So these next shots are from the same scenes as before, but are from one foot away. At one foot, my camera could only frame a portion of the TV screen. Using the chart at the end of this post, I estimate I would need an 85" TV at my current viewing distance to get the same results as the 1 foot viewing distance with a 46" TV.

These results are from a camera, which does not have the same ability to capture images as the human eye. I can see more of a distinction between HD and SD with my eye than I can with the camera, but these results are at least in the ballpark.

This image is from the Superman Returns HD DVD (1080p) on a 46" TV from 1 foot away.

This image is from the Superman Returns DVD (480p) on a 46" TV from 1 foot away.

At one foot, you can actually see the individual pixels on the LCD display and the black around them (a.k.a. the screen door effect). I can make out some of the article text in the HD DVD, but you can't even read the date/web address in the upper right on the DVD ("Tuesday, February 13th, 2005 www.dailyplanet.com"). Also note the color of the newspaper is more yellow in the DVD and more natural in the HD DVD. Resolution is certainly an important aspect of HD, but the better color reproduction is impressive as well.

This image is from the Superman Returns HD DVD (1080p) on a 46" TV from 1 foot away.

This image is from the Superman Returns DVD (480p) on a 46" TV from 1 foot away.

Look at the lit up windows in the background. There is a clear on/off pattern on the HD DVD, but the windows are just a blur on the DVD.

These photos show how important screen size *AND* viewing distance are for HD content. Here is a good article about this issue. The best part of the article is a viewing distance/TV size/resolution graph, reproduced here because I know I will refer to this quite a bit...

Posted on December 8, 2006 12:24 AM | Permalink| Comments (12)

I've owned a PlayStation, PS2 and a Super Nintendo. I did *not* own an Xbox. I *do* own a Xbox 360. I am not partial to any one platform...I just want to have the best gaming platform.

I've played all three "next gen" consoles: Microsoft's Xbox 360, Sony's PlayStation 3, and Nintendo's Wii. I have already written plenty about the 360 (I think it is awesome), so I wanted to post my thoughts on PS3 and Wii.

First up, the Nintendo Wii...

I can't believe the marketing Nintendo has done with the Wii. I have read several times, and had several people regurgitate that the Wii is going to attract a new group to video games: the non-gamer. I've heard people say that older people will gravitate to the Wii because it is not intimidating and it is designed for people that are new to gaming.

Older people are not going to become a large market for the Wii. One of the first things some (all?) Wii games require you to do is to move a pointer to the center of the screen and click a button to calibrate the Wiimote. This requires a bit of hand eye/coordination...something older people will be frustrated with very quickly. I've taught older people to use a mouse, and for someone like that...clicking and pointing at the same time is a game itself...the Wiimote is the enemy for these people.

Then there are kids and a Wii...I wonder how many TV's are going to be damaged by Wiimotes launched by Jr. during boxing. I played with 4 adults and we moved furniture out of the way, and one guy (a Wii owner) still hit the coffee table pretty hard with the Wiimote while doing a golf swing. I can only imagine that the younger the kids, the more collateral damage you should expect from a Wii.

Cost...it seems like everybody thinks the Wii is super-cheap and the Xbox 360 is expensive. But the 360 is only $299 verses $249 for a Wii...a $50 difference.

The commercials make it look like you just grab the Wiimote and you know what to do...swing at golf balls, or punch at a boxer. But knowing exactly what motion the Wii cares about is not obvious and not intuitive. You can (and will) spend a lot of time moving the Wiimote in a special way only to find out the Wii only cares when you start your motion and when you finish, for example.

I said this in a previous comment...the Wiimote reminds me of a slot machine. The first time you use it, you want to pull the lever. But eventually, everybody gets sick of the lever and just presses the "spin" button. I predict the Wiimote will be a fad...I don't expect it to become a new gaming paradigm.

The Wii looks like it has GameCube graphics to me...nothing special. The 360's Kameo looks much better in standard definition than Zelda does.

Next up...I bash the PS3!

Posted on December 5, 2006 8:07 PM | Permalink| Comments (11)

I got an Xbox 360 HD DVD Player this weekend.

The external drive plugs into a USB port. Initially, I was not excited about a console with two drives. However, now I like the idea.

One of my main gripes about the 360 is how loud the DVD drive is. You better crank up the volume if you don't want to be distracted by the DVD drive. The HD DVD is quiet. I never noticed it, even during low volume scenes.

Another nice benefit of two drives: I can leave my games in the 360 while changing out movies in the HD DVD tray and vice versa. It means less trips to the console if you want to play some "Gears of War" in between episodes of "24", like I'm doing now.

The HD DVD disk themselves feel much more sturdy than a standard DVD. I read a while back that HD DVD would have a special "scratch-proof" coating. It is really hard to gauge if it is working at this point. But if it does, it certainly will make renting HD DVD a more pleasant experience than renting DVD's.

Speaking of renting, Netflix has both a HD DVD & Blu-ray "genre." You can setup Netflix to send you HD DVD or Blu-ray if they are available. I loaded up my rental queue with 50 HD DVD's. There is no extra cost to rent HD DVD or Blu-ray.

The video quality is excellent. I didn't see any video issues whatsoever. In fact, I could watch the movie from just 1 foot away on my 46" TV and *NOT* see any compression artifacts! Even the best OTA HD broadcast has compression artifacts that are easy to see from that distance. I could see the film grain ("Happy Gilmore"), but that is an issue with the source material, and not the HD DVD drive. From 9 feet away, the film grain was not noticeable. I didn't see any film grain issues with "King Kong."

Sound was the same as a standard DVD as far as I could tell...which is really good.

DVD's still look good on my set, but HD DVD looks even better...mainly sharper and better color output.

HD DVD has the ability to keep running the movie while interactive menus play on top of the film. It is useful for changing the audio track or jumping to a particular scene. Certainly not ground breaking, but DVD's can't do this. On a DVD, every time you select a different menu, the audio/video for the current menu abruptly stop and start on the new menu. With HD DVD, the transitions are flawless...it just makes the disk feel more polished.

HD DVD does not pause midway through a movie like a DVD does when going to the second layer of a dual layer disk. That pause was more annoying than anything, but I'm glad it's gone.

If you have a 360 and an HDTV, this is a no brainer...get this drive!

Posted on December 5, 2006 8:56 AM | Permalink| Comments (6)

Yesterday, Microsoft's Major Nelson announced a new update for the 360 fixes issues with 1080p over VGA. If you want 1080p, then you have two choices currently: component or VGA. My TV (a 46" Sony XBR3 LCD) will only accept 1080p over VGA or HDMI.

Well the fix is here, so I ran to Best Buy today to get a VGA cable (I was using component).

And guess what? It works! I have full 1080p now!

To tell the difference between 1080i and 1080p, you need content that is running at 60 frames-per-second. I don't currently have any, so my visual quality hasn't improved...yet.

I recently found out that I could generate my own HD content on a PC and burn it to a DVD and the 360 will play it back. When I get some good test videos, I'll post my results. 

Posted on December 1, 2006 5:16 PM | Permalink| Comments (0)

The Xbox Live Video Marketplace went live on November 22, 2006...one year after the Xbox 360 launched. Here's another review with some nice pics.

The video marketplace lets you rent/buy movies and TV shows. The biggest news is that some of the content is offered in HD...and I'm all about HD now. For more details on the video marketplace see the FAQ (part 1 and part 2).

So on the 22nd, I found an HD movie to test out, "V for Vendetta".  I rented it for 480 Microsoft Points or $6 (80 MP = $1). I started the download before I went to work. The movie was a 6 GB download. In 30 minutes I had about 7% downloaded. I went to work and figured the whole movie would be finished by the time I got home.

Wrong! When I got home, the download was at 36% complete. I let it run for the rest of the night and I only got to 40% before the download ended in an error message. I was charged for the movie even though I never finished downloading it. 

I tried to download the movie again before I left for Thanksgiving. I was charged a second time for the download. When I came back, the movie was downloaded. Since I was gone for a few days, I have no idea how long it took to download.

Apparently Microsoft was having some growing pains with the video marketplace. Many people were reporting slow and failed downloads. Microsoft's Major Nelson acknowledged the problem and gave a number to call (800-4MYXBOX) to get credit for failed downloads.

I finished watching the movie this morning. The video quality was beautiful. However, I did notice a jerkiness during scenes with motion, like when the credits moved up the screen. I saw a similar issue when I first watched a DVD on my 360, but it was cleared up with a patch...hopefully this issue will be fixed as well.

The controls are fairly limited. The remote control works much better than using the 360 controller since you can access functions directly without having to go to an on screen menu. There are not a lot of control options:

• Play/pause
• Fast forward/Rewind (2x, 4x, 8x). At the fastest speed, it takes ~7 seconds to skip a minute. This makes skipping to a particular part of a movie *very* frustrating.
• Chapter Skip. Normally a chapter skip moves to the beginning of scenes in a movie. This *could* work that way, but in this movie it did not. The movie was divided into "chapters" by creating a chapter every 8 seconds. The chapter skip will move you to the next or previous chapter. This is pretty useless without some logic behind the chapter locations.
• Info. This shows the time elapsed and a countdown to the end of the movie.
• Format. You can switch from the default view (which looks good) to a "letterbox" view which adds black bars to the left and right as well as top and bottom...effectively turning your HDTV into a SD TV. I guess you might use this feature if you are watching HD content on a SD TV.

The video is 720p, which looks great. The sound is in Dolby Digital 5.1.

What is missing? You don't get the chapter search that you get with a DVD. Also, there is no visual scene selection like most DVD's have. There is no way to do slow motion. There are no DVD extras, like director's commentaries or behind the scenes features. There is no support for subtitles, which I use a lot when I have trouble understanding what an actor says.

I called 800-4MYXBOX to fix the issue with the double charge on the one movie I downloaded. I spent at least 10 minutes on hold until I got to talk to somebody. The person I talked to would ask me a question and then would interrupt me every time I tried to answer her which meant she would have to ask me for the information again...it almost made me wish Microsoft would outsource their call center. After 30+ minutes on the phone, I finally got my credit...but I don't think I should have ever had to call. Microsoft knew there was a problem. They know what I've downloaded and when I've watched it. I would have expected them to correct the issue without any need for me to call in. Oh well.

You have 24 hours to finish watching a rental from when you start watching. When you look at the movie in your downloaded movie area, it indicates how much time is left in the 24 hour window. After my 24 hour window expired, I wondered what would happen if I tried to play the movie again. I just tried it and the movie started playing...no "Do you want to rent this movie again?" dialog. It doesn't look like I was charged for it, but after all the troubles they are having and since they have given me a credit for multiple charges on "V for Vendetta", who knows if this is the normal behavior.

I'm excited about the future of Xbox Live Video Marketplace. If I have the choice between watching an HD-DVD (my player is shipping this week!) or an HD video from the marketplace, I'd choose the HD-DVD every time. But, I do see utility in the Video Marketplace. Video Marketplace will eventually allow me to watch TV shows that I may have missed that are not yet available on DVD or HD movies that are not yet available on HD-DVD (or are instead on Blu-ray). I hope more and more content providers jump on the Video Marketplace.

Posted on November 26, 2006 10:25 PM | Permalink| Comments (1)

For movie and TV content, there is no difference between 1080p or 1080i for a progressive TV (LCD, plasma, DLP, LCoS, but not typically a CRT).

Just six months ago I would have argued with this statement. 1080i has half the lines of resolution as 1080p, right?

Wrong! This article does a nice job of explaining how 1080i content can be converted to 1080p perfectly.

Even though film/TV content received at 1080i can be converted back to the original 1080p content, it is contingent on your TV doing reverse 3:2 pulldown correctly. If you drop 1080i and use 1080p throughout the journey from source material to your TV set, then you don't have to worry if your TV is converting 1080i correctly. 1080p removes one level of complexity from an already convoluted process.

According to a recent test of sixty-one 2006 model year sets, more than half did *not* recover 1080p from 1080i correctly. My TV (Sony 46" XBR3) was one of the sets that failed. However, changing Sony's terrible default settings (why would they do that?) fixes the problem.

Another reason you want 1080p...when we start receiving 1080 content at frame rates higher than 30fps. Both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 are capable of 1080p content at higher frame rates than film or TV use. For these HD sources running games at 1080p 60fps, converting 1080i to 1080p will result in loss of image data. Most 360 games are designed for 720p because of the performance hit of moving to 1080p. I suspect the same will be true for the PS3. I have no doubt games will move to 1080p eventually, but currently we are not there.

I have my Xbox 360 hooked up as 1080i. Microsoft added a patch recently that gives the Xbox 360 1080p support. Unfortunately,