Interscription

Just goes to show you that sometimes buying a toy you don’t fully understand can bite you.

Yesterday my wife and I settled in front of our new Sony Bravia TV (purchased through PowersellerNYC…awesome customer service and prices <end_shameless_plug>) and decided to rent a movie from the Xbox Live Video Store. The movie was Death at a Funeral, a very funny story about British shenanigans at a funeral. Since I only had 440 Microsoft points left in my bank (and this wasn’t really a made-for-hi-def experience), I decided to rent the 480p standard definition version (the 720p high definition version was 480 MS points, and I didn’t feel like re-upping my bank. Incidently, Khidr and I will be doing an extensive gripefest about the M$ economy in another post, but on with the current story…).

• Read more: Reverse 3:2 pulldown, CineMotion, and how choppy video sucks

It was so very bad.

So, a few notes (which I’m sure several people have made throughout the Internet):

– The framerate is UNACCEPTABLE.  Sometimes the game runs well, sometimes it runs like a slideshow.  Let me be crystal on this: THERE IS NOTHING GOING ON IN THIS GAME THAT NECESSITATES A BAD FRAMERATE.  It is running on a version of the GRAW engine, and there is literally almost no AI and very few control options.  Add to that some fairly restrictive level design (even though you are on an island) and visuals that don’t raise the bar (and in some cases lower it), and this is an embarrassment of technology implementation.

• Read more: So I finished the Lost videogame

And so I arrive in the rather large state of Texas.  My sweetie and I have decided that there are too many whining sissies out there blubbering about how "dramatic" things can be, so we’re going to cram a few of these so-called "life changes" into one basket.  Not content with moving from the cold, barren wastelands of the North (well, Philly), we’re (naturally) changing jobs and housing, getting married, and having a son (who I continue to insist will be named Connor Warren, but that’s for another post).

• Read more: Austin, Welcome to Tim!

Continuing with my recap of 2007, I move on to the not so high points of the year; the things that sucked.

Some of the Lowlights of 2007:

• Read more: 2007 – The year that wasn’t.

So I’ve been stepping into the wild world of building a better pvr.  I currently have a Hava Wireless HD, and a Hauppauge 1600.  The Hava works wonderfully with Vista MCE, but short of some nasty registry magic, there’s no real way to have a stb tuner card and a direct line (much less two direct lines as the 1600 has), in MCE.  Even more striking is that VMC’s Qam support is limited to OCUR enabled cablelabs boxes, and the HD Homerun.  So, I had to find something to give me all of that dual tuner scheduled recording goodness I craved, and since I am officially broke thanks to purchasing the hardware, free was my budget. 

• Read more: no offense media portal guys

Tim: Thoughts on the Internet TV beta?

• Read more: Email Kung-Fu: Volume I, Internet TV Beta for Windows Media Center

Success can be a poison.  Everywhere I look in entertainment and technology, success is the agent of sloth.  I can’t think of a clearer example than Microsoft.  Their operating system has been atrophying for years, a product that is no doubt their flag ship, but nonetheless stands essentially unchallenged in the marketplace.

• Read more: The Sopranos Finale