Archive for March, 2006

HDMI 1.3 FUD

Posted by Blackstaffer in PS3 on March 29th, 2006

FUD = Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt

It’s something that Microsoft has traditionally been good at. Have a cool product? So Microsoft announces that someday sometime they might make something similar. Then your sales tank. Doh!

Well, there seems to be a bit of FUD going around right now, and I don’t know if it’s from Sony haters or what. But it’s crazy. Like this headline from CD Freaks – “PS3 needs HDMI 1.3 enabled TVs for HD resolution?”. That’s just absurd. Let’s set the record straight.

HDMI 1.3 would only be needed for digitally transporting a DD+, DD TrueHD, or DTS HD audio stream from a BD movie. It will not be required for anything else. So if you have ANY HDTV with HDMI, rest assured that the display will be able to talk to your new PS3. You’ll get the best video your display is capable of.

What about 1080p? Again, HDMI 1.3 is not needed for transporting 1080p signals. Even HDMI 1.0 could handle 1080p. The problem was always the electronics manufacturers who didn’t want to bother upgrading the electronics to be able to handle it.

CD Freaks.com – PS3 needs HDMI 1.3 enabled TVs for HD resolution?

PS You can get really nice HDMI cables at MonoPrice for a very reasonable cost. I just received mine in the mail yesterday. A 6′ HDMI-DVI cable for $15US. Nice.

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Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter

Posted by Blackstaffer in Xbox 360 software on March 29th, 2006

Last week I played GRAW for the first time at Todd’s place on his Xbox 360. It’s a fun game, and four of us sat around the television and chased each other around the map, having some fun with headshots and whatnot. Thursday night we’ll be doing more of the same, but this time on an HDTV. I’ll tell you what that was like afterwards.

We were a little confused by the kill king of the hill mode. The “hill” was not marked in any way. You just had an icon in the corner of your screen that changed colour if you were on the hill. I much prefer the Halo way of doing it – actually showing graphically where the hill is.

But it was still a great game. I was a blown away by the good graphics. But the UI needed a little work. Sometimes “B” meant “back”, and sometimes it meant “cancel”. Which was really annoying. Each of us had to set up our warriors, so each of us made the same mistakes of exiting the screen without actually making changes, etc. Plus we couldn’t find any way of naming our warriors, which is strange.

Good game, but it needs a little polish.

Home Theater – Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter

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About Home Theater

Posted by Blackstaffer in Talk on March 28th, 2006

If you’re interest in home theater, you might like my new site, HTBlog.net.

It’s not going to be a strictly news site like HDBlog.net. Rather, I want inject some personal experiences and commentary in there too. For example, today there’s an article about my own home theater and how I put it together. If you have a home theater story, I’d love to hear it. Just contact me and I’ll post it to my site.

So if you like home theater, please check it out.

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MotorStorm In-Game Shop

Posted by Blackstaffer in PS3 software on March 28th, 2006

MotorStorm ShopHere’s something pretty cool from GDC.

You’ll remember in my PS3 GDC coverage, that Joshua mentioned PlayStation 3′s in-game shop integration. Well, here’s a pic from MotorStorm. (Click on it for a larger view.)

I think it’s pretty cool that you can buy things related to a game directly from within the game. No external shop to go to, with all the hassle of finding the correct game content. Instead, you have an interface right there in the game for buying stuff. Note that the additional MotorStorm track costs $2.50, which isn’t too bad. But I hope this doesn’t mean that they’ll only include a few tracks and then nickel-and-dime us for more. But I have a feeling that if that happens, gamers will vote with their wallets and publishers will learn real fast not to rip us off like that.

What do you think? (I forget where I got this pic, so I hope I’m not treading on anyone’s toes.)

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New LAIR ScreenShot

Posted by Blackstaffer in PS3 software on March 28th, 2006

LairSeeing Lair last year at E3, I didn’t really think it looked all that great. And I didn’t really like the slithery wet look of the dragons.

But seeing this new screenshot of the game (click for larger image) changed my mind in a hurry. It actually looks like it might be from in the game, if the on-screen graphics are anything to go by. There’s a rider on the dragon and everything.

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