i am a desktop user.  period.  … or am i?

i started my computing history of course with desktops since well they were more accessible than the early portables (ie uber crazy prices for the times for the early laptops).  the apple IIe to the powerpc to a packard-bell 75mhz to my first computer/laptop toshiba 133mhz.  i then built my first desktop system, an AMD Slot A, 900mhz Athlon and about 20+ more systems.

anywho, davak’s recent blogs about helping his dad find a new computer has me really rethinking my setup.  currently i run a rather older (well imo older, Athlon 64 x2 cpu, socket 939; 2gb ddr1, 1.5+TBs of space) desktop which really needs to be updated if not replaced all together.  i also have an even older Athlon 64 htpc setup that just sits and collects dust but yet would not be worth even trying to sell. 

so what do i do? 

davak posted a nice follow up on this, desktop vs laptop, which really got me thinking.

i know that if i go with a more powerful laptop i won’t just toss my current desktop setup in the trash or sell it for pennies on ebay.  as a computer user, i’ve definetely come of age recently ie am ’starting to get old’, hehe or so it seems.  work has become a bit more demanding and having a more portable solutions seems more viable.  however when i am at home though i do want to still be able to do the more powerful things i do normally with my desktop such as rendering 720p video i’ve created or just sd video rendering or basic web server/file server features. 

also as a side note, i saw the best buy deal this last weekend for a toshiba a205-s5825 laptop for a mere $450 and got one and am so far pretty impressed with it for the price.  so the price of a decent new laptop (non mac one that is) is within the 1000us dollars range, imo.  a decent desktop would prob cost me around the same price if i built new from scratch and did not reuse parts (which i prob would not).  yes, the desktop would by default be more powerful but i really do not plan to game on my pc. my main uses these days are hd content, video, music, productivity (office), photoshop, web work.

so.. what do i do?  hmmm… to be continued….

htpc, life, hd, geek, hardware, opinion, pc | 4 Comments »

as most PS3 owners are well aware, the second to last firmware update, v2.20, brought BD-Live to the Playstation3.

what is BD-Live you ask? BD-Live, also known as Blu-ray Disc Profile 2.0, allows compliant players to go online and retreive info/trailers about the movie.  During the heat of the nextgen format wars, HD-DVD used this feature as a selling point of HD-DVD however the Blu-ray camp later added the functionality w/the release of the 2.0 Bluray Disc Profile.

lets take a look at my Sixth Day Blu-ray disc and BD-Live in action on my Playstation3.

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ps3, fanboy, review, blu-ray, hd, culture, opinion, console, geek, gaming | 4 Comments »

This entry is one that i’ve been waiting to do for quite some time now.  Today i’ll will be pitting my PS3 up against my Home Theater PC(well, mine is a Frankenstein’d laptop w/o lcd, hehe).  

Sony has boasted about the PS3’s multimedia and computer-ish functionality since its launch in 2006, however can it really stand-up to a similarly priced HTPC?  Does the PS3 live up to its multimedia hype? 

Lets find out, read on for more and see the embedded video.

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ps3, hd, culture, htpc, fanboy, tv, review, life, geek, dvr, psp, web, hardware, vista, music, console, opinion, pc | 4 Comments »

yup, what was i thinking not taking a look at this app earlier when davak mentioned it in his blog….   handbrake is an all in one video converter program.  its for both apples and pcs and does basically all the major file types/device types from iphone to psp to ps3 to apple tv to x360 to quicktime..

anywho, handbrake is able to convert a dvd to a ps3 mp4 file in about 2 hours on my setup (2gb memory, athlon 64 dual core) the quality is very good and the consistency and stability is topnotch vs ps3 video 9.  i have not had the av sync problems i had w/PS3 video 9 (very annoying when the audio would get behind the video by a minute towards the end of some movies)

now if only i could put an even bigger hdd in my ps3! oh handbrake.. how i love thee..

htpc, ps3, osx86, iphone, x360, hd, geek, windows, mac, gaming, music, console, apple | 2 Comments »

Well, a new year means a new list!  its been a while since i’ve written about my PS3-wishlist of features (ingame XMB FTW!!! still of course at the top of everyone’s wishlist, along w/Home). 

i’ve always been told that once a person/thing stops receiving criticism is when you really have to start worrying about if people care anymore.  so in other words, i really care about my PS3 thus the creation of ‘wishlists’. 

again, most of the features i am wanting are related to using the PS3 more as the multimedia hub that sony originally was pushing for or dreamed of than the gaming aspects (since really games are the solution to that one, duh!).  lets get onto my PS3 wishlist, keep reading for the list!

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ps3, hd, fanboy, life, PlaystationStore, culture, geek, gaming, web, psp, opinion, console, hardware | 1 Comment »

Just this week, Walmart (one of the nations/worlds largest retailers, infoweek news link) has joined other big namers such as Best Buy, Target, Netflix and Blockbuster in supporting Blu-ray exclusively.

For those in the HD-DVD camp, this move almost seems to be the final blow to HD-DVD in the format wars giving Blu-ray the possible HD format TKO.

In my opinion; Sony forcing Blu-ray into the PS3 was probably one of the smarter moves vs Microsoft making the HD-DVD drive an optional, add-on accessory.  Nonetheless, Microsoft was not pushing HD-DVD as much as Sony and also did not have as much at stake since Toshiba was the main supporter/creator of HD-DVD and Sony the big pusher for Bluray.

So hopefully, we will see an upcoming  ‘THE FORMAT WAR IS OVER’ types of announcments/messages soon! :)   or the war could limp on but again, HD-DVD seems to be on life-support and we will see if Toshiba will be merciful and just pull the plug.

now lets get some more HD content out there and get those prices down so those people who ‘were waiting for a winner’ can get involved and force TV to go full HD!!  i predict HD market penetration to be very deep this year and we should start seeing more and more HDTVs in households and people finally giving into the HD upgrade.

Plus, almost a year from now the analog tv broadcasts go digital; do you have your converter yet?

fanboy, life, news, x360, ps3, hd, console, geek, culture, opinion | 4 Comments »

this year i’ve decided to take up a few of my older projects that i never really got very far on.  another one of those projects was ripping of all of my movies from dvd to a high-quality digital format, such as wmv-hd or divx-hd or mp4.  with the latest firmware updates adding support now for more of the HD formats such as divx and wmv, i figured i finally had a device which would be worthy of hosting my fav movies.  plus, i had previously converted a few movies to avi and mpg as a test and loved being able to quit out of a game and go into a movie. 

here’s a quick tip on how to get album art added to your music (sadly, it is a manual process but works pretty well and is done on the ps3).  read more to see the video.

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culture, hd, ps3, geek, console, hardware, gaming, music, pc | 9 Comments »

blu-ray and hd dvd formats have now been at war for about a year and half.  many have compared the latest formats war to one we saw just a few decades ago, vhs vs betamax.  so sony (main backer of blu-ray, prev of betamax) is no stranger in a format war, in actuality they really have been big backers/creators of other formats that succeeded (ms duo) and also failed (minidisc, umd??). while toshiba (main backer of hd dvd) is somewhat new in this regard but has some big backers such as microsoft and intel.   (wiki pages for bluray and hd dvd ).

the two formats are not compatible with each other and each has different storage capacities.  hd dvd offers single and dual layer disks w/max capacities of 15gb/30gb while blu ray offers 25gb/50gb.  both offer a similar encryption system to twarth unauthorized copying (usually requires using an hdcp hdmi connection).

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ps3, fanboy, xbox, hd, culture, opinion, console, geek, gaming | 1 Comment »

well, on tues night, my good ole internet and cable tv both went down.  in the past year or so i’ve had this happen off and on but usually a few hours later the signal would come back and i’d be good; if not i could usually wiggle the cables by the outlet enough to get it to work.

however, this time i had a feeling that i just needed to get the cabling to my apt redone.  so i called up comcast, setup a time for  them to swing out and took the day off (also had to get my work license, long story short i got a dwi but got it dropped to a careless). 

comcast sent out justin (a younger tech, about my age or so, worked 7 years or so in the industry) to take a look.  he replaced my inside jack and still had major connection problems/negative signal; after investigating some more he decided to run a totally new line to my apt.  we went and talked w/my apt management office and got access to the roof and got a new cable strung.  the cabling i had was prob from when the apts were built (the cable was dried out from water and sun and just being old).

after he finished running the cable and reconnecting, bam! internet was up and hd and cable was looking very crisp.  also, he suggested to use the Pass-Through setting on my Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300HD to get the best picture quality (prev i was using the upconvert-2) and i did notice a slight increase in quality of my hd channels.  however the quality boost may also be in part from the new cabling. 

so all in all, its good to have my tv and internet back.  evdo tethering was a great inbetween time solution but nothing beats good ole broadband.

now to call comcast and give justin some props! thanks dude!

life, tv, blogging, hd, web, culture, pc | 5 Comments »

well, one of my previous blogs about my PS3 mentioned how i was able to get HDMI and Digital Optical output at the same time and then how i wasn’t able to duplicate it. well, i think i have finally figured it out and mastered audio out on my PS3! hehe..

first things first, my setup.

• Olevia 237V LCD HDTV (1080i) connected to PS3 via HDMI cable only (no other audio cables from ps3 to tv)
• standard run of the mill Sony 5.1/DTS AV receiver connected to PS3 via Digital Optical Cable
• PS3 set to output all formats to Digital Optical (aac,dts,dolby,pcm). Movie/BD audio set to Bitstream.

what i’ve found out, atleast in my case, is that its the order in which i turn on my devices and how i turn off my ps3.

whenever i power off my PS3 when watching a movie (just have movie playing, hold PS button, turn off system) and then if i turn on my setup in this order i get both HDMI and Digital Optical sound on my PS3.

1. PS3
2. TV
3. Receiver

it almost seems like by doing this tricks the PS3 in its digital/drm rules of audio output.

i have now duplicated this 5 times in a row.. however, i do have to do the exact steps above to get it to work including power down the ps3 while in a movie/dvd.

also, this works ONLY with DVD movies, not Blu-ray movies

my youtube clip of it in action!

fanboy, tv, guides, ps3, hd, gaming, console, geek, hardware | 14 Comments »