A Modding Home Companion

Game Room Update

2012-01-11T19:12:00.002-05:00

In November, I bought a Neo Geo MVS cabinet from someone off of Craigslist. It was in very good condition, fully functional, except for a half dead power supply. I replaced the PSU and several other cosmetic components. It fit into my apartment with no problem. Here's some before and after pics:

Here's the full list of what I replaced:

Marquee Artwork
Monitor Bezel
Power Supply
Coin door bulb
Sticks + Buttons
Foot
Door locks
Coin reject button

I love this thing. I have 5 games for it now (Metal Slug 1,2,X, Puzzle Bobble, Baseball Stars 2), with 5 more coming (Last Blade 2, Samurai Showdown 2, Blue's Journey, Blazing Star, Neo Turf Masters). I'm beyond happy.

I also added some Ikea shelving to hold all of my controllers. Very nice. Here's a pic of the room as it looks now:

One of my Xmas gifts was the official Dreamcast Arcade Stick, which can be seen on the shelf. It makes playing Dreamcast fighters much more enjoyable than using the stock controller, which I'm not a fan of. I need to get another stick for 2-player fight sessions. Highly recommended. I may swap out its stick and buttons for Sanwa ones, but that's another project.

Sony PVM + NES + Comb Filter = Awesome

2012-01-03T19:42:00.001-05:00

I recently gave away a Sony 32" TV and swapped in a Sony PVM pro monitor for use with the retro consoles in my game room. This was a good decision. The PVM is an RGB monitor. All my consoles, like my Genesis, PS2, Dreamcast, and Xbox look their best in RGB, and almost every system supports it. Except the NES. The NES only supports composite out (unless you wanna hack the hell out of it for RGB, which I'm not a fan of). The extremely unforgiving composite input on the PVM made my NES games look like ass. I found out that what I needed was a comb filter, something the TV I gave away had, and something my PVM lacks. I found a Kramer FC-10D comb filter on eBay for $14 shipped. This little box has composite in/s-video out and s-video in/composite out. I'm using the former. Man, what a difference in picture quality! The images below tell the story. Super C and Mega Man 2, respectively. Without the Kramer, and with, respectively. If you're using a monitor without a comb filter with your NES, I highly suggest getting one. The Kramer FC-10D is cheap and works great.

Retrobrighting a Dreamcast

2011-11-21T22:31:00.000-05:00

ABS plastic was commonly used in the 90's as a cost-effective way to house electronics, like computers and video game consoles. It had one major drawback that was not immediately apparent: it yellowed badly over time and more so in direct sunlight. My Sega Dreamcast that I bought second hand suffered this very affliction. I thought I was just going to have to deal with it until I found out about Retrobright. This a paste that you can make at home out of semi-common products that is supposed to remove the yellow from ABS. I thought it's worth a try, since I'm planning on playing my DC more in the near future. You basically take the highest concentration Peroxide you can find (in my case 12% from Sally Beauty Supply), mix it in a blender with Glycerin gel and Xantham Gum to form a paste. The last setup before application is to mix in a small amount of Oxy laundry powder. Blend it up and put on some rubber gloves to spread it on the plastic in question. Wrap each piece in plastic wrap and put it under a UV lamp (blacklight) for 24 hours, and you'll be amazed at the results. Granted, I did not get perfect results. My DC still had small amounts of faded yellow hues here and there. Overall, however, it looks way better than it did before. Some parts look perfect. The proof is in the pictures (see above). If I had used a higher concentration Peroxide, like 15%, or if I had spread the paste a little thicker, I think it may have worked better. A word of advice: Unless your Retrobrighting 10 devices, do not make the amount listed on the website. Make 1/6 to 1/8 of the amount for a batch capable of coating one device. I'll conclude by saying that if you have a yellowed SNES or Dreamcast, or an old Apple computer, then Retrobright is your friend. I'm very happy with the results.

Review: HTC Rezound (Verizon)

2011-11-18T15:10:00.003-05:00

I've had a cell phone since 2003, but didn't own a smartphone until this past Monday. Until that point I had owned only 2 phones, both of which were Verizon LG phones that served me very well. My last phone was an enV2 that I had modded so that I could tether it, wired or wireless via bluetooth, to a laptop and use as a modem. The time spent on the blazingly-slow EVDO-based Internet connection merely counted against my voice minutes. Very handy on vacation. I also loved the full QWERTY keyboard for texting. I basically used the phone until it literally fell apart in my hands. Whatever replaces it, I told myself, had better be an upgrade. Well, the HTC Rezound is just such an upgrade.

I first read about the Rezound (then Vigor) over the summer, I believe. I heard about it having a 720p screen and a 1.5Ghz dual core processor, and said, "That's my next phone." I read all the pre-launch hype, and post-launch reviews, still unwavering in my attraction to this handset, at least on paper. I went to my local Verizon Wireless store at lunch time on launch day, and bought it for $250 ($300 minus $50 loyalty discount). I also bought two years of insurance for $100, which I sort of regret. Total was $365. I had already budgeted for this, so no real issue there. They gave me the "4GB-for-the-price-of-2GB" promo, which is nice, especially since I'm a light data user (more on this later). I walked out of the store a happy guy.

I've been using the phone for 4 days now. The battery life was an issue at first. I was lucky if I could get a day of use on one charge for the first two days, then I wised up. I noticed that the phone has an on/off switch (soft) for 4G and GPS. I turned them off. The real culprit, though, is the Wifi radio. I downloaded a widget that acts as a switch for that as well, and turned it off. Some of you may be thinking, "But don't you want always-on notifications, etc.?" No, I don't. I find them annoying. If I want email, eBay, etc., I'll ask for it. No reason at all to have Wifi running all the time. This is not for all users, I realize. But if you want to get decent battery life out of this phone, or most smartphones for that matter, you'll do as I have. Also, "Task Manager > Kill All" is your battery's friend.

I don't use the phone to listen to music, so no info on Beats Audio, sorry. Unless 64GB microSDHC cards come down in cost, I'll keep using my iPod for music. The phone just won't hold enough music for my liking as is. Anyway, on to the goods. The screen is awesome. I can't really say anything bad about it. 720p. Angry Birds has never looked so good. Videos look amazing. The OS is Gingerbread w/ Sense 3.5 on top. I've customized it significantly, and I like it. Others hate on it. Whatever. I find it to be snappy and responsive. I added the slideIT keyboard so I can swype instead of type. Still getting used to it, but very cool. Haven't used GPS yet as such. I'd like to get a car dash mount first. There is some unremovable crapware like "Let's Golf 2," but that's only a minor annoyance. The phone itself has a beautiful black and red motif with nice rounded corners and a sturdy plastic shell. It's a little heavy (~6 oz.), but not bothersome. Call quality and reliability have been great. Internet browsing is cable modem-fast. People bitch about the volume and power buttons being flush with the unit. I don't really feel it do be an issue. If they were a little more raised, it would be nice, but no biggie.

Overall, I'd say that I made a damn fine choice for my first smartphone. I like just about everything about this phone. Once Ice Cream Sandwich is available for it (Jan.?), it'll be the phone to have. It does everything I want it to do and, once customized, nothing I don't. If you want a fast, beautiful phone, and have some money saved, get a Rezound.

Dreamcast Battery Swap

2011-11-11T10:15:00.000-05:00

If you own a Sega Dreamcast, chances are, every time you turn it on, you get prompted to enter the current date/time. This is because your internal battery that powers the chip that stores this data is dead. I grew tired of doing this and decided to do something about it. A Google search for a solution brought me here. I bought a new OEM battery and followed the installation instructions on the site. I learned how to desolder using a "solder-sucker" from one of my co-workers. The whole thing took 10 minutes. I'm very pleased with the outcome. Hopefully I won't have to enter another date for 8-10 years.

Game Room Update

2011-11-09T19:21:00.002-05:00

I made a few tweaks to the game room that I thought I'd share. I added a Sega Genesis to the mix. I gave away the Sony TV I had because I was never thrilled with its performance. In its place is a Sony PVM-3230 pro monitor. It's a 185lb. beast of a display, and difficult to calibrate, but the picture is damn nice. It's capable of running games at 15KHz low resolution RGB, which is basically the best picture quality for any video game system. I have several of these Sony PVM's in various sizes, and they're the best thing to ever happen to retrogaming. The consoles are attached to the monitor via SCART cables, which is a European standard not available in the US. The SCART cables attach to a special adapter that is used with the Analog RGB input of the monitor. I have SCART cables for the Xbox, Genesis, Dreamcast and PS2. They all look magnificent on this set. The NES runs composite and N64 runs S-Video, both same as before, because RGB is not an option for these. I also got rid of the receiver because the monitor has speaker hookups. The cable box is gone because I didn't ever watch TV in here.

Next post will be about my attempt to Retrobright my Dreamcast to remove the yellow, and to change its battery.

My Game Room

2011-09-06T19:49:00.001-04:00

For the first time in my life, I have a room dedicated to gaming. I finished setting it up this weekend. Just enough room for all my gaming hardware. Nothing on the walls yet, but I have plans to hang some arcade cabinet marquees and vintage game ads and posters, once I buy them, of course. My actual game collection is not really that substantial yet, but it's growing all the time. I have about a few dozen games for each system. Quite a few controllers as well. But what I lack in physical games, I make up for in emulation. Mostly due to the Xbox emulators, I have about 10,000 playable games total in this room. Not bad. Many good times will be had in this room.

Game Room Inventory
Neo Geo MVS Bartop (M.A.M.E.)
X-Men Vs. Street Fighter "Big Blue" Cabinet
Sony Wega 32" TV
Yamaha Receiver
Aiwa Speakers
Sega Dreamcast
Sony Playstation 2
Microsoft Xbox (w/ XBMC)
Nintendo NES
Nintendo 64
Motorola Cable Box

XBMC4XBOX: The Best Media Center

2011-07-07T10:30:00.001-04:00

For years now, I've been using XBMC on my Xbox (original, not 360) to listen to music in my living room. I also use it to watch standard definition videos, stream web-based video, and occasionally to look at picture slide shows, not to mention play thousands of emulated video games from over a dozen old-school consoles and arcade titles. I'd say that my Xbox has gotten more use than any other device in my living room.

XBMC over the years has been great, but not without its quirks. Certain things became either wonky or outright broken over time. Playing videos, watching movie trailers, random play for music, all needed work after a while. A few years ago, the developers of XBMC, citing the Xbox's obsolesence, and a need to focus on development for Windows, Mac and Linux platforms, ceased Xbox development. A few Xbox diehard developers decided to carry the torch under the moniker XBMC4XBOX. Up until recently, there hadn't been any major releases of the software. May 2011 brought XBMC4XBOX v3.0.1 stable. Hooray! Utilizing Confluence, the beautiful default skin for the other XBMC platforms, a modern build of XBMC is now optimized for the Xbox hardware, with added features and bugfixes.

Having used it since its release, I can easily say that this is the definitive release of XBMC for the Xbox. It's flawless. The software looks gorgeous. I customized it with black backrounds, giving it a sharp, clean, easy-on-the-eyes look, which I love. All of my former gripes have been addressed. "Party Mode", a.k.a. random, actually plays random tracks from my music library every time, not just one of five or six "random" playlists. Apple Movie Trailers works wonderfully. All of my downloaded video files play flawlessly, regardless of file type. All of the Internet-based TV "channels" of streaming video that I'm interested in, like Revision3, have built-in support.

If you're looking for a way to watch videos and listen to music in your living room/bedroom/game room, especially if you're into retro gaming, then do yourself a favor and pick up and old Xbox from a garage sale or eBay, look up how to "softmod" it (Hint: it's not tough. Youtube is your friend.), and install XBMC4XBOX 3.0.1. You can get a remote for it for cheap as well if you don't like using a controller. I prefer a remote myself, especially since I use a universal remote. It's cheap, does 720p HD over component, supports digital audio, is networkable, runs video game emulators, and it does everything more expensive set-top boxes do and more, except HD video. If you can live without that, get an Xbox. You'll be glad you did.

Update to Neo Geo Bartop: Perfection

2011-06-29T16:15:00.008-04:00

I'd like to follow up on a project I "finished" last year. Read about it here. After its initial completion, two things kept my beloved Neo Geo MVS Bartop from being the perfect Neo Geo emulation machine: finding the correct software configuration for 100% arcade-perfect emulation, and keeping the PC from overheating under heavy use.

Regarding the heat issue: My original PC setup inside the cabinet was an old AMD-based Socket A chip. It got way too hot way too quickly and would often overheat and shut down the system after only an hour of use or less. Even the 5 cooling fans inside the cabinet could not keep the temperature low enough. I replaced it first with an Intel Celeron D-based setup with a ASRock board. This ran much cooler, but the board and chip did not get along very well. The CPU was not officially supported by the motherboard and would sometimes reset 10 seconds into boot-up, then boot normally. This was a minor inconvenience that I put up with until I realized my second issue, which I'll explain next. For now, I had the machine running well enough for me and everyone else that played it.

Regarding the software issue: After a few months of play, I noticed that there was some screen tearing going on in certain games where full-screen scrolling occurs, i.e. Captain Tomaday, Twinkle Star Sprites, and Blazing Star. This annoyed the hell out of me. I inquired several places (message boards, emailing vendors) as to why this was happening. The answer I found was that the Neo Geo has an odd vertical refresh rate of ~58.185Hz, which tears when set to the standard 60Hz refresh rate. Long story short, I had to buy the newest version of the ArcadeVGA video card that supported custom vertical refresh rates (via the ArcadePerfect utility), which also required a new motherboard and RAM, since I had an AGP card, but needed PCIe. A positive side effect of getting a new board was that the rebooting issue above has disappeared. Anyway, getting new hardware almost did the trick. It got my video looking perfect, but now the audio in M.A.M.E. was out of sync. It would skip every 5 seconds or so. The standard install of M.A.M.E. doesn't have a "soundsync" feature. Luckily, a custom build called GroovyMAME does. After a few false starts, GroovyMAME got my audio synced with my now 100% accurate video emulation and all is well. Setting "triplebuffer" and "soundsync" in the mame.ini file was the key. There is zero perceptible video issues on any Neo Geo games I've tried.

If you're looking to emulate Neo Geo MVS games in M.A.M.E. with 100% accuracy, the only way to do it, to my knowledge, is to do it with the combination of hardware and software that I have currently running. I'd be happy to answer any questions about my setup. Just email me or comment below.

I've gotten so much joy out of building, configuring, and playing this Neo Geo cabinet. I don't think I can ever get rid of it. Now I just need to get a real MVS.

Review: OCZ Vertex2 60GB SSD

2011-04-14T16:57:00.003-04:00

After having played with my Asus Eee PC 1215N for about a week or so and determining that it should be faster, I bought an OCZ Vertex2 60G SSD for it. After some initial headaches (my netbook wouldn't recognize it), I finally got it to install after upgrading the firmware. I made a mistake that would come back to bite me, though. After using a 2nd PC to upgrade the drive, I formatted it as well. This, I found out later, caused the drive to be "misaligned," which I still don't completely understand, but it has something to do with the block size matching the flash memory sectors. So, upon running a benchmark after my initial install of Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit, I saw that my write speeds were less than half of the advertised rate of 275MB/s (read speeds were as advertised). My actual write speeds were about 120MB/s max using ATTO, the recommended benchmark. After I found out about the misalignment from the OCZ forums, I wiped the drive and reinstalled Windows, letting the Windows installer do the formatting. This yielded an aligned drive (info via AS SSD). However, my write speeds as of now are no higher than 180MB/s. This is much better than before, but I still feel cheated. Maybe there's a limitation from the system I'm using, but I doubt it. Other people with my model netbook are posting higher write speeds than me. Oh well, it was cheap and it's still way faster than the stock drive. The only other bit of advice is that if you can avoid installing the Intel Matrix Storage drivers for your chipset, do so. Using the stock Microsoft AHCI increased my write speed performance drastically. To summarize, buy this drive if 280MB/s read and 180MB/s writes are good enough for you.

The Quiet Man on Laserdisc

2011-03-31T16:30:00.002-04:00

As I've discussed before, I like The Quiet Man. It's well documented on the Internet that all of the consumer releases of the film, in a word, stink. This is because the various rights holders saw fit to use the same dirty, degraded film source to produce all of the various VHS, Laserdisc, and DVD releases of the film. The result is that the worst release is actually the most recent, the "Collector's Edition" DVD from 2002. This makes sense, since the origianl source material has been degrading all this time and has never been properly remastered. But which release is the best?

To answer this question, I took a gamble a few weeks ago. I decided to purchase the only version I don't already own: the 1992 40th Anniversary Laserdisc. I tracked down a new sealed copy for about $10 shipped. But I had no Laserdisc player to play the discs, so I had to find one somewhere. After a week of searching, I found someone on Craigslist willing to part with a basic one for $15. Perfect. For a $25 investment, I was going to put my theory of Laserdisc supremacy to the test.

To test it out, I loaded up both the DVD and Laserdisc, hit play, and switched back and forth on my receiver. Sure enough, after a few minutes of scrutiny, it became clear that the Laserdisc had a better picture. The colors were more natural and not washed out like the DVD. There were no compression artifacts on the LD due to the fact that the video is not compressed like on the DVD. There is also notably less film dirt and damage, probably due to the fact that the transfer happened a decade earlier. I didn't compare the sound, but we're talking about a mono source here, and mostly just dialogue thoughout, so nothing really to scream about to begin with. The audio on the LD was fine, though.

If you want the best version of The Quiet Man that is commercially available, get the Laserdisc. New copies can still be had on the cheap. Even if you don't have a player, chances are someone in your neighborhood has one that they'd part with for a song. After all, it's a dead format.

My New Toy: X-Men Vs. Street Fighter Arcade Cabinet

2011-03-22T09:23:00.003-04:00

On Saturday, a friend and I went to the PA Farm Show Complex to attend an Arcade Auction organized by a company called Auction Game Sales. This company travels the east coast of the US, auctioning off coin-op games, jukeboxes, and the like. I had attended a similar event in December, but left empty handed. Leading up to Saturday, I had chosen 3 types of arcade cabinets that I was in the market for: a Neo Geo, a Capcom "big blue" fighter cab, or a Ms. Pacman cabinet. This time, I wouldn't be denied.

We got there at 9am to discover that there would also be a "South Eastern Beef Classic" (read: cattle sale) going on at the same time. Which made for a really wonderful mix of people and smells. Lots of morbid obesity, dirty overalls, braided rat-tails, and mullets, all with the odor of unwashed cattle wofting through the air. Anyway, the auction didn't start until 10:30a. This gave me time to inspect the machines I was interested in, numbering 6 or so. After the auction started, I could see it was going to be a long day. By some cruel twist of fate, they didn't auction off ANY of the 6 machines I wanted until 2:30pm, so we were waiting around that whole time. I felt bad for my buddy, who was an innocent bystander to all this mess.

So around 3:30pm, my moment came. After having been outbid for a piece of crap Capcom cab the I shouldn't have bought anyway, it was time for them to auction off an X-Men Vs. Street Fighter "big blue" cabinet. This was the one cabinet that I HAD to have, if I was going to leave with anything. I won the auction at a very reasonable price considering age and condition. I was elated. My friend and I both had places to be that night, so we had to go. Plus, I couldn't afford another cab. We couldn't leave until 5:30p though, due to congestion and lines that seemed to never end. We did make it out in one piece, though, with our prize intact. A very long and tiring day it was.

Regarding my score: X-Men Vs. Street Fighter is one of my favorite fighting games. I played it a lot in high school. The cabinet itself is in great shape. Everything works. It's fully playable. It does need some minor work though. The monitor's colors needs adjusting, the joysticks and buttons need to be replaced, I need locks for the coin doors, the stereo amp for sound is missing (mono sound only at the moment), and an overall cleaning is in order. It currently resides in another friend's garage until this summer, when I hopefully move into a bigger living space, and that's OK. I can wait. Hell, I've waited my whole life for my own full-size arcade cabinet, but now I have one.

The architecture of the Capcom Play System 2, of which this game is included, allows me to swap out similar games with this one very easily, meaning I can collect other Capcom arcade games from the 90's and simply open up the back and pop in a different game. Fun stuff. All in all, I'm thrilled with my new purchase. When it's fully restored and in place this summer, I'll post an update.

Request for Blu-ray: The Quiet Man (1952)

2011-03-03T15:07:00.009-05:00

An Open Letter to the Executives at Paramount Pictures:

It is my understanding that the UCLA Film and Television Archive is in possession of the master (or best available print) of John Ford's 1952 masterpiece The Quiet Man. As this is the month of March and St. Patrick's Day is upon us, it would be a great gift to not only Irish Americans and John Wayne fans, but to film lovers the world over to know that Paramount/UCLA are dedicated to working to release a proper high-definition Blu-ray transfer of this magnificent and beautiful film. Fans of the movie, such as myself, have been limited to watching sub-standard and hastily-transferred DVD and VHS editions of this movie since its initial home release about 30 years ago. Washed out colors, dirt spots, and a host of other issues plauge just about every release of the film, regardless of medium. Other John Wayne pictures of the period have received beautiful restorations and been released on Blu-ray to be enjoyed in their original glory, yet "The Quiet Man" remains just that. Of all the older films that would benefit from a restoration, "The Quiet Man" would arguably have the most to gain. The lush, green, rolling hills of the Irish countryside deserve to been seen as Ford saw and captured them. Please give the film the respect and treatment it deserves, and help to release it in HD. If another commercial release of the movie is impossible for whatever reason, might I suggest releasing an unmodified digital print of the film to a site like Archive.org so that fans of the film with professional video editing tools and experience can perform the necessary restoration tasks and share the results with the world.

Regardless of whether or not my request is feasible, perhaps a special screening of the film at UCLA is in order. March 17, 2011 appears free on their calendar as of now.

On behalf of all lovers of this wonderful film, please seriously consider this request for an HD transfer, restoration, and release of "The Quiet Man."

Review: Asus Eee PC 1215N

2011-02-16T11:17:00.005-05:00

I treated myself to a new netbook recently. I picked up an Asus Eee PC 1215N from Amazon. After having played with one at CES this year, I decided that it was the netbook for me. I also grabbed a few accessories: a KWorld USB TV Tuner, a carrying case, and a Windows Media Center remote. My reason for upgrading from my beloved Eee PC 901 is that the 901 doesn't do HD video. I wanted something that I could take on the road that was a little faster than the 901 and could function as a mobile media center for airplanes and hotel rooms.

The first thing I did when it arrived was wipe Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit that came with it and install my copy of Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit. The 64-bit OS proved to lag the machine a bit much for my liking, so I moved to Ultimate 32-bit. I also had a lot of trouble with reinstalling the video drivers. This machine has the Nvidia Optimus system, where if you're watching HD video, it uses the Nvidia Ion chip instead of the default Intel 3150 video drivers for better performance. The latest official Nvidia Ion drivers do not work on this machine. Neither do Asus' Intel drivers. So I needed the following driver configuration, in this order: Intel's 3150 drivers, then Asus' Nvidia Ion drivers. Any other configuration borked either the resolution or HD video or both.

The machine's stock hard drive was a bit noisy for my liking, and the RAM at 2GB is a bit low to run Windows 7 at full speed, so I purchased 4GB of RAM and an OCZ Vertex 2 solid state drive (SSD). I finished installing both last night, and I have to say that this little bugger is humming along very nicely. It boots to completion in under 30 seconds, which for a machine with an Atom CPU, is very impressive. All app and network stuff I do is very responsive, even when multitasking. Media Center has minimal menu and app lag.

My only major complaint thus far is watching Live TV with my tuner stick via Windows Media Center. Even after the upgrades, HD and SD TV stutters every 8-10 seconds. This is definely not due to the graphics card, hard drive, or RAM. It's either caused by the CPU (prob not), video drivers, mpeg decoders, or my tuner stick. I'll be running some experiments this week to find the root of the issue. The picture does look great, though. Some people have knocked the keyboard for flexing, but it's not that bad, though it does flex a little while typing. UPDATE: Turns out the TV stuttering issues was a result of the cheap KWorld tuner, and not my PC. I tested with a Hauppauge HVR-850, and Live TV was smooth and beautiful.

PROS:

Nice screen size and resolution
Fast (after upgrades)
Attractive case
Lightweight
Good battery life
Good feature set

CONS:

Shows fingerprints badly
Minor keyboard flex

CES 2011 Wrap-Up

2011-01-11T22:55:00.006-05:00

Well, folks, I just flew in from Las Vegas and, boy, are my arms tired. (rimshot)

But seriously, CES 2011 was incredible. My first ever trade show. I first decided that I had to go to CES after reading about it in Nintendo Power magazine at age 9. This was the first time in my life that I had the means to go. I had a ball. This was a solo mission. The event was held at the Las Vegas Convention Center, which is the size of about 14 football fields, and that's not even the whole show. The Venetian Hotel houses the spill-over, which is mostly high-end audio. CES is not open to the public as such. You have to be "in the industry." I went as the CEO of my own non-existant computer consulting firm, Panoptic Solutions, Ltd. Little did I know that lying was unnecessary, as I could have gone as the IT buyer of the company I actually work for, for whom I actually am the tech buyer, and which would have been totally legit. Oh well, no harm or foul. The CEA (governing body of CES) has my $100 entrance fee, so whatever.

I basically spent all day this past Thursday and Friday walking, playing with gadgets, looking at new technologies, and bullshitting with vendors. The LVCC portion of CES was divided into 3 halls: North, Central and South. North had video game stuff and automotive stuff. Cars and car stereos. Central was mostly A/V. South, twice as big as North and Central combined, was mostly phones and computer stuff.

There were no show-stopping devices or technologies this year. There was, however, 120,000 attendees, which is a "holy shit" number for everyone involved. The 3 recurring themes of this year's show were: tablet PC's, 3D TV's, and electric cars. I only saw a couple electric cars, but I saw tons of 3D and tablets. Tablet computing seems to be the new laptop. People must really like touchscreen typing. I don't, but whatever. There are definitely applications for this type of thing, like touchscreen jukeboxes, but give me a laptop or netbook any day over these, at least until the software side matures a bit.

I had a long discussion with a Panasonic rep about electronics recycling. They made a big deal out of the fact that they are really pushing to use non-toxic and recyclable materials in their electronics. They're also pushing out a recycling program for all their old stuff, like tube TV's. This is promising, but I told him he NEEDS to have his superiors approve marketing these eco-friendly programs, and if it's not bullshit, meaning they actually are doing something, then that can translate in to real dollars in their pockets by tapping into the hippie market. I'm not holding my breath.

Disappointment #1: No Oppo, Nintendo, Apple, or HTC. Oppo, my favorite DVD/Blu-ray player vendor, may have been there, but I couldn't find them. HTC didn't need to be there because all of the cell carriers and phone OS-makers were already showing off their stuff for them. Nintendo holds its own show in Japan the same week as CES. Apple basically says "F-you" to everyone. Side note: Apple actually stole the show by allowing Verizon to "announce" during CES a special press conference, held today, which everyone knew was going to be to annouce the Verizon iPhone, which they did.

Disappointment #2: 3D is not ready yet. I tried every TV makers' 3D TV's. I tried active glasses, passive glasses, and even glasses-free technologies. Bottom line: it sucks for everything except still imagery. The colors are dull, the backgrounds are blurry, you see double most of the time, and the images are juddery. The exception to this, besides still images, might be video games. Might. Since I'm not a gamer, I could care less, but some people might dig it for first-person shooters, etc. You won't catch me watching any 3D movies any time soon. Avatar in 2D looks beautiful.

See my Top 5 CES gadgets here.

Also, I have a new crush. I saw this video playing in an elaborate living room home theater setup on the show floor. I was so enthralled with this woman, Diana Krall, and her music that I actually started clapping after the song was over, completely forgetting that I was not at a concert. Seriously, she's unbelievable.

Even though I had a great time, I'm not going alone again. I need a partner in crime for something of this magnitude. A kindred spirit. A fellow geek. If I can find someone like-minded for a future show, then it's on.

You can view my full CES 2011 photostream here.

My Top 5 Gadgets of CES 2011

2011-01-11T22:25:00.004-05:00

As part of my CES Wrap-Up, here's my picks for Best of CES 2011, in no particular order:

2012 Ford Focus

Plug-in electric car from an American carmaker. 'Nuff said.

Panasonic VT30 Series Plasma TV's

I picked this series of TV out of all of them because I believe this to be the best 2D TV on the market, not for its 3D performance or features. 3D is not ready for prime time, as I mentioned previously. Panasonic has the best plasmas on the market, which I enjoy more than LCD/LED sets. These TV's represent the best of display technology, with super dark, inky blacks, bright whites, accurate colors, and few motion issues, if any. I wish I could afford one.

Asus Transformer

I'm really not interested in a tablet PC for myself. I just don't see a use for it, personally. Having said that, the Asus Transformer blends tablet and netbook in a way I can definitely get down with. If its performance is up to snuff, and we won't know for sure until probably this summer, then I may get one.

Motorola Atrix

This phone is closer to a PC than anything before it. You travel with it, bring it home, dock it, and use it as a light PC, and maybe even watch a movie on it. It has the CPU and RAM to do it as well. Wow.

XI3 Modular Computer

For a guy like me that digs lightweight PC's, this was very interesting. From what I understand, you can swap out a bunch of little daughterboards, and upgrade them as new hardware comes out. You can also use 1 as a centrally located system, and have a few others around the house as thin clients or dumb terminals. I'm keeping my eyes on these guys for sure.

My Top 10 Favorite Neo Geo Games

2011-01-01T10:18:00.002-05:00

In the wake of the completion of my Neo Geo Bartop, I've had a chance to play most of the games for the Neo Geo. Here's a list of my favorite games as of now:

10. Blazing Star

There are several shmups (shoot 'em ups) for the Neo Geo. Most are pretty good, but this is my favorite. The game looks great, with rich, detailed levels and smooth game play. Not too easy or too hard. Fun power-ups and weapons.

9. Magical Drop III

I started playing this puzzle game recently. It's pretty addictive. Much more fun with 2 players than 1, but great nonetheless. I still haven't figured out a foolproof strategy. Sort of similar to Columns, but with a top-down push/pull instead of just push.

8. Garou: Mark of the Wolves

There must be 50 fighting games for the Neo Geo. Many are terrible. Garou is an exception. Great graphics, solid physics, and a character named Butt. What more do you need? Yes, there's the King of Fighters series, which has a few decent titles, but Garou just feels better to me. I have to admit that I only like a couple of Neo Geo fighters. I'm much more into Capcom's fighters, but SNK has a few winners, including this one.

7. Nightmare in the Dark

If you like zombies, and you like Bubble Bobble, then you'll love Nightmare. Plays almost exactly the same as BB, but with huge boss characters every few levels. In the game, you're a graveyard caretaker that lights zombies and mummies on fire. Awesome.

6. League Bowling

It's no Wii Bowling, but it's a stripped down, fun as hell bowling game with goofy animations. One of the first Neo games, and one of the best.

5. Neo Mr. Do!

A remake of the original 80's arcade hit, Mr. Do!. The original can't hold a candle to this one, though. The game is the same, but the feel is far more smooth, and the graphics are cartoony, crisp and colorful. The cut scenes are goofy, but well done. I'm actually getting pretty good at this one, which should tell you how often I've been playing it. Overall, a beautiful and fun puzzle/action game.

4. Neo Turf Masters

Greatest golf game ever, hands down. Golden Tee and Tiger Woods got nothing on Turf Masters, as far as I'm concerned. The simplicity of the game play is what makes it so great. The courses are well designed, and frankly, quite difficult. If you can stay under par for a round on hard difficulty level, that's an accomplishment. If you like golf games, you'll love this one.

3. Metal Slug 3

Any game where you can turn into a zombie and puke blood on your enemies is going to make it into my top 10. I love this game. Like the other MS games, it's basically a run 'n gun (i.e. Contra) on steroids. This one is unique, however. You can play though it a total of about 72 different ways because of all the possible paths available, which makes for huge replay value. The graphics, bosses, gameplay, and overall fun are all way up there.

2. Baseball Stars 2

Best baseball game ever. Basically an updated RBI Baseball. Great graphics and gameplay. The power-ups in this one are unique to baseball games, at least that I've played. Neo Geo isn't necessarily known for its sports games, but this one is a winner.

1. Puzzle Bobble/Bust-A-Move

The funnest puzzle game since Tetris. The game is really simple, but really tough to master. Match the colors, that's it. There are many sequels to this one, with powerups and other bells and whistles, but the stripped-down original is the best. My girlfriend and I have an ongoing competition to set the high score on this one. She's way better than me.

My Fall Project: Neo Geo Bartop Arcade Cabinet

2010-11-26T14:21:00.006-05:00

A dream of mine has always been to own an arcade cabinet. Ever since the days of playing games in arcades, bowling alleys, and diners as a boy, I've wondered what it would be like to be able to play an arcade game for free whenever I wanted. This summer, as I was wrapping up my touchscreen jukebox project, I was considering what my next project should be. In September, just for grins, I priced out a cabinet with the options I wanted. While it seemed economically out of reach at first, I decided that I could make a few financial sacrifices to make it work. And there it began.

I decided to build a Neo Geo Bartop for several reasons. (For those unfamiliar with Neo Geo, see here for background info.) Mainly, it was because I love the games. I first read about Neo Geo and its prohibitively expensive home console and games in an early issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly circa 1990. I never played Neo Geo console or arcade games as a kid, but rather got into them in my 20's when I learned how to mod the Xbox and play emulated games on it. I had noticed the amazing graphics, sound, and overall fun of many of the Neo Geo games. When deciding what arcade game to build, I looked for "the most bang for the buck." The system should be PC-based, since I already had an old PC laying around. This is a much more versatile solution than using an actual arcade board, which would yield only one game, or a handful at most. The fact that there are 150 Neo Geo games, many of which are great, all with the same controls sealed the deal. Simple and attractive artwork, with a ROM set that is easy to emulate on an old PC helped, too. I chose to build the cabinet from a pre-fab kit since I lack most of the tools and skills required to cut my own. I chose a bartop (a.k.a. tabletop) kit as opposed to a full-size cabinet so that it wouldn't take up as much room in my rapidly shrinking apartment. I decided to build a 1-player cabinet, but there's a USB port on the front panel so that an optional 2nd controller can be added for 2-player games. I could envision a finished product made of 100% authentic arcade parts, most importantly a CRT (tube) arcade monitor, that would net a hyper-realistic arcade experience for a fraction of the cost and space requirements of a full-size system. It took over 2 months to build, and now it's done.

After having played with it for a few days, I can honestly say I love it. The games look and feel great. The controls are spot on. I'd go so far as I like it better than an actual Neo Geo cabinet, but I'm biased. This was not only the most difficult and expensive, but also the funnest project I've ever worked on by far. Planning it and building it was just as fun as playing it. It was well worth all the (minor) injuries I sustained during construction. The biggest obstacles to completion were sufficently cooling the PC and getting the bezel (black area around the screen) painted and mounted. Cooling the PC required 5 cooling fans: 2 in's and 3 out's. Quite a pain to set up, but seems to be running OK. The bezel, consisting of plexiglass and a plastic frame, had to be spray painted and velcro-ed, respectively. Very difficult to set up because it has to be just right since that's what people who play the thing are looking at 95% of the time.

As this is my first arcade cabinet build, I'd like to thank the following people, in no particular order, without whom this project would have never been completed: My friends Joe and John at BCG, Andy at Ultimarc, Dom, Elton, and Bill at my work, Gerry at NorthCoast Custom Arcades, Todd at ArcadeOverlays, Suzo Happ, and the forum mods and contributors at Racketboy, BYOAC, Neo-Geo.com, and KLOV.

Parts list:

Part
Cabinet Kit (Ultimate Bartop I)
Monitor (Wells Gardner D7700 13")
VGA Breakout Cable
T-molding
ArcadeVGA (AGP) Video Card
Logitech Desktop Speakers
White Cold Cathode Light
Competition Joystick
Ultimate Pushbuttons
Smart Strip Surge Protector
I-Pac2
Wire + Cable Ties
Custom Sideart, Marquee, and CPO
Control Panel Plexiglass
Marquee Mirror
Misc. Screws
PC (Mobo, CPU, PSU, HDD, RAM)
Black Spray Paint
Matte Board
Case Fans
Velcro
USB Extender

Vendor
NorthCoast Custom Arcades
Suzo Happ
Ultimarc
NorthCoast Custom Arcades
Ultimarc
Newegg
Newegg
Suzo Happ
Suzo Happ
Amazon
Ultimarc
Radio Shack
ArcadeOverlays
BCG
BCG
Lowes
(already had)
Lowes
AC Moore
Best Buy/Newegg
Lowes
(already had)

PC Parts list:

Part
Motherboard
CPU
Hard Drive
RAM
Power Supply
OS
Frontend
MAME

Model
AsRock K7S41GX
AMD Sempron 2500+ (1.66GHz)
Seagate 250GB (IDE)
1GB (2 x 512MB) DDR 400
Generic 300W
Windows XP Professional SP3
Maximus Arcade 2.10
0.139

Here's a video of the completed cabinet:

Build pics:

I'm going to CES 2011!

2010-10-11T14:07:00.000-04:00

That's right. Another lifelong endeavor will come to fruition in January. I've wanted to go to the Consumer Electronics Show ever since I read about it Nintendo Power magazine when I was 9 years old. I read about it every year in tech blogs, and every year I say, "Damn, I need to go next year." Well, my time has come. A friend hooked me up with free registration, and I just booked my flight and hotel. I'm planning on reviewing/photographing/documenting anything that I deem interesting. So, expect multiple CES installments on this here blog the in mid-January.

Growing Up Geek

2010-09-14T10:42:00.001-04:00

As an homage of sorts to Engadget’s Growing Up Geek series, where their staff and other tech personalities discuss their technological upbringing, I present to you my own installment. Enjoy.

There are 2 kinds of geeks in this world. Some are born into geekdom, others find their own way. I fall squarely in the latter realm. To understand this, one should examine my childhood. Growing up, my parents were the opposite of what we’d now call “early adopters.” Nothing against them, but at every technological turn, they were late to the game. This assumes that they ever found out there was a game being played. Technology was usually thrust upon them, and at times, against their will. No one in my immediate family is what I would consider a geek, nerd, or technophile. I have 2 uncles who were 80’s and 90’s technology “users” (read: they owned computers and camcorders), but tech did not consume their lives as it surely does mine. If being a geek means that one’s intelligence and social awkwardness, combined with a love of things like gadgets and video games, causes isolation and alienation, then I was surely a geek. In a small Catholic school class, if I wasn’t the smartest boy and one of the top 3 students overall, I was damn close. The other kids in your class usually resent this, especially when you’re cocky and arrogant about it like I was. Defense mechanisms are a bitch. But I digress.

My earliest childhood memories of technology revolved around 2 subsets of tech that I still enjoy to this day: TV and video games. My parents bought me an Atari 2600 Jr. for Christmas circa 1987. I think they told me some time later that it cost $50, which was big money in those days of single-income households. I remember many fun hours playing Missile Command and Asteroids. Before Nintendo’s monstrously successful Game Boy dominated handheld gaming, there were 1000 different handheld video games from 100 different manufacturers, one of the more popular being made by Tiger Electronics. Some were crude, some were cool. I had a similar knock-off, called Jumpman, which was a trichrome version of Donkey Kong made by Tandy (Radio Shack). I loved it. I brought the bulky, day glow-orange unit everywhere my family went. My mom was taking college courses around this time, requiring digital calculators and tape recorders, which my young sister and I “played with” and rendered unusable. I also remember when my Aunt Mae bought my parents their first VCR, which was around 1985. It was the neatest thing. You could record TV! What a concept! I had no idea how it worked, but it did, usually. Looking back, I’m especially grateful that my aunt bought us VHS instead of BetaMax. I have no idea what the VCR cost her, but it must have been a fortune. Years later, I took the thing apart to get a stuck tape out, and saw first hand how many individual assemblies and parts the thing had. Production costs for that type of unit must have been astronomical. And this was a Mono, 2-head VCR. We had a library of tapes, with a few dozen in steady rotation for my sister and me.

I should also mention that music and technology were not totally separate from one another in my upbringing. At some point around 1988, my mom bought me a generic-branded candy apple red Walkman from Kmart, and my first tape, Bon Jovi’s New Jersey. I wouldn’t listen to that album now if you gave me $20. Unlistenable. My first tape would’ve been Guns N’ Roses’ Appetite For Destruction if I’d had my way, but my mom didn’t like the cursing on it. I eventually amassed a collection of a couple dozen tapes and listened to the Walkman constantly, even though the headphones were cheap and hurt my ears. Eventually I got a cheap hand-me-down boombox for listening to tapes in my room.

My grandparents bought me a 13” TV and an NES for Christmas and my birthday, respectively, in 1990 I believe. (That’s one good thing about January birthdays: It’s like double Christmas.) Let me tell about the countless joyful hours I spent playing Nintendo by myself and with my friends. When I wasn’t playing, I was reading Nintendo Power magazine, usually on the toilet. My mom and dad could be heard at our house around that time yelling, “Are you STILL in there?!?!” Back then, my brain was a sponge. I could damn near memorize a whole issue of NP in a couple days. For example, in Super Mario Brothers 3, I memorized all 8 configurations of 16 flip cards in the flip card mini-game. Those of you who’ve played it know what I’m talking about. What can I say? I was obsessed. I was one of the few kids I knew with my own TV, and even without cable, it still ruled! I felt less special when my sister got one the following year, but whatever. And I really don’t know what I would have done without my NES. Being the geek that I was, my social life in the early 90’s was less that stellar. Let’s just say that video games, in general, got me and countless other youths of my generation through many a sad and lonely day.

I got my first CD player for Christmas around 1992. My first 3 CD’s, were Nevemind by Nirvana, MC Hammer’s Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em, and Music For The People by Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. I’ll admit that I couldn’t listen to the last 20 seconds of Territorial Pissings from Nevermind because it scared me. I thought it sounded like Kurt Cobain was being choked to death. Anyway, I traded in my NES to a local game store for cash so I could go halves with my parents on a Super Nintendo (SNES) around 1994. This brought Super Mario World, Super Mario All-Stars, and Street Fighter II, among other games, into my room. Awesome! The graphics and sound were incredible, and the games were just as fun as NES, if not more. It was also around this time that my Mom bought the family a Word Processor. For the uninitiated, imagine a typewriter with a monochrome LCD screen less than the size of an iPhone that, when printing a document, sounded like a jackhammer. “Frustrating to use” is being kind.

The pivotal moment in my geek evolution came in January 1997 when I went with my mom to the Gateway Country Store in Upper Dublin, PA to buy our first PC, a Gateway 2000 Pentium II running Windows 95 at a whopping 233MHz. Of course, we didn’t leave the store with a PC. Noooooo, we had to wait 2 weeks for it to arrive via mail, in the then oh-so-envious cowprint box. Even though I didn’t know how to use it save for opening Word, typing and printing, I loved it. There was a fun motorcycle game called Redline Racer that came with it, which actually ran on our PC’s meager hardware. We got AOL at some point, just like 90% of computer-owning Americans. I began to realize then just how powerful the Internet could be, crude as it was then. I’m in high school at this time, and I’m beginning to develop an interest in the machines available to me and computer courses offered. One such course that I took was Computer-based Media, or something similar. It was taught by (let’s call him) Mr. D, a kindred spirit and fellow geek. I owe much of my success in life to this man. Mr. D took time to help me understand the fundamentals of PC and Mac multimedia. He allowed me to stay after school on his time to help me complete my projects and to even go so far as to let me use his personal internet dialup account (either CompuServe or Prodigy) unsupervised. Let me stress that last bit: unsupervised. This type of freedom and access is unheard of today. He trusted me, and in return, I never abused the privilege. Rather, I learned how to use a search engine (Altavista) and move files between computing platforms, among other things. His trust and tutelage made it clear that computing was for me as a career. This led directly to my choosing computer engineering as a college major, which of course led to my current standing in life. I’m extremely grateful to Mr. D for all that he did for me as a tech-curious teenager.

Rather than delve into my college years, where my geekdom became official, at least on paper, I think I’ll wrap this up. Technology has had an effect on my life, to varying degrees, since early childhood. From video games and VCR’s to PC’s and, currently, home theater, I feel like my life has been bettered at every turn because of technology. Many of the things in my life that I enjoy have come from the Internet. I hope that the first generation of kids who don’t know what dial-up Internet is realize how good they have it, technologically speaking.

My Touchscreen Jukebox

2010-08-30T19:03:00.002-04:00

Ever since I first started listening to music as a child, I wondered what it would be like to have a jukebox. Something that me, my friends and family could use at parties and other gatherings to easily and conveniently listen to music. I've had the idea for quite a while. Ever since I starting going to bars at the ripe old age of 18 and saw the cool touchscreen jukeboxes that they had hanging on the walls, I knew I had to have one. If one was to buy a jukebox from a vendor, one would surely need deep pockets because jukeboxes, touchscreen or otherwise, ain't cheap. So, I decided to "roll my own."

My first thought was to buy one of the recently made all-in-one touchscreen PCs from a vendor like Asus. These, however, are still in the $400-range for a used item. Too much $$$. My next thought was to use my existing desktop, and add a touchscreen as a 2nd monitor. Touchscreens are in the hundreds of dollars for a new unit, so I had to go used. Enter my old friend eBay. I found an ELO 15" USB/VGA touchscreen pulled from a kiosk somewhere in Texas for $75 shipped. Score! I added a Monoprice vesa mount so that I could hang it on the wall, and some conduit for neatness of cabling. I mounted it next to my PC at shoulder height. So far so good. The monitor works exactly as advertised. But what about software? This is the key to any good jukebox system, so I had to choose carefully. Enter E-Touch/Freebox. After many, many hours of research, I found this suite to be by far the best and most authentic jukebox experience of any software on the Internet. It's skinnable and customizable. It supports FLAC files after some plugin installs. It supports my existing cover art (cover.jpg) and tags. It's very responsive with my touchscreen. I'm running the final version 5 (the actual number escapes me). While not perfect, it's the closest thing to perfect touchscreen jukebox software that you'll find. Highly recommended.

I haven't had a full scale test of this unit yet (read: drunk people using it), but that will be coming soon I hope. In the mean time, I'll continue tinkering with it and will post my findings as needed. I may update to the recently released Version 6.

Revo Review: Part 2

2010-05-10T18:56:00.001-04:00

Well, I've decided to keep the Revo. Reason being: I found a way to get Hulu Desktop to run smoothly. The answer: Overclock it. I read some forum posts over at Revouser, and I found that you can actually use the Asrock Ion utility called OCTuner. It's an app that runs in the background. I have the Revo running stable at 1.98GHz, a 20% CPU increase. Not bad. Anything higher will crash, though. Someone modified one of the .inf files to work with the Revo, and guess what: I got the Revo playing flash videos of all quality levels smoothly at 1080p. Almost no skips/jitters. I also bought a cheap Chinavision remote so that I could use Windows Media Center, et al, without a keyboard and mouse. It works great. Overall, I'm pretty happy. Next up: the elusive homebrew touchscreen jukebox.

Review: Acer Aspire Revo AR1600-U910H

2010-04-23T09:34:00.003-04:00

Recently, more and more video content has been shifting towards Internet streaming for delivery to consumers like you and I. The biggies have been Netflix, Hulu, Boxee, Youtube, and many others. I have been without a satisfactory means to consume said web video content from the comfort of my couch. A recent purchase of mine is an attempt to remedy this: the Acer Aspire Revo AR1600-U910H. I got this from a generic reseller online for $130 shipped. No a bad little score, eh? Well, that sort of remains to be seen.

Basically, I want this thing, first and foremost, to be used to playback SD and HD Flash content. This is mainly Hulu and Youtube for now. The hardware of this nettop is Intel Atom 230/Nvidia Ion-based. I upgraded the RAM from 1 to 2GB. Hardware decoding for H.264-based content. HDMI audio and video. Low power, but might do the trick with the right software. My first setup in software looks like this: Windows 7 Ultimate (32-bit) running Windows Media Center as a frontend, Boxee, Hulu Desktop, XBMC, Macrotube dashboard plugins. Flash 10.1 RC2. Latest Nvidia Ion drivers. After a few days of testing, here's what I found:

1. XBMC cannot yet decode 1080p content under Windows w/ this system.
2. Media Player Classic does 1080p just fine.
3. Youtube vids up to 1080p are relatively smooth w/ 70% CPU. Some slight jerkiness.
4. Some Hulu clips play similar to #3. Some are a mess w/ 100% CPU.
5. Revision 3 shows (720p?) play fine.

Summary: So far, this little box might be a great computer for light tasks, but Flash is spotty, and 1080p H.264 movies only play w/ certain apps. At this point, I'm not setting this thing up permanently in my living room until after the offical Flash 10.1 drivers are released and I have a chance to test them. Similarly, I need to test 1080p movies w/ various media center plugins to see if a rock-solid solution exists. Stay tuned for Part 2...

Review: Klipsch RB-51 Home Theater System

2010-03-20T10:34:00.004-04:00

I recently treated myself to a new speaker system, the Klipsch RB-51 Home Theater System. My old cheap Sony setup had served me well, but it was time for an upgrade. Let me say right off: these speakers rule! I like to think of myself as someone that really enjoys listening to music. For that purpose alone, these speakers are worth the money. Tight, punchy bass from the subwoofer, and bright, clear, loud mids and highs from the fronts. I have a few surround sound discs as well, including Dark Side of the Moon and How the West Was Won, and they just shimmer. It's like hearing my entire collection again for the first time. For TV and movies, these may be the best speakers I've ever heard. The crown jewel in this set is the center channel, which is the most important speaker in a 5.1 setup. The dialogue that comes out is crisp and clear. The surrounds make any background sounds completely immersive. I can't imaging that the audio sounded better in the production studio. Bottom line: spend the extra money and get a Klipsch setup. Truly amazing.

My CES 2010 Top 5

2010-01-10T11:51:00.003-05:00

This year's CES was, quite frankly, boring. Nothing truly groundbreaking was announced or demoed, in my opinion. Having said that, here's my personal list for the best of CES 2010:

Tegra 2/Android Tablets

I'm very interested in a lower-power 1080p chipset. Tablets are kinda cool, too. Android has what it takes to run these well. The combination could mean cheap, portable and highly useful touchscreen interfaces/front ends in every room and car. This is what I always hoped we'd see.

Boxee

The Boxee Box definely looks cool. Love the Windows version. In time, it maybe the perfect media streamer. All content on one box with a nice remote and UI. Sweet.

Android 2.1

Of all the open source OSes, I'm most optimistic about Android. It seems to have the right combination of services, UI, and supoort. Phones will get it first, but the real proving ground for Android is the x86 port of it. If people start using it on laptops, look out MS and Apple.

Netgear Push2TV

If I can send my PC's video wirelessly and reliably to my TV, that's a game-changer. Let's see the hardware first, though.

Windows 7 Mediaroom Support

If I can get my FiOS content on a Windows PC with no extra hardware, that, too is a game-changer. We'll see if it actually happens.

In closing, I'd just like to say, "Fuck 3D!" I do not now, nor will I ever care about watching a movie or TV show in 3D. There is nearly 100 years of 2D footage, the vast majority of which looks like shit on current hardware. Industry, stop trying to make me buy a completely new hardware iteration, when the current 2D devices are FAR from perfect. I want cheap, thin, light, bright 2D 1080p displays with NO MOTION ISSUES!!!! Make this happen, then we'll talk about next-gen hardware.

Review: Logitech Harmony PS3 Adapter

2009-12-27T20:18:00.006-05:00

I find it really annoying that I have to spend $50 on a single-function machine to control my PS3 with my Harmony when Sony could have spent an extra $0.25 per unit to add an IR receiver to the PS3. Argh. Anyway, the Harmony PS3 Adapter just works. It's easy to set up and does what it says. It's just way too expensive, and the concept of needing this in the first place... well, you already get my point. If you have a PS3 and a Harmony, this thing is, unfortunately, essential.

Review: Roku SD

2009-12-26T09:38:00.001-05:00

I bought my girlfriend, among other things, a Roku SD for Xmas. I had a chance to play with it for a few hours yesterday. I streamed a few Netflix titles and a few Revision3 shows. I have to say that I'm VERY impressed with this little box. It just works. The shows stream in great quality video and audio. The user interface is intuitive and attractive. The remote is simple, accurate and responsive. The content, while somewhat limited now, has room for expansion, which is inevitable. If Roku got Hulu on this thing, it would be unstoppable. XBMC might be nice too. The only downside is the rewind and fast forward functions. When performing these, you cannot see the video move accordingly, i.e. a blind rewind. This stinks, but is easily correctable with a firmware update. All in all, the Roku is a great buy. It should score very highly in S.A.F., or Spousal Acceptance Factor. Give it a try, you won't regret it.

Boxee (Alpha) for Windows

2009-12-09T08:31:00.000-05:00

Boxee (Alpha) for Windows is probably the best free streaming media application out there. Nowhere else will you find Digg, Revision3, Hulu, Netflix, NPR, Comedy Central, Apple Trailers, Pandora, Last.fm, etc. all in one place. If it's good streaming content, it's on Boxee. Originally for modded Apple TV units, this app is now available for all Windows, Mac and Linux. There are video channels, music channels, and picture channels as well. I tried it out for the first time last night. Wow. The interface is clean and easy to use. The video quality is great. The sheer amount of content available is enough to quench anyone's entertainment appetite. I liked it so much that I immediately installed it on my netbook as well. Boxee is perfect for travelers who either miss their favorite shows, or need PC based entertainment because that's all there is. Ah, if only it was available for modded Xboxes. One can only dream...

Followup: Google Video Chat

2009-11-23T16:03:00.008-05:00

So I've been using Google Video Chat with my girlfriend for the better part of a year. We use it every couple weeks or so. Now that I've figured out how to use it exactly how I want, I can safely say that it's a great free video chat solution. I never have any issues with video quality or dropouts or audio. It just works. I strongly recommend it.

Top 10 Electronic Devices I Own

2009-11-06T16:33:00.012-05:00

10. Sony PCM-M1 DAT w/ CSBs

In my more formative years, I was very interested in recording concerts, specifically of bands that I liked the most. The best thing you could use before flash memory came out was the Sony PCM-M1 DAT Walkman. It can record at 16-bit/48KHz and is small enough to fit in your pocket. Pair that with some clip-on binaural mics, like my Core Sound Binaurals, and you can make some fine bootlegs. My concert appetite has mellowed recently, hence my bootlegging appetite has as well, but I did make some fine recordings with this thing. Even though it's obsolete, I can't bring myself to sell it.

9. Linksys WRT54G w/ DD-WRT

Out of the box, the Linksys WRT54G is a damn fine router, but add the open souce firmware DD-WRT to it, and it becomes the best and most versatile router within $300. Most useful to me is the wired or wireless network bridge functionality. I still use mine every day.

8. Panasonic TH-42PZ85U Plasma HDTV

I bought my TH-42PZ85U without having seen it in person, instead relying on online reviews. I really do love this TV, especially for what I paid for it. If it didn't have horrible phosphor trails in black and white scenes, it would be perfect. Other than that, it's superb for TV and movies.

7. Onkyo TX-SR606 Receiver

With only one minor flaw, this reciever is the best bang for the buck sub-$1000. It has four HDMI ports, 1080p pass-thru and decodes every type of audio codec, including Dolby TrueHD and DTS-MA. It's last year's model, but I can't see needing anything else from a receiver for a decade.

6. Oppo DV-980H

Before Blu-ray, this was THE all-in-one disc player. It plays DVD, DVD-A, and SACD, and scales to 1080p like a dream. NTSC and PAL both work great. If you have no desire or money to go Blu, get this. Your DVD collection will never be obsolete.

5. Logitech Harmony 550

I have almost a dozen devices in my living room that require remote controls. The Harmony rules them all. I honestly don't know what I would do without it. Sure, there are newer and more expensive models than the 550, but it does everything and does it well. You need one.

4. Asus Eee PC 901

Ah, the 901. I was an early adopter. I really and truly love this netbook. Short of HD video, it does everything I need it to, has a 6 hour battery, and weighs 2.5 lbs. Webcam, mic, speakers, Bluetooth, Wifi. Runs XP and Windows 7 perfectly (except Windows Media center). Of course, I have to mention that I added a Runcore SSD to the thing, and without it, the 901 moves like mud. If you like th 9-inch form factor, one of these can be had on the cheap. Add a Runcore SSD, and the thing will fly.

3. PlayStation3 w/ Media Server

I got a PS3 last year for Xmas. It is the best Blu-ray player around, it's a solid gaming platform, and with the free PS3 Media Center suite for PC, it streams all my HD videos with full surround, basically all but eliminating my need for an HTPC.

2. FiOS w/ HD-DVR

FiOS is the best TV service in the USA. Best video quality, best channels. I thought I was going to have to spend $600 on an HTPC in order to record HDTV. The FiOS HD-DVR (QIP6416-2) has great video quality, easy use, and intelligent seeking. I love it. I just need more storage.

1. Modded Xbox running XBMC

My Xbox has been very good to me. What do I do with it, you ask? I have my entire music, video and picture libraries on it for couch-based enjoyment. I have 16 vintage console emulators running approximately 10,000 games. I can watch streaming TV shows. Apple movie trailers, too. No machine can do all this so well. I also have a Xir installed for ease of use with my Harmony remote. Thanks XBMC.

Eee PC 701SD with a Touchscreen

2009-10-29T11:32:00.006-04:00

A few months ago, I picked up an Eee PC 701SD from mwave.com for a scant $120 shipped. Yeah, it only has a 900 MHz CPU and a 8GB SSD, but it runs XP well. The price is not a bad deal for ANY complete PC, I'd say. But what to do with it? I already have a customized Eee PC 901 that I love. I take the 901 with me wherever and whenever I need to compute away from home. Since my mobile needs are already being met, I decided that this 701SD will be my project machine. The first mod I'd try would be a touchscreen. I found a nice one on DealExtreme.com for $35 with free shipping. The catch is that most items from this site ship from Hong Kong. That means that it took 3 1/2 weeks to arrive to me on the east coast of the US. A bit long for my liking, but oh well. What arrived was a 7" touchscreen and a combo USB hub and touch controller, along with various cables. No instructions or drivers were provided, but they were easy enough took look up on the net. It took me about 2 hours of total labor to install and configure. Basically plug and play.

I have to say that I'm rather impressed with what I recieved for $35. The touchscreen works as advertised, and the driver software has a nice config tool. It just works. A machine like this would cost hundreds if I bought it in a store. I built it for $155. The only cosmetic issue is that the bezel bulges slightly around the screen and on the side. No big deal. Also, using a stylus is better than your finger for precision computing. Having said that, this machine would do very well in any number of applications in home or workplace scenarios. Overall, I'm happy with it.

Review: Verizon FiOS HD-DVR

2009-10-20T15:06:00.013-04:00

In an attempt to find the perfect HDTV recording solution, I bit the bullet recently and ordered Verizon's HD-DVR solution for FiOS, the Motorola QIP6416-2. This is basically a standard set top box with a hard drive inside. It will record 80 hours SD or 20 hours HD, on top of the standard FiOS set top functions, like On Demand, etc. I had been using an HTPC running Windows XP Media Center Edition for recording purposes. I really loved Media Center, but my configuration only did SDTV recording, so a new solution was in order for HDTV. A comparable Windows 7 HDTV recording solution would cost $500-600. No dice. We're in a recession.

Compared to MCE, the Motorola box matches up well. It records in slightly better quality, and the scheduling is much the same. The new box has 2 tuners, so I can watch one show and record another, which I couldn't do with Windows unless I bought another tuner and rented another cable box or cablecard. The only thing that MCE has on the new box is the scheduling and searching menus are a little easier to use in Windows. FiOS' interface I find a little clunky, but not unusable.

One area definitly improved upon is power consumption. I no longer have to leave my HTPC, battery backup, and my FiOS modem on all the time, so the monthly energy cost savings should be significant. It may even pay for the extra monthly cost of the FiOS box. We'll see.

The QIP6416-2 replaced the QIP7100-1 that I had been using for quite a while. The QIP7100-1 was faster in the areas of channel changing and Program Guide navigation. The IR receiving in general was better on the 7100. Oh well.

Bottom Line: If you have FiOS and an HDTV, and are on the fence about getting the DVR, get it. This box is the only truly cost effective way to record HDTV, and probably will be for a while.

Recording HDTV: What are the options?

2009-09-15T13:49:00.020-04:00

I currently have an HTPC that records my SD content, but I'd like to be able to record HD content. I pay handsomely for it, in both hardware and content subscriptions, so why not record it? TV is now on our schedules, right? So, there are many ways of accomplishing this. They could be cheap or expensive, easy or difficult, so let's run through them.

OTA vs. Pay

If you don't wanna pay for television content, you can receive and record over-the-air digital SD and HDTV content cheaply and easily. This content is not encrypted, and there are several hardware manufacturers like Hauppauge that make ATSC tuners that record in HD. Simply build or buy a cheap PC that is capable of playing back 1080i smoothly, add a tuner/capture card, and you're all set. there are also stand-alone set-top boxes that can do this without a PC. If you pay for cable/satellite/fiber though, the solution is not so easy. In order to record your pay channels in HD, you have to use one of the methods discussed below.

Hardware: CableCard vs. HD-PVR

There are 2 ways one can record pay HD content. The first is to record from a set-top box over component cables into a device like the Hauppauge HD-PVR. This method makes use of what's called the Analog Hole. Pretty straightforward. GB-PVR, BeyondTV, SageTV support this. Windows Media Center does only through a 3rd party plugin. Content owners hate this, but oh well. We paid for the content, right? The other method is recording via a set-top box or PC containing a CableCard. This is a card fits into the back of a set-top or PC and acts as a cable box to decode channels. Windows Media Center plays well with this, as does TiVo. Providers chage a fee of a few dollars a month for this, usually the same or less than the cost of an actual box. Either option is costly for the hardware, usually > $600 plus possible monthly fees.

Box Options: TiVo vs. Provider DVR

If you chose CableCard, then you have another choice to make. You need a box. A TiVo Series 3 or TiVo HD would do the trick. The hardware is a bit high, as is the monthly fee, but it's a great solution. There are other set-top and HTPC makers that sell this type of equipment. Shop around. You could conversely rent your TV provider's DVR solution. This is a good relatively cheap solution, because you don't have to buy the box. Don't expect a lot in the way of features or reliablity though, as these devices are in their infancy.

Software: WMC vs. Other

Windows Media Center (formerly XP Media Center Edition) is probably the most popular and best DVR suite available, along with TiVo. It's got a great UI, free program guide, and just works. Windows 7 specifically has the killer version of this, with support for h264 recording. If you don't wanna go this route, get a 3rd party app like GB-PVR, BeyondTV, SageTV. You might have to pay a subscription fee for the program guide, depending on who you go with.

Conclusion

Since I have Verizon FiOS, I'm going to wait for the next firmware update for the current generation of FiOS DVRs, which currently seem buggy and unreliable, before I take the plunge. This seems to be the cheapest and easiest, although not the best, way of recording my HD content.

My New Toy: Asus Eee PC 701SD

2009-08-26T08:32:00.005-04:00

I got this from mwave.com for $120 shipped. Not bad, eh? Yeah, it's only 900MHz, but I did upgrade the RAM to 1GB. The 8GB SSD is slow for writes but not bad for reads. I can always upgrade it if necessary. I'm running some benchmarks on it now. I'm trying to find decent jukebox software so that I can possibly turn this thing into a touchscreen jukebox. If not, I'll probably sell it on ebay or something. It's a decent computing experience overall. Flash runs smooth in full screen. The internal speakers are ok. The screen is obviously small, but I don't think it's annoying. I might try and run Windows 7 on it. Stay tuned for the benchmarks.

XP vs. Windows 7 RTM on the Eee PC 901

2009-08-18T18:38:00.009-04:00

In a previous installment, I posted some preliminary benchmarks for Windows 7 RC vs. XP. Based on the feedback I received, it seems that people are interested in this sort of thing, so I thought I'd continue with it. I recently got a hold of the RTM (release to manufacturing) build of Windows 7 Ultimate, so here goes.

As previous, I'm dual booting XP and 7 across a Runcore 32GB SSD (PATA) on the 901 for ease of comparison, and because I wasn't ready to stop using XP altogether on my 901 because it runs really well and I'm very happy with it. This 901 has 2GB RAM (up from 1GB stock). Installed is the 2103 BIOS (official) that fixes the black screen video issue in Windows 7. Windows 7 RTM default drivers are installed except for ACPI (from Asus) and Aero is enabled. SuperHybridEngine is installed and set to Super High Performance mode for both. XP has all the latest official drivers running. Both have all Windows Updates installed. PassMark PerformanceTest 7.0 was used for the PassMark scoring.

Conclusion

Windows 7 RTM seems to have closed the performance gap quite a bit on XP in the latest build, especially in the areas of CPU and Memory benchmarks. My results last round did not have SHE enabled in the Windows 7 side, so that might explain it. Plus I'm using a different PassMark version. SSD performace is still great on Win7, which is very good to hear. What I take away from this is that XP is overall going to give a user the better Windows Experience of the two, but Windows 7 is now a viable netbook OS.

Coming up next... XP vs. Windows 7 on the Eee PC 701SD.

XP vs. Windows 7 on the Eee PC 901

2009-07-05T18:24:00.013-04:00

I recently started playing around with Windows 7 on my Asus Eee PC 901. I had read that I could get it running smoothly if I upgraded the 901 to 2GB RAM, and since I was already running an upgraded RunCore SSD, I figured I'd invest $20 or so and give it a go. I'm actually very impressed with the performance of Windows 7 on my netbook. More on that later.

I thought people might find it useful to see a few performance benchmarks comparing Windows XP to Windows 7. Windows 7 seems to be the proper heir to XP, as most IT professionals and end users have written off Vista as crap. I'm dual booting XP and 7 across a Runcore 32GB SSD (PATA) on the 901 for ease of comparison, and because I wasn't ready to stop using XP altogether on my 901 because it runs really well and I'm very happy with it.

These benchmarks are not scientific. They are merely presented as a rough guide to how XP and Win7 run on a netbook. This 901 has 2GB RAM (up from 1GB stock). Installed is the 2103 BIOS (official) that fixes the black screen video issue in Windows 7. Windows 7 RC default drivers are installed except for video (Intel Vista drivers) and Aero is enabled. XP has all the latest official drivers running. Both have all Windows Updates installed. PassMark PerformanceTest 6.1 was used for the PassMark scoring.

Conclusion

Windows 7 actually shows modest gains on XP in SSD performance. This wasn't surprising, given the press coverage that has been dedicated to this very topic. However, this is where Windows 7's dominance ends. XP bests it in every other measurable way on the 901. Having said that, I really like Windows 7. It just feels right. It has all the new bells and whistles that we've been clamouring for from Microsoft for years. The included update of Windows Media Center is great. If I was forced to, I could switch over to 7 from XP without losing my mind. Thankfully, I'm not.

PS3 Media Server Continued...

2009-06-29T08:46:00.003-04:00

My initial reaction to the PS3 Media Server has been right on so far. I tried streaming a variety of HD-encoded movies to my PS3 over wired and wireless connections. Only videos with the lowest HD bitrates will stream seamlessly over 802.11g, which makes perfect sense. G-woreless does not have the bandwitdth for that amount of data. 802.11n might work, but I don't have any N-based equipment to test on. The wired connection, however, streamed like a dream. This is a 100Base-T connection, not gigabit. I was able to stream every movie I had without hiccups, including an uncompressed Blu-ray rip, complete with 5.1 surround, which I'm pretty sure was the Dolby lossless primary audio track. All in all, very impressive. I should add that proper decoding/demuxing for streaming requires a newer PC to do the heavy lifting. I have a Core 2 Duo (3 GHz)-based system that decodes/demuxes an uncompressed Blu-ray using 75% CPU. Hardware a bit lesser than this should work fine, but not to much lower. If your living room is lacking an HD streamer, but not a PS3, and you have PC with newer hardware, then PS3 Media Server is where it's at.

PS3 Media Server: Streaming HD at last!!!

2009-06-26T11:03:00.006-04:00

I've had a PlayStation 3 since December. While I enjoy watching Blu-ray movies on it, I'll admit I don't use it for much else, as I'm not a huge gamer. The game that I play the most is Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, and that's a vintage remake and a download. Torrent sites are flush with HD rips of movies and TV shows, but my HTPC is standard definition only at this point. I've been looking for a way to stream these downloads to my HDTV wirelessly with minimal hassle. Enter PS3 Media Server. This is exacly what I was looking for. PMS (an unfortunate acronym, I know) allows me to stream any HD content from my PC to my PS3 with minimal overhead in perfect quality, including surround sound. I highly recommend this for all HD streaming. Setup is a snap. I haven't tried to stream very high bitrate stuff yet, like a lossless Blu-ray rip. I have a feeling that my existing Wireless-G setup will choke on it, but we'll see. A more through review is coming soon.

Move over, Zotac. ASRock is here.

2009-06-18T09:01:00.003-04:00

TweakTown reviewed the coming soon ASRock Ion 330-BD nettop system. This seems to be a nice alternative to my having to build a Zotac Mini-ITX system for a homebrew HD video recorder/streamer. If I can buy something off the shelf that meets my needs, I totally would and do. My previous and current desktop systems are ASRock-based, and they're an Asus brand, which definitely counts for something. Expectations are high here. Overclocking is no big thing with this unit, and power consumption is way low. No word on Flash video performance, though. Not a huge deal, but I'd like to see it. I bet overclocking this thing to 2.1GHz alleviates much of the stutter issue. Anyway, we're waiting for a more thorough review(s).

Blu-ray ISO's are the way to go.

2009-06-16T10:05:00.004-04:00

I recently built a new PC for general use. It's the first Blu-ray capable PC I've ever owned, and man, is it sweet. I have a PlayStation 3 already, and since I enjoy the HD movie experience so much, I thought I'd try my hand at ripping a Blu-ray movie. My goal is to preserve the entire disc in full quality via the .iso format, just as I'm accustomed to doing with DVDs. This is very easy to do with AnyDVD HD. It's basically a 2-click solution. The question remains though: how does one playback a Blu-ray .iso file? PowerDVD 9 Ultra, the king of software Blu-ray playback, won't touch it. Nor will VLC. Enter a freeware solution: Virtual CloneDrive. Brought to you by SlySoft, the makers of AnyDVD. This software allows one to mount a virtual optical drive from any .iso file, including Blu-ray rips. Awesome. PowerDVD plays very nicely with a virtual drive. So there you go. But can you stream it? Don't know. Haven't tried. I actually don't have the means to test that one out at the moment. Stay tuned.

Streaming Videos to the Wii

2009-06-04T11:34:00.007-04:00

After having successfully hacked a Wii a couple weeks ago, I managed to get wireless video streaming working as well last night. I was able to stream just about every movie file format (with the exception of a DVD .iso file) from a Vista PC to the Wii over wifi. The app I used was MPlayer CE, available via the Homebrew Channel. Not too shabby. Mplayer supports Windows shares, which makes life easy. Video quality was adequate. It would be improved significantly if we were using the Wii component cables. For those looking for a way to view downloaded movies and TV on your Wii from a PC, this is currently the best way that I've seen. There are other media streamers that work with the Wii, like Orb, but they require transcoding to Flash, which degrades video quality significantly and takes extra CPU cycles.

I Hacked a Wii

2009-05-22T08:30:00.004-04:00

Last night, I managed to successfully hack a Nintendo Wii for the first time. By that, I mean I installed the Homebrew Channel via the Bannerbomb (google it) exploit. I really underestimated the maturity and sophistication of this hack. Simply loading a few files on an SD card unlocked the full potential of the Wii. The Homebrew Channel has downloadable utilities, homebrew games, emulators, media players, and every other doodad that you wished the Wii legitimately had. It couldn't be easier to use. If you have a Wii, I highly suggest you consider modding it like this. I was so impressed that I might actually have to buy a Wii myself.

Atom/Ion Mini-ITX w/ DC 90W? YEE-HAW!!!

2009-05-12T14:44:00.008-04:00

Big news. Hothardware (and others) has a review of the new Zotac IONITX-A Mini-ITX motherboard. This beauty has the Atom 330 and the Nvidia Ion integrated graphics chipset for maximum HD 1080p awesomeness. As of now, this has dethroned the Eee Box B208 as my next PC/HTPC. To summarize, this board will do HD video and audio, 802.11n wifi, and has all the ports you'd ask for. And FANLESS!!! Granted, it'll get pretty hot if not properly ventilated, but still. I read elsewhere that maximum power consumption is < 50W!!! All hail the new king of HTPCs.

Only one question remains: what case do I put it in?

The future of digital content

2009-05-08T16:37:00.004-04:00

At this point in time, the Internet is the Wild West of entertainment. Anything goes. There are no real rules to speak of. Anyone with a computer can download any book, magazine, newspaper, software, movie, song, album, TV show, etc. in any quality they want for free. While it's not completely obvious about how to do this, especially for the non-tech savvy laymen and laywomen, anyone willing to put a little time into it can figure out how to get whatever they want pretty quickly. This is a major problem for media creators, distributors, and, yes, consumers, even the ones downloading illegally.

Content owners have no way of policing the Internet for copyright infringement. ISPs (Internet Service Providers) don't either. So, how are the the content owners and creators going to get paid for their work so that they can continue creating/distibuting content if anyone can get everything for free right now? As I see it, there is really only one way: Everyone pays a little. All the digital content owners and creators, from the big guys to the individuals, are going to have to come together with ISPs, world leaders, and consumers in order to come up with a fair way of charging everyone with an Internet connection some small amount, which then gets distributed amongst the content owners and distributors, again, in some fair way. In exchange for this fee, the consumers get to download/keep/stream/redistribute anything and everything out there, sort of like an unlimited Netflix/iTunes/Kindle subscription. We would have powerful devices in our home hooked up to our TVs/stereos, and handheld devices for the road that are capable of accessing every digital anything ever. Storage shouldn't be an issue either, because eventually we'll all be streaming everything live. Imagine if you lost your iPod. Yeah, you'd have to buy another one, but you'd never lose any content. It's always all there. In the clouds.

Unless we all come together to discuss a solution like this, then we'll soon be forced to realize the hard truth that no one is going to get paid what they deserve for the content that they've created.

Eee Box B206 reviewed. Verdict: Meh.

2009-05-07T15:46:00.004-04:00

UK site Register Hardware has a review up for the Eee Box B206. Leading up to this point, the B206 was supposed to be the first killer nettop because of its discrete HD graphics. Apparently it handles 720p sometimes and 1080p never. Lame. Asus, why did you ship this thing with an HDMI if you can't play full HD vids on it? Did you not know that the entire geek world has been clamoring for this since forever? To play devil's advocate, VLC and Quicktime do not offload to video cards, so the CPU does all the heavy lifting. If all video apps supported this, we might be saying 720p rules on the B206. Well, hopefully the B208 packs a little more punch when it's released.

Yet another 901 use: HD Audio Recorder

2009-05-05T16:35:00.003-04:00

As I've written about many times, my Asus Eee PC 901 is about the best and most useful tech toy I ever bought. I use it for checking email and surfing the web from the road. I watch (standard definition) movies on it in perfect quality. I use XBMC to stream my music collection anywhere in my apartment, including to my bedroom stereo. I play emulated old school video games on it. Recently I found another use for it: recording HD audio. I tested out the line/mic 1/8" input on the 901 for recording audio at 24-bit/96KHz by sending it some high-quality flac recordings I had laying around. The results were so good, I couldn't even tell the difference between the original source and the recording. Even though it might seem like a measly analog stereo input, the 901 is packing the Realtek ALC662 audio chipset. This chipset can capture and decode HD audio like a champ. This is great for podcasting, recording lectures, or for recording concerts, assuming you can get the 901 in the door. If you're considering a netbook purchase and haven't looked at the 901, do yourself a favor and give it a look.

My next project: Wind Power

2009-04-29T09:06:00.005-04:00

I bought a Thermor BIOS Wireless Weather Station For PC the other day from Woot.com. Should be delivered today. The goal is to set this puppy up on top of my buddy's garage in order to determine if there is enough wind to feasibly power the meager electrical needs of his garage. This includes (for now) a few light bulbs, and maybe a radio and saw. All I need is this, a PC, and 3 months worth of patience to collect data. Assuming it works, this is the first step of my master plan to become familiar enough about wind power systems that I might be able to make some money doing related contract work in my community. Stay tuned for more as this develops.

Eee Box B208: It's BACK!!! Woo-hoo!!!

2009-04-27T14:36:00.008-04:00

Oh happy day. Asus re-announced the PC I've been waiting for: the Eee Box B208. No word yet on price or availability, but they seem to have updated the specs:

The only thing that looks different from before is that the B208 does not have an internal UPS (battery backup). While this is pretty lame, I have to say that I'm pretty excited about the impending release of this machine, and the clones that are sure to follow from other manufacturers.

Uh, maybe not.

2009-04-17T12:20:00.005-04:00

Tax Day came and went, but neither the Eee Box B204 nor B206 was released in the U.S. So much for taking Asus at their word. Stay tuned for more on this.

Eee Box B204/B206 U.S. Release Date: April 15

2009-04-10T14:21:00.004-04:00

Looks like eco-nerds in America will actually have something to celebrate on Tax Day this year. I called Asus' US Sales department and asked them when the Eee Box B204/B206 will be released. Their answer: April 15. Finally. No word on price, though. This gets the ball rolling for nettops with HD graphics chipsets. Asus is once again ahead of the game. I'm probably going to hold out for their nettop with a 330 dual core chip (B208?). Either way, hooray for Asus.

Atom 330: The future of Green PC's.

2009-04-01T22:48:00.010-04:00

My Asus Eee PC 901 is the first Intel-based system that I've ever owned (all others were AMD-based). As I've mentioned before on this blog, I'm more that pleased with the amount of punch the 901 packs with such a tiny carbon footprint. By that I mean that it sips electricity instead of gulping it like other larger notebooks. The 901 is powered by the Atom N270, the most common chip in netbooks today. What this chip can accomplish with 4W of power is staggering. Even though the N270 netbooks use the crappy GMA 950 graphics chipset and slow hard drives or solid state drives (upgradable), I'm still digging them.

Sometime this year, the netbooks and nettops of the world will be transitioning from the N270 to the Atom 330 (8W power consumption), which is, for all intents and purposes, a dual core N270. This means that low-power, or green, systems will be on par with some desktops with regard to overall throughput. While this is rather rad in and of itself, many vendors like Asus and Dell plan on combining the 330 with a discreet graphics chipset like the new Nvidia Ion or the ATI HD 3000 or 4000 series. Oh my. That means that we can have green PC's with twice the CPU power and 10 TIMES the graphics muscle, AKA full 1080P video decoding, AND 10 TIMES less power consumption than a full size desktop, at a miniscule price? Wow. It's gonna be a good summer.

My Future Touchscreen Jukebox: Eee Top

2009-03-29T19:46:00.007-04:00

We all have dreams. One of mine is to have a touchscreen jukebox hanging on the wall of a room where I'm hosting a party. Just like in so many bars. This particular dream of mine came one step closer to reality a short while ago when Asus released the Eee Top. (Side note: Asus, in my opinion, is second only to Apple in the amount of original, innovative and downright amazing PC-related devices released in the last couple years. Keep up the good work, Asus.) The plan is thus: get one of these beauties and install any one of a number of touchscreen jukebox programs so that my future party guests can boogie down to their own soundtrack, ensuring good times and smiling faces.

At less than $600 (and sure to fall quickly), one can have an all-in-one XP touchscreen machine that looks great to boot. Here's the specs:

Nice. What more can you ask for? As soon as these babies hit $300 (I'm guessing December), I'm all over it.

mp3HD: You're kidding, right?

2009-03-27T10:55:00.006-04:00

This has to be the dumbest idea I've heard in a while. The genuises at Thomson decided that instead of audio software and device manufacturers supporting the numerous existing lossless audio codecs we have (FLAC, ALAC, WMA Lossless, etc.) in addition to mp3, that it would be a good idea to take mp3s and their lossless counterparts and COMBINE THEM into one gargantuan file! They say MAXIMUM COMPATIBILITY!

Hello? Disk space calling Thomson.

Why the hell can't device manufacturers support mp3 AND a lossless format. It doesn't really matter which lossless format. Hell, some already do support lossless, including the iPod. Computationally, to decode a lossless format, its trivial. It may suck slightly more juice than an mp3, but battery technology is only getting better. One could argue for the mp3HD format by saying that disk space is getting cheaper and that the overall size per file is not that much bigger. I'd counter that by saying that people's music collections are also growing, and a 20% increase per file adds up. We aren't carrying around terabyte disks in our pockets, OK? All this, and mp3HD requires a new plugin for PCs and a new firmware update for portables. Not compatible? FAIL FAIL FAIL!!!!

Prediction: this format sinks faster than a lead submarine.

Further proof of Logitech's Awesomeness: Harmony-to-PS3 Adapter

2009-03-23T10:05:00.003-04:00

As reported here, Logitech is once again making my life easier. One of the downsides to owning a PlayStation 3 as I do is that the remote/controllers are bluetooth and not IR like every other remote on the planet. Well, soon this won't be a problem anymore. The little beauty you see above is an adapter that will translate IR to bluetooth for all Harmony remotes. The rumor is that it won't even require a USB port, but this seems far fetched, as USB would be a nice way to at least power the device. Either way, I once again can use 1 remote to rule them all.

Google Video Chat: It Mostly Works

2009-03-19T13:12:00.005-04:00

I've had a Gmail account since the day Google announced them. I use it mainly as my "other" email address, and for various Google services. My girlfriend has one as well, and uses hers daily. As I've mentioned here before, I have an Asus Eee PC 901, which has, among other things, a 1.3MP webcam. My girlfriend just got an Apple MacBook Pro, which also has a webcam. I thought it would be fun/useful to try out Google's Video Chat. Especially when communicating with loved ones, sometimes the phone just doesn't cut it.

After installing a few browser plugins, and then reloading our respective browsers, we were both able to see and speak to one another. Both of our machines also have internal microphones, so there was no need for a bulky external mic for either of us. Audio was surpisingly clear for both parties. Video was a bit pixelated. This is to be expected, as my webcam's 1.3MP is not exactly stellar. Ambient light in the room where the machine is located makes all the difference. If you're in a dark room, it's hard to make out the other person. Turn on a few lights, and all is well.

The only feature that did not work for me was full screen video. It was very pixelated/blurry and often froze up, causing me to have to return to windowed mode. However, I'd say that Google Video Chat is, for the most part, very usable. It's a great free option for video chatting. Give it a try.

Asus Un-Announces Eee Box B208

2009-03-17T10:45:00.004-04:00

Asus just destroyed my hopes and dreams for a low-powered, low-profile dual core HD HTPC. The listing for the Eee Box B208 has disappeared from their site. Hopefully, this won't be a permanent deletion. Asus, if you're listening, give the people what the want, ney NEED.

My future HD DVR: Asus Eee Box B208

2009-03-11T12:53:00.006-04:00

Asus just announced this wonderful little toy a couple days ago. Frankly, I've been waiting for a PC like this for a long time. There are several Eee Boxes on the market, but they're pretty low-end for everyday desktop usage. The newly annouced B208 has the following specs (from event.asus.com):

Wow. Where do I start? Finally, something that I can use to stream 1080p HD content into my living room. And at 36W, it draws 90% less power than either of my existing low-end frankenstein systems. AND I can finally get rid of my power-sucking UPS units. If this things steps in below the $500 price point, I may buy two. This is, of course, assuming that it passes 1080p benchmarks upon release. It even comes with a remote. I love you, Asus.

Logitech Harmony 550: One remote to rule them all!

2009-03-10T09:30:00.005-04:00

Most people have more than just a TV and cable box in their living rooms. Most have some combination of a stereo, TiVo/DVR, video game console(s), DVD player, etc. Each of these devices undoubtedly comes with its own remote. I personally had 7 remotes at one point. One day I decided that 7 remotes was for the birds and that I need a universal remote. I didn't want to spend a lot, and I wanted a device that I could use in the dark and that would be future proof. Enter the Logitech Harmony 550. Let me say, firstly, that I love Logitech. They're famous for making keyboards and mice for PC's. Their products are high in quailty and usability and low in price. They have yet to let me down. So, it made perfect sense to look at their remote controls as well. Across the net, you'll find very few bad reviews of the 550 remote. It supports literally every IR device ever made, and comes with software that is updated daily for new devices. It is very easy to program, as the software is designed for novices and pros alike. It uses "activites" to combine commands in order to achieve some functional result, like "turn on TV, then cable, then Tivo, in that order." It has a backlit display and buttons for night use. It has customizable buttons that you can map to any 1 command or series of commands for any items(s). In short, there is nothing you can't do with this thing. It controls my TV, DVR, Receiver, DVD Player, Xbox, PS3, and Cable Box. Put 4 rechargable AAA's in it and never buy remote batteries again. Logitech makes more expensive versions of this remote with many more bells and whistles, but this one is really all you need. Highly recommended.

Mac OS X "Leopard" on the Asus EeePC 901?

2009-03-04T21:00:00.013-05:00

I'm not a huge Mac fan. I find their software to be limiting and overly simplistic and their hardware way overpriced. That being said, there are certain things that Macs do well. Anything dealing with multimedia, for one. So, I thought it would be a fun project to see if I could get Mac OS X running on my favorite toy, my EeePC 901. Apparently, I'm not alone. The interwebs are chock full of tutorials about how to do this. The guide that I used, which I found to be the most comprehensive, is EEEmac. I obtained a "Leopard" retail disc via the usual channels, and simply followed the guide. You can see the results in the above images.

Overall, the process was a success. Software-wise, everything is fully operational. OS X is (un)officially running on my 901. I have the OS running on a 32GB RunCore SSD drive, so its pretty damn fast. Hardware is a different story. The system doesn't always shutdown, boot, or wake up correctly. Lots of holding down the power button involved. The camera and ethernet are not working yet (no drivers). There is a Unix (FreeBSD) ethernet driver here, but porting it to Mac is outside my scope.

So, I have a Mac netbook. Sounds weird. I may try it out for a couple weeks. I can't see ditching XP altogether, though. I really can't understand why Apple has yet to release a netbook. They'd sell a million of them on the first day. There is currently and will be a market for the netbook form factor for years to come. Smarten up, Apple. Get with the times.

Windows Media Center: Way to go, Microsoft!

2009-02-28T10:42:00.010-05:00

Microsoft has gotten a lot of flack over the years for their software. Windows 98, Me, XP, Vista, Office, Outlook, Internet Explorer, you name it, people have dumped on it for one reason or another. However, some bits of code the Microsoft churns out work like a charm. XP Pro SP2 comes to mind. It's been stable for me for years. Even rarer yet, some MS apps are total game-changers, meaning they are so useful that they change the way we use computers. In my humble opinion, one of these applications is Windows Media Center.

About 2 years ago, I decided that I wanted to build a DVR (Digital Video Recorder) to record my favorite TV shows and movies. I could have opted for my cable company's bundled DVR/cable box, but I found it lacking in features and too pricy. Besides, building a PC is fun for tinkerers like me. I could tailor it to be exactly what I wanted. So, I bought the parts, assembled it, and ran GB-PVR as my media center front-end software. It was a little buggy, but a very good (free) solution overall. When I switched to Verizon FiOS, I found out the hard way that my cable box was not supported under GB-PVR, so I needed an alternative. Enter Windows XP Media Center Edition.

XP MCE has a clean, easy to use interface. It has a program guide for every TV service in America, hosted by Microsoft and available for free. It has the ability to record in Mpeg2, so the quality is there. Record reruns and/or broadcast premiers with ease. It has the ability to stream your audio and video from network shares, and organize them in a nice, presentable fashion, including tags, descriptions and cover art.

One thing that it is lacking is automatic commercial skip. However this is available with a 3rd-party plugin called DVRMSToolbox. One hardware requirement is the MS proprietary "Media Center" remote. The XP version is no longer made, but is available from eBay for about $30. The XP version of Media Center is being phased out in favor of the Vista version. Even though Vista is, by and large, crap, the Media Center component is even better and more robust than the XP version, or so I've heard. I haven't played with Vista Media Canter at all yet, but reviews I've read are very positive. Also, there's no native HD recording or Blu-ray support in either version of Windows Media Center yet.

If you're looking to roll your own DVR, or you have an older PC that needs a new use, I highly recommend giving XP MCE a go. It's usable, reliable, clean, low maintenance, and cheap. You won't be sorry.

Phosphor Trails: Scourge of the Plasma

2009-02-24T21:40:00.010-05:00

This post is not mod-related as such; It's more of a rant. In October, I purchased a Panasonic Viera TH-42PZ85U Plasma Television from Amazon. One of the caveats about owning an HDTV is that it requires quite a bit of time to tweak picture settings in order to ensure that your TV is giving you the best possible picture. In the proceeding months, I've fiddled with the various settings, like color, contrast, brightness, and even used a THX calibration disc and blue filter glasses in order to calibrate my set for optimal viewing from all of my sources (FiOS, DVD, PS3/Blu-Ray, DVR, Xbox). Overall, I've been quite happy with my Panny.

However, in recent months, I've noticed a very disturbing and annoying trend occuring in my TV: phosphor trails. These are green or blue trails that are left behind a moving object in a high contrast scenario. It occurs, as I understand it, because plasma pixels cannot shift directly from black to white, or vice versa. They have a brief green or blue phase in between. An example of this might be a hockey game that has players with dark jerseys on a white ice background. This scenario is plagued by phosphor trails on my TV. The players leave streaks as they move across the rink. I love hockey, and this is a major issue for me. Another example might be a movie or TV show where a person with light skin is moving through a dark room. This scenario is even worse for me. Light objects on dark background leave horrible green trails and are physically taxing on my eyes. Video games often have high contrast scenarios like this, and this effect is present in many that I own.

The video above is not my TV, but shows what I've been dealing with. Unfortunately, I don't have a video camera capable of accurately depicting this phenomenon. On the cheap point-n-shoot I have, the effect is far worse than it appears in person. Nevertheless, I'm very close to selling my TV, cutting my losses and getting a Samsung LN46A650 LCD. I know that I may just be trading one issue for another, as LCD's have problems of their own, but I've just about had it. If a representative from Panasonic is reading this, please contact me, as I would love to remedy this somehow.

Navi-X + XBMC = Streaming Bliss

2009-02-22T18:19:00.020-05:00

If you were to ask around, you'd find that more and more people are getting their news and entertainment content from the Internet, and many from Internet-only sources, like podcasts and Internet radio. There are lots of Internet-only TV shows out there. Some of the bigger players in the streaming game are G4TV, Revision3, NPR, CollegeHumor, YouTube, and Apple Trailers just to name a few. It would be nice if there was a place that all of the popular streaming content on the Internet could be found under one roof with an attractive and customizable user interface.

Enter Navi-X, a script (plugin) for XBMC. I've mentioned XBMC, the open source media center powerhouse, several times on this blog before. Navi-X is a small downloadable app that allows me to stream all of my favorite shows, audio and video for playback on my TV. Installation is plug and play. Simply dump it into XBMC's "Scripts" directory, and it's installed. From there, browse to it in XBMC's Scripts browser. Not only can I stream all of my favorite shows and podcasts, I can download the streams for offline playback and cataloguing, if desired. I can also create my own "playlists" of streaming content, where I can share my favorite streaming media with other Navi-X users.

The shows I watch the most via Navi-X are Revision3's Systm, Tekzilla and G4TV's Gadget Pron. Sometimes I'll check out Apple Trailers, which is a great place to look at upcoming films, although the standalone Apple Movie Trailers plugin for XBMC is arguably better. Overall, I'm more than satisfied with Navi-X's streaming abilities. I highly recommend this app to any current or would-be XBMC users that need a neat and convenient way to access streaming content in their living room.

EeePC 901 SSD Face-Off (Part 2): RunCore vs. Phison (SLC)

2009-02-19T07:10:00.011-05:00

This is Part 2 of my EeePC 901 SSD Face-Off, where I compare various SSD drives for the Asus EeePC 901 (20G) Linux. Part 1 can be found here. In this installment, I compare the RunCore 32GB (MLC) drive against the stock Phison 4GB (SLC) drive. Going into the testing for this, I was assuming that the Phison was gonna get smoked across the board by the RunCore. Turns out that I was only partially correct.

About the Benchmarks

As I mentioned in Part 1, these benchmarks are not scientific. I didn't try and clone the drives, or assure that they all had the exact same services and apps running during testing. However, I did attempt to make the runtime scenarios as similar as possible. This time, we are comparing NTFS to NTFS to even the playing field. Both machines contained the following:

-Windows XP Professional SP3
-All Windows Updates
-BIOS 1808 (latest)
-"Super Performance" mode a.k.a. full CPU speed
-Latest device drivers

Results

I found these results very surprising. With the exception of Hibernate and Shutdown, The Phison holds its own. Of course, the RunCore still tops the Phison across the board, but it was a much closer race than the Phison 16GB (MLC). Based on these results, one might actually be able to tolerate Windows XP as a system parition on this SSD.

Now this is more along the lines of what I expected from the 4GB Phison. Again, I used PassMark PerformanceTest 6.1 on both drives to evaluate disk speed. All of the other tests in the benchmarking suite, i.e. 2D, 3D, RAM, CPU, etc., were statisically insignficant between the 2 drives. The RunCore, once again, makes the Phison look silly. Even though these are not "real-world" tasks that are running, these benchmarks do allow for the technical limitations of the Phison drive to be seen clearly. The Phison 4GB has a modest gain in Disk scores over the 16GB drive, but neither can touch the RunCore drive.

Conclusion

If you want speed, in both real-world and extreme scenarios, and capacity for your Asus EeePC 901, all at a very reasonable price, then RunCore SSD's are for you. They significantly outperform both of the stock Phison drives in every measurable way. RunCore SSD's are available from MyDigitalDiscount.

If there should be a Part 3 to this series, I'm open to suggestions for topics.

EeePC 901 SSD Face-Off (Part 1): RunCore vs. Phison

2009-02-15T15:36:00.054-05:00

In July 2008, I purchased an Asus EeePC 901 (20G) Linux netbook, pretty much the day it came out. Since then, it has accompanied me on trips long and short, and has been what I consider to be a wise purchase. However, the 901 is not without its shortcomings. The 901 Linux has 2 SSDs, or solid state disks, both made by Phison: a 4GB (SLC) and a 16GB (MLC). Both SSDs have slow read/write speeds, with the 16GB being the slower of the two. Out of the box, the 901 is a Linux machine, running a Xandros variant. I liked this OS, but I wanted to use Windows XPon the machine as well. So the day I got it, I decided to dual-boot Linux and Windows. Until recently, I had the 4GB running Linux and the 16GB running XP. Linux was slow but usable. I've since removed the Linux partition, leaving only XP on the 16GB. I found the read speeds to be tolerable on XP, but the writes were downright painful. Thankfully, 3rd party manufacturers recently began releasing faster replacement SSDs for netbooks. One of these makers is RunCore. Somehow, RunCore has managed to produce the fastest AND cheapest replacement SSDs for netbooks like the EeePC and the Dell Inspiron mini 9. Last week, I bought a 32GB MLC replacement for the 16GB Phison, and installed XP on it. I ran some common tasks and a commercial benchmark suite, and I immediately saw returns on my investment. The results of the tests, shown below, are breathtaking.

About the Benchmarks

These benchmarks are not scientific. I didn't try and clone the drives, or assure that they all had the exact same services and apps running during testing. However, I did attempt to make the runtime scenarios as similar as possible. The one "apples-to-oranges" issue would be that the Phison was formatted FAT32 and the RunCore was formatted NTFS. I used FAT32 on the Phison because FAT32 has a smaller block size and does not use journaling or the other more advanced write-intensive features of NTFS. On a systems with slow write speeds, this seemed to make sense. Both machines contained the following:

-Window XP Professional SP3
-All Windows Updates
-BIOS 1808 (latest)
-"Super Performance" mode a.k.a. full CPU speed
-Latest device drivers

Results

These are the common tasks I chose to look at. Number 3 is a cold startup timed from button press to right after the sound drivers load, but before the network (wireless) drivers load. Number 5 is copying and pasting a 98Mb zip file.

I used PassMark PerformanceTest 6.1 on both drives to evaluate disk speed. All of the other tests in the benchmarking suite, i.e. 2D, 3D, RAM, CPU, etc., were statisically insignficant between the 2 drives. As you can see, the Disk tests yielded far different results.

Conclusion

The results speak for themselves, I think. The bottom line is that the RunCore SSD destroyed the stock Phison disk in every measurable way. Some of the results are so extreme, they're practically laughable. In short, adding a RunCore SSD to your EeePC 901 will turn it into the machine you wished it was out of the box. I'll go so far as to say that it makes the 901 useful for more than just web browsing, which in the realm of today's netbooks is really saying something. RunCore SSDs are available from MyDigitalDiscount.

Not sure what Part 2 of this article will be. Could be Phison NTFS vs. FAT32. Could be Phison SLC vs. RunCore. Ether way, Part 2 will be coming soon. If you have strong feelings about what you'd like to see given what you've just read, feel free to comment.

Cell Phone + Memory Card = Portable Hard Drive

2009-02-09T18:43:00.009-05:00

This one isn't a true "mod," but more of an "upgrade." Some of you may have a phone with a slot for a memory card. I personally have an LG enV2. Among this phone's many amazing features is a memory card slot for microSD and microSDHC cards, supporting capacities up to 8GB! This means that if I was to purchase an 8GB microSDHC card, then I could have a portable hard drive, right in my pocket. To put that in perspective, I could fit tens of thousands of pictures, thousands of mp3s, or seven 2-hour movies in AVI format, all right in my pocket. I can use Bluetooth or a Micro USB Cable in order to transfer files back an forth between the phone and any Mac or PC. This phone also allows me to take pictures and movies and store them on the memory card. I could literally shoot movies every day for the life of the phone and never fill the card. Many LG phones support these same features. I love the enV2 for its full QWERTY keyboard, great battery life, bluetooth, memory expandability, large screen and overall ease of use. If you don't have an enV2 or other LG phone, upgrading your phone's card memory is a very cheap (less than $20) and very easy way to get more out of your technology.

Turn a $40 router into a $100 Wifi powerhouse

2009-02-08T12:57:00.007-05:00

A problem that I had for a while was that I have wired devices, like my Media Center PC and my Xbox that are not wireless (B/G) enabled as such. I needed a way to give these devices network/Internet access without spending $100 or more to do so. After looking around, I stumbled upon DD-WRT, which is an open-source firmware for many of the common wireless routers around today. This software allows me to use my $40 (used) Linksys WRT54G Wireless-G Router and turn it into a 4-port wireless bridge, which would usually cost $100 or more to buy off the shelf. A wireless bridge is a device that acts as a network access point for wired devices, allowing them wireless network access, essentially "bridging" the gap between non-wifi devices and the network. DD-WRT has supported hardware listings so that you can see if your device is supported, and full installation instructions are also available. It's fast easy and free. Check it out.

XBMC Part 3: Install a bigger hard drive

2009-02-07T15:00:00.007-05:00

This particular mod is not directly related to XBMC, but will defintely upgrade your overall modded Xbox experience. The stock Xbox hard drive is only 8GB, which doesn't leave much room for adding Xbox games, emulators, roms, music, movies, videos, pictures, applications, and anything else you'd want to store on the Xbox itself. Adding a bigger hard drive is easy, and almost essential. Any IDE hard drive that can be "locked" in hardware will do the trick. To find out which ones will work, look here. Almost any Seagate will work, which is what I'd recommend. I am using this Seagate 250 GB Hard Drive.

To accomplish this mod, you need:

- A modded Xbox
- Torx screwdrivers/drill (gauges 5,10,20)
- A hard drive
- Xboxhdm software
- A PC supporting IDE drives
- A router

The basic procedure is:

1. Backup your eeprom to a file (eeprom.bin)
2. Transfer your Xbox C Drive (and E if nec.) to a PC via ftp
3. Use Xboxhdm to make a bootable linux iso CD
4. Open your PC and disconnect your existing hard drives
5. Connect only your new Xbox hard drive
6. Boot from the CD
7. Format the hard drive, then reboot to CD again
8. Lock the hard drive
9. Open your Xbox using Torx screwdrivers
10. Remove old hard drive, install new one
11. Close up the case and boot the Xbox
12. Hook you PC's hard drive(s) back up and boot

Rather than list the steps myself in detail, here is a great tutorial from Scenyx. There are many other tutorials out there, too. Good luck.

Unlock the power of your iPod with Rockbox

2009-02-05T18:04:00.005-05:00

Rockbox is an open source firmware for mp3 players that allows you to do many things with your player that the manufacturer doesn't support or allow. For example, I have an 80GB iPod Video. I also have lots and lots of digial music files, mainly in FLAC. My problem was that Apple does not support playback of FLAC files in iTunes or on iPods. Enter Rockbox. This alternate firmware (AKA iPod operating system) allows for the playback of FLAC files along with a plethora of other formats. Rockbox also frees my iPod from the death-grip of iTunes, which I find to be bloated, slow, and limiting software. Many other players are supported, including Archos, Cowon, Toshiba and Sandisk. I've been using it for about 2 years now, and it's just phenomenal. It plays video and pictures, and even records audio. It also comes with lots of games, has every hardware/software EQ, setting, and option you could think of, and is skinnable, meaning the player and its menus can look however you want them to. If you have an iPod or other supported player and you have music Apple doesn't support, or you just hate Apple but love the iPod, then Rockbox is for you.

XBMC Part 2: Setup and Installation

2009-02-04T11:01:00.013-05:00

The best and easiest way to get XBMC running in your living room is to start by obtaining the following:

- An original Xbox (optional: Xbox Remote)
- An Action Replay for Xbox
- A copy of the game MechAssault (original version, not Platinum Hits edition) for Xbox
- XBMC software for Xbox (obtain the latest T3CH release from torrent sites)
- Softmod Installer Deluxe (w/ MechAssault game save, obtain from torrent sites)
- A PC or Mac w/ a router to transfer files to over FTP

Rather than list all of the steps myself, I'll link to 2 excellent tutorials at Xbox-hq.com and LifeHacker.

I've also added a 250GB hard drive to my Xbox and a Xir remote module so that I can use the Xbox remote to power on/off the unit, which is not possible without. Here's all of the things I do with my modded Xbox:

(Via XBMC)

- Stream my entire music collection w/ artwork from my PC to my living room, then to my receiver. All music file types supported.
- Stream my movies/tv shows to my living room, similarly
- Show picture slide shows from my PC
- Watch internet television shows such as those from G4TV and Revision3
- Get weather forecasts from The Weather Channel
- Watch current movie trailers from Apple
- 720p HD resolution and digital Dolby/DTS supported (via adapter)

(Independent of XBMC)

- Store and play full Xbox games directly from the hard drive
- Store and play any/every game via emulators for the following systems: Atari 2600, Colecovision, Intellivision, NES, Gamboy, Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance, Super NES, Genesis, Sega Master, Game Gear, TurboGrafix-16, Arcade coin-ops, Playstation, Neo-Geo.
- Copy DVD movies to the hard drive for playback without the disc

Next up: Adding a bigger hard drive to the Xbox

I'll take XBMC in my living room, FTW.

2009-02-03T14:47:00.005-05:00

I've been using XBMC for the past few years as my "living room media center," in other words, the machine that allows me to view/hear all of my digital music, movies, photos and net-based content, among other things. I have XBMC installed on my modded Xbox. The software is free of charge and freely available from torrent sites, although it's only quasi-legal, as it contains code pilfered from Microsoft. However, despite its legal status, I've found it to be the perfect solution for people that are looking for a cheap, easy and user-friendly way to enjoy their digital media in a living room setting.

Modding an Xbox (the original one, not the 360) is not required, as the software is available for Windows, Mac and Linux as well, although the Xbox package is the cheapest and easiest way to get the job done. I'll cover modding installation and setup in my next post.