xBox 360 Transfer

I picked up a used 120GB HD for my xBox 360 and suddenly realized how much a pain-in-the-ass xBox 360 data transfer is (unless I buy a new 120GB with the HD transfer kit); I had a 64MB memory cartridge and well over 600MB of data to transfer- so I would need to fill the card 10 times and swap HDs on the system between each transfer…

I ended up buying a 512MB memory cartridge for $30 from GameStop. I then sat down to to copy game/save/themes/etc files from my old HD (one-at-a-time) to the memory card, shut down the system, replace the HD, and copy the files back to the larger hard drive (one-at-a-time).

I filled up the 512MB with as many things that I could fit and decided to use a xBox360 transfer cable that I purchased a while back. Using instructions from MaxConsole, I was able to setup divers for the reader to work on Windows 7 for use with Xplorer360 and create a full backup of the memory card contents to my PC (just in case I ever need it).

And a few hours later, I have a larger HD on my 360 (and I actually found a few old game saves I thought I had lost on my 64MB memory card)!

MKV (H.264) Support on Windows 7!

DivX Labs has created a codec for MKV video container support on Windows 7. It is a free ‘preview’ download- after creating an account and joining the Project Rémoulade group…

iMedian HD

In my ongoing quest for the ultimate media player I have tried out many products (XBMC, SageTV, BeyondTV, VLC Media Player, and others I cannot remember at the moment) on many platforms (Linux, XP, XP MCE, Vista Ultimate, xBox); all of them worked but had various issues that made them 'not perfect' (usually not supporting MKV files without some CODEC hacks).

I have been testing and having difficulties (most likely with the ATI 3450HD card) with the latest release of XBMC (release alpha3) on Windows Vista so I formatted and tried Windows XP; the problems persisted.  I was going to attempt an install XBMC on Ubuntu 8.04, but the video does not appear on my TV (and I do not feel like putting a monitor on it)- so I abandoned that idea.

On a whim, I installed iMedian HD that came along with a VFD Display/IR sensor I purchased a few weeks ago (on close-out for $50) and I have been very impressed with the software: nice interface for video, music and picture viewing; multiple CODEC support (including DiVX, MKV and others I have yet to test); and network streaming. 

I will need to test more and give a better review of the software- initially I am very impressed...

Popcorn Hour Updates

Never fails; I places a pre-order for the Popcorn Hour A-100 on Sunday, and they announce pre-orders for the A-110 and B-110 systems on Monday...

   

The primary differences between the A-100 and the A-100 appear to be:

• HDMI 1.3a support: i.e. additional audio codec pass-through support
• SATA HD support: much better than IDE in the A-100
• Optical SPDIF instead of coax SPDIF: not much difference to me- my receiver can assign either.

I contacted sales and they can cancel my A-100 order so I can place an order for one of the other units, but there are no details on shipping at this time- so it could be a week or it could be six months!

Since this model is brand new (read: public beta) I think I will stay with the A-100 until there are a few firmware updates (the A-100 has gone through 7 firmware releases since November of last year).  My only concern with the A-100 is that it will soon be phased out as the A-110 is almost a direct replacement...

HDMI Audio Problems with Vista MCE

I purchased a Shuttle SD30G2B bare-bones system about a week ago as a replacement for my media center PC.  I also purchased an ATI HD3450 video card to provide HDMI video/audio output for the system. 

I setup the system (CPU, memory, HD, etc) and installed Vista Ultimate; the system worked great and no problems- until yesterday.  The system would boot up and video would display but I was not getting any audio.  My receiver indicated a 'HDMI PCM' signal, but no sound.  Windows indicated sound was being output (via the audio indicator bars in the sound properties) but no combination of volume/outputs/tweaks would get it to work!

I finally started looking around the ATI Catalyst menus for audio properties- but found none.  I did notice that my resolution had changed from 720p to 800x600 (not sure how/why that happened).  When I changed my resolution back to 720p the audio started working again!  I will have to assume that the video card will only provide audio out when there is a HD signal being sent out?

Media Players

Yesterday I purchased another Klegg MediaShare from Fry's  in hopes that they had improved codec support (it was also an 'open box buy' for $85) in the several months since I last tried one out- but it looks like they have been pretty stagnant with overall support.  It appears that device has been re-branded under several names (such as the Novatron IAMM NTD36HD and the Zio eUreka LX350HD) with compatible firmwares, but none of these vendors are offering the one codec feature I am looking for: mkv file support. 

I returned the Klegg MediaShare to Fry's earlier today.

While doing research for the Klegg firmware, I ended up at the Wikipedia entry for HD Media Players and at the end of the article they mentioned the Popcorn Hour player (cheesy name, but it sounded promising when they mentioned it in a HT Guys podcast).  I found a good review (and video review) and it looks like almost everything I am looking for (plus some additional features such as YouTube, Flickr, and RSS feeds!). 

I placed a pre-order today and hopefully i will be in the August 11th batch of shipments...

HD A3 Review Addendum

I noticed something about the HD A3 tonight as I put in Batman Begins from Netflix; the fan in the A3 is louder than my entire HTPC system- which utilizes three 120mm fans and a 380w power supply... Definitely not a selling point for a home theater (but at least it is no where near as loud as my xBox 360!)

Toshiba HD A3 Review

Ok, I have had a few days to play with my Toshiba HD A3 and I decided to put up a little review for it...

The Toshiba HD A3 is an entry level priced HD DVD player ($199 - $250) that currently includes two free movies: "The Bourne Identity" and "300".  Both of these movies are pretty good (albeit one is over 5 years old) and do justice to the HD DVD format.

Hookup is very easy if you have an HDMI port on your receiver/TV; simply plug in an HDMI cable and the video and audio is carried across the single cable to the destination- done.  The power cord is a (thankfully) a removable '8' plug (with one side flat) as found on the PS2, ReplayTV and other such electronic devices.  There is an RJ-45 plug for Ethernet connectivity (recommended).  The rear of the unit also has component and composite video along side L/R audio and an optical SPDIF connector. 

The HD A3 will only output 1080i for HD DVD movies (or upsampled DVDs over HDMI) but this works well with my Philips 42" plasma TV as it only supports 720p/1080i.  From what I read in the owners manual 480i/480p is the only signal that will be sent across the component cable from copy-protected media; this means that standard DVDs can do no better than 480p across this path.  I believe that 1080i is still available across component as they have not activated the HDCP copy protection flag for HD DVD movies (why bother, AACS has been cracked each time it is update)- but don't quote me on this as I have not tested this!

Once the system is powered on it takes about a minute to respond to the 'eject disk' button.  Once a disk is inserted it takes another 30 seconds or so to recognize and bring up the menu.  Now here are some basic complaints:

1. The screen indicates nothing until the 'Welcome' message has disappeared form the A3- so I wasn't sure if I had cabled it correctly or not until the 'No Disc' display comes up.  This is a very frugal display compared to most standard DVD players.
2. Network settings are hard-coded to a 192.168.0.x address- this should be DHCP out of the box.
3. Menus can drag a bit- almost like the GPU is choking while trying to render the menus
4. Standby to power on takes another minute or so- and another 30 seconds to recognize the disc...

Once I set the IP address of the unit I had it do a firmware update check- one was available and it started the update; and then rebooted and went through the 'welcome' cycle again.

For the discs there can be a TON of features in the HD DVD menus- Transformers for example has downloads, movie annotations and director commentary overlays- all of which are very interesting for a 2nd movie watch.  There are also lots of behind the scenes thrown in that show how it looked from the actors point-of-view.

The HD DVD picture is much better than standard def TV- but I personally cannot tell the difference between 720p/1080i/480p upsampled to 1080i (even with my glasses on).  I guess I have been spoiled by 720p downloads of most movies that appear almost identical in quality- so I am not overwhelmed by the video.

Overall this is a very good HD DVD player with a decent feature set.  The player will automatically do updates and connectivity has been provided for most standards (no s-video).  The HD DVD standard was finalized before release so this unit should play all features for all past and future HD DVD releases (unlike the BluRay 'standard' as some players will not support the new 1.1 requirement as it specifies persistent storage and a 2nd decoder for PiP rendering- look for these BluRay units on closeout as the new players come out!)

One thing lacking is an RS-232 port for remote control (for automated theater setups) but I understand this is available on their next up player (the HD A30 for $499).  The HD DVD library is not as vast as the DVD library as many titles are still being converted and the format wars have created exclusive titles on both sides (The Matrix, Transformers, Battlestar Galactica on HD DVD- Pirates of the Caribbean, Underworld, and Ratatouie on BluRay).

The A3 is a great introduction to the world of HD for the typical user.  I see HD DVD sales starting to even out with BluRay on Amazon, so I would think that both formats will be around for at least a few years (until the next 2160i format comes along).

Side Note: I do not see the point of making some of the titles HD format; why would anyone want a HD copy of 'Blazing Saddles' or "A Christmas Story"- these were filmed so long ago on such old technology that I doubt I would see any improvement in video quality.  Given the choice of $30 for a HD copy or $5-$10 for a standard DVD copy I cannot see anyone going the former route (unless -like a fool- they like to be parted with their money)

My HD DVD Attach Rate: 6

I do not have a HD DVD player yet (but I am hopeful that Christmas may change that!) but I have been buying HD DVDs in anticipation of getting one.  So far I have:

• The Bourne Ultimatum (BOGO Special from BestBuy)
• Transformers (BOGO Special)
• BladeRunner The Final Cut (I have been waiting for this for years)
• Dune (an xMas present from a co-worker)
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (BOGO Special)
• Oceans 13 (BOGO Special)

The BOGO (Buy One-Get One) was on special at BestBuy December 15th-22nd and I picked up two sets.  Transformers and the Bourne Ultimatum were $30 each, but it averages out to $15 with The  sale.   Harry Potter and Oceans 13 were $34/each, but these are $17 with the sale.  In addition, I can watch Harry Potter, Oceans 13 and The Bourne Ultimatum on my Philips upsampling DVD player as the discs are HD DVD/DVD combo discs...

As one post said: Sony is still trying to push proprietary formats and open formats always win in the end.  I don't think HD DVD is a true 'open format', but it seems to be a lot closer to this than Sony!

'Format War' Siding

BestBuy has a 'buy one get one free' on all HD movies (Blu-Ray and HD DVD) through December 22nd.  While I do not yet have either format player I have decided on HD DVD as I truly dislike Sony (as a corporate entity- but some of their stuff is awesome) and I don't think they will ever succeed with a proprietary format- no mater how many studios or hardware manufacturers are behind them- as they are just too greedy.

I picked up Transformers and the Borne Ultimatum for $30 with the special ($15 each isn't bad even for new releases on standard DVD format).  One additional bonus is the Borne Ultimatum is a combo format disk; one side is HD DVD and the other is standard DVD- so I can watch the standard DVD version until I buy a HD DVD player!  :o)

I did see one disconcerting item at BestBuy; there is a Sony Blu-Ray player for $299- which is the same price point as a comparable 1080p HD DVD player.  I will have to assume that with change in CEOs at Sony they may have realized that price will be the final determining factor in the Format war.   I guess the Toshiba HD A2 sales at $98 made the BDA a little nervous as so far their player sales numbers have been relying on the PS3 numbers... (and judging from the huge stack of unsold units at BestBuy may have again slacked off a bit).

Personally I highly doubt that either format will ever really catch on like VHS or DVD players- there just isn't enough advantage over DVD for people to replace their DVD collection with something that is physically identical in form.  The picture quality is better, but I think I read somewhere that that 90% of people will not be able to tell the difference between true HD discs and standard upsampled DVD.

At least if one (or both) format fails I will still have a pretty good upsampling DVD player .

Apple TV

Another device and I will be an Apple fanboy...

I picked up an Apple TV (the 40GB one) as I had a rewiring session last night (until about 2am).  I have narrowed my audio/video system down to:

1. TV
2. Sony Reciver
3. DVD Player
4. Comcast Cable Box
5. xBox (running XBMC)

All the above work great- save I do not have a way to play my HD content located on my server.  I have been attempting (in vain) to get a working copy of LinuxMCE working- but I have been thwarted at every attempt (HMDI frequency out of range after reboot, ATI video not supported, etc). 

I did a little research on the Apple TV and found that it is pretty hackable (good sites are http://www.awkwardtv.org/ and http://www.appletvhacks.net/) and it supports 720p/1080i via HDMI or component output.  By design it only supports media that can be streamed/synched from a system running iTunes- but underneath it iall s essentially a fairly decent computer with a BSD operating system.

Out of the box, the Apple TV is fucking incredible: I may sound like a simpleton when I rave about the photo screen saver, but once you see dozens of your pictures scrolling by in layers and then doing a 180 degree spin you will see what I mean- Wow... Just, wow...  The interface is clean and very intuitive; and everything works as it should.  While listening to music the album art flips around every 30 seconds or so (to prevent plasma TV burn-in?) before the screen saver takes over.  It plays my video podcasts on my TV- nice!

PatchStick:

The first trick is modifying the Apple TV (without actually opening it up) is finding a product called 'Patchstick' (check a bittorrent search sites).  This is an IMG file that can be copied to a USB drive (512MB or larger) that holds a bootable OS; its sole purpose is to enable SSH on the Apple TV. 

This part was actually a little difficult as I had to learn the 'dd' command:

dd if=patchstick.img of=/dev/sdb1 bs=1m

Now if this was all I had to do then it would be wonderful- but the instructions were written for the OS X environment and changing '1m' to '1M' doesn't seem to work in Ubuntu.  After three failed attempts, I downloaded the windows version of dd and created the patchstick with no further issues.

I inserted the (built in Windows and verified in Ubuntu) USB drive in the Apple TV rebooted it while holding down the 'menu' and '-' keys on the remote -to force the Apple TV to boot from USB (I held it for a full 5 minutes before giving up- and then it started to boot from the USB drive!).  It run, throws a few errors (normal) and I was told to reboot.  This enables SSH (and SCP).

NitoTV:

After SSH was up and running, I connected via Putty and then transferred a program called NitoTV over via WinSCP.  NitoTV is a customized version of MPlayer that integrates into the AppleTV menu (as another menu item called nitoTV).  There is an automated installer, but I couldn't get it to work (probably Execute was off or it needed to run as root), so I did a CAT of the ./installme file and did a manual install:

-bash-2.05b$ pwd
/Users/frontrow/Downloads/nitoTV

-bash-2.05b$ sudo /Users/frontrow/Downloads/nitoTV/installme
sudo: /Users/frontrow/Downloads/nitoTV/installme: command not found

-bash-2.05b$ sudo mount -uw /

-bash-2.05b$ installer -pkg nitoTV.pkg -target /

installer: Package name is nitoTV 0.2.5b8
installer: Installing onto volume mounted at /.
installer: The install was successful.
installer: The install requires restarting now.

-bash-2.05b$ sudo mount -ur /

-bash-2.05b$ sudo reboot

Other:

There is also an application autoloader that simplifies other processes- and I still need to setup SMBFS on the Apple TV to be able to access my SMB shares...