Posts tagged ‘sony’
Reading Kotaku earlier today, I noticed an article about one of Sony’s upcoming video games, LittleBigPlanet. This year, David Reeves decided to suggest that selling one’s own creations in LittleBigPlanet amounts to “iTunes meets eBay”. This is the second year in a row Sony executives have compared their product to “iTunes meeting X”, where X was MySpace last year.
I may have to publish a high-larious photoshop:
It’s been slightly over a week since I moved into the new place and things are working out well so far. One of the major changes is that I haven’t had as much time to sit down and develop: instead, the roommates and myself tend to be more social in the community area. Unfortunately for the screaming fans of XenonMKV, though, this means I haven’t had a chance to deliver on some bug fixes and requested features. I hope to have something new by the end of the month on that end.
On the technology front, I haven’t had as much luck getting 1:1 pixel mapping on a KDS-55A2020 television as the KF42E200A, but it’s still quite usable for movies without any overscan. I’m using the default nVidia drivers on Windows Vista, and using the “Adjust HDTV desktop size” controls in the nVidia Control Panel applet. There were some promising threads on AVSforum but they all seemed to deal with Windows XP and Powerstrip, both of which are needed to create and display custom resolutions.
I’ll likely have a new Judge Jake episode out within the next week or so, as well.
I’ve discussed the holy grail of pixel mapping for the Sony E2000-series LCD projection televisions before. With the latest nVidia drivers on Vista, I believe I’ve found the most practical solution to this issue.
First, it’s notable that even using the HDMI inputs, 1:1 pixel mapping doesn’t seem easily attainable from a PC. While the native resolution of this particular TV is indeed 720p (1280×720, progressive), there is still a significant amount of overscan to account for.
My particular solution involves setting two display resolutions. The first is a 1:1 (or approximate) pixel mapped image when at the Windows desktop, set at 1152×648. This resolution is automatically detected in the Windows Display control panel and nVidia resolution list when connected with a DVI to HDMI cable. The second is a full 720p image while in Windows Media Center, which can have its own resolution detected independently:
To set up this type of display mapping, first install the latest nVidia drivers. Once installed, you should have an nVidia Control Panel option when right-clicking the desktop. Use “Advanced Mode” if prompted.
It might not be a perfect solution, but it’s a significant step up from previous solutions involving third party utilities. Did it work for you, or do you have any other suggestions? Let me know in the comments.
Over the past few days, I’ve been trying to achieve the proverbial “holy grail” of display resolutions with my Sony KF-42E200A television. These series of TV’s also go by the series name E2000; the A in E200A indicates the Canadian model of this set. They use LCD rear projection technology, and are nearly deprecated in favour of people wanting thinner LCD panel or plasma TV’s. I, however, enjoy the more accurate colour reproduction, wealth of inputs and inexpensive nature of this particular 42″ set. It also has a replaceable lamp in the event that it dies.
However, it’s buyer beware for this TV when attempting to use the system as a home theatre PC; because the E2000 series has deprecated a VGA port in place of two HDMI inputs, you have to be wary of what resolution you decide to send it. The TV is “smart” enough to detect common PC resolutions (800×600, 1024×768, 1152×864) and tries to adapt them to the screen size, but also detects common HDTV resolutions (720×480p, 1280×720p, 1920×1080i.) When a HDTV resolution is detected, the TV automatically “overscans” the content:
This is perfectly acceptable for DVD and game console content, because all of those devices compensate for overscanning when outputting video. However, when it comes to PC usage, your desktop often gets cut off, making it fairly difficult to see certain icons and controls. You do have several options: changing the resolution or resizing the desktop within your ATI Catalyst Control Center / nVidia Desktop Manager. For my 8500GT, I can’t use PowerStrip or similar programs to force a custom resolution because the driver support’s not there.
In any event, what I’ve found so far is that setting the resolution to 1152×648 (I’m using a DVI to HDMI cable) will give a 1:1 pixel mapping resolution, with a slight amount of black borders around the edges. Then, using the nVidia control panel, I changed the resolution to 1280×720 and selected “do not resize my desktop” in the HDTV settings panel. Afterwards, I switched the desktop back to 1152×648 for standard PC usage.
When configuring Windows Media Center, I chose a 720p resolution, which automatically compensates for the overscan issue and uses the nVidia 1280×720 settings.
Reference links that may assist in your efforts are at AVSForum:
Sony E2000 Settings/Tweak Thread
The Official Sony E2000 series Thread
Setting up PowerStrip to yield 1:1 Pixel Mapping on Sony A10 LCD RPTV
It’s Monday, and I’m back from a weekend excursion to the States. While some of my esteemed associates were doing pub crawls and partaking in other local festivities, my entire family opted to head down to an outlet mall in Grove City, PA to acquire some inexpensive American merchandise. As Dave’s Canadian retailers post mentions, there is really no excuse for some of the pricing disparities between Ontario and a comparable state.
And yes, the title of this post is accurate: On most clothing, there is no state sales tax, which is otherwise 6%. When you buy a ridiculously overpriced (yet trendy) sweater from, say, Hollister - the exorbitant price on the tag is the exorbitant price on the receipt, and nothing else goes to the government.
I speak specifically about a retailer like Hollister as I had the opportunity to go into one of these stores (this is in a different mall, not the Grove City outlets) while in the States. For those unfamiliar with them, the store is constructed like a beachfront cabin:
The entire store’s construction is an overabundant exercise in target marketing to the 12-25 year old demographic. As soon as you walk on to the “deck”, there are two sides to the store - one for guys, one for girls. There’s also an immediate assault of their in-house scents, as well as overly obnoxious “surfer dude”-style music. If you’ve heard any pop/rock from Warped Tour - basically any new music produced by RIAA labels that isn’t screamo - that’s about what you’d hear. From memory - I heard songs from Halifax, Fall Out Boy, Paramore, and some group with a surfer-style remix of “Message in a Bottle”.
From a technical perspective, the music is customer-controllable by a touchscreen beside the cash register area, which would make an interesting programming project (think managed queues, plus audio output.) They also have the relevant CD’s for sale at the register, which is a good way to push merchandise from other categories. Hey, if you’ve heard the song in the store, why not pick up the entire album?
After nearly dropping my jaw at the prices of some of the shorts and jeans available there, I went to the clearance section (at the back of the store, obviously) and managed to pick up some decently priced items. I now own a new bathing suit, plus a few shirts that I haven’t gotten for free from software companies!
Next on the list of stores in the mall was a place called Steve & Barry’s, who specialize in incredibly inexpensive clothing, as well as hilariously inappropriate shirts. I purchased several of these items, which you will see in person over the next few weeks. Unfortunately one of the best shirts in the store wasn’t in stock at all: it was a map of the state, overlaid with an Amish buggy and a marker for the town of Intercourse. The caption on the shirt? “Intercourse, PA. Come again!”
The Grove City outlet mall is a haven for decent and cheap merchandise. The trick to the experience is shopping at stores that have “Outlet” or “Factory Store” in the title, and immediately going towards the back of the building towards the deals.
Possibly one of the best deals in the place, besides the ubiquitous clothing, was the Sony outlet store. A set of MDR-EX71SL earbuds that go for $60CDN are available, refurbished, for $19.99 US. The next model up (MDR-EX81SL) goes for $29.99 US. I’ve had the 71SL’s since last year’s trip, and the 81’s available this year are even better. I’d highly recommend these for anyone wanting a high-quality set of earbuds for their MP3 player.
I’ve been reading the E3 transcripts since last night to try and figure out what people are doing. Phil has some interesting points about the OMGCOOL games coming out, but this quote from a Singstar developer made me want to throttle someone:
12:10PM PDT - Singstar dev. “When you think about it, it’s like iTunes meets MySpace.”
I have no doubt in my mind that this combination would not only run your computer out of RAM in less than a second, but it’d be full of security holes. Instead of the music store, you’d get twenty popups from Russian brides and Nigerian scammers before having Justin Timberlake and Fergie tracks forcibly entered into your library.
Oh, and the default font would be Comic Sans MS.
Update: This HAD to be Photoshopped. Ads are from Something Awful in case anyone gets uppity about copyrights; I’ll remove them if anyone complains.
With school, exams and other random nonsense popping up fairly frequently, I haven’t done much in the way updating here. I’ve tweaked and updated a few minor pages this morning, and some of my programming adventures in Visual Basic 2005 are approaching a point where I can make them public.
Lately I’ve been spending more time with my Xbox console than the 360, specifically due to my purchase of a KF42E200A LCD projection HDTV. I’ve wanted one of these for about six months now, or at least something comparable to it. One thing I can say for Sony is that despite their media division’s monkeying with DRM, and SCEA’s FIVE HUNDRED AND NINETY NINE US DOLLAR PlayStation 3, they still make beautiful displays and televisions. You know exactly what you’re getting when you buy a Sony TV.
In any event, while the Xbox 360 has some nice downloadable 720p content and plays games in HD natively, the Xbox still has XBMC to take names and basically be a slimmed-down Kaleidescape unit for the basement. It upscales DVD’s, reads XviD and DivX files in packed RAR format over the network, and there’s a new upgrade pretty much every two weeks. For the non tech-nerds out there, just trust me that it’s really decent.
Unfortunately to run this sort of setup, you need an Xbox capable of booting unsigned code. I ended up buying a used unit off eBay and using the XboxHDM tutorial on Xbox-Scene to complete the process. At the time, EB wasn’t carrying any used systems; I’m debating going there and picking up another console since I saw about three on the shelf last week.
There are a few things you have to do if you want the console to run properly once it’s been modded, or set it up as an entertainment center. I’ll follow up sometime this week on the “post-installation” tasks that new users might want to consider, such as setting the system up for HD and installing Xbox Media Center as the default startup dashboard.
Along with the TV, a new Yamaha amp (RXV559) has graced the basement’s presence with a reasonably-decent sounding 3.1 surround setup (for now, at least.) Center channel and woofer are Paradigms, and the stereo L&R channels are Advent-branded speakers rescued from upstairs. I’ve ordered a set of cabling from Monoprice for the various components here, and it’ll be interesting to see how soon it arrives in the mailbox.
Apart from media entertainment: last month, I broke down and started playing World of Warcraft to see what the game was like. After being roundly harassed by several good friends for partaking in such a travesty, I’m still undecided as to whether I’m going to pony up for another month of playtime - perhaps during the workterm. Maybe I should get a real hobby? 
On Wednesday, I ended up going to Sherway Gardens for the afternoon, where the main attraction is an actual Apple Store. Said store is also known as the Fruit Stand or Fruit Stall, similar to how the “Apple/Command” key on Mac keyboards is commonly called “Fruit.” A few points of interest:
So, after damning myself repeatedly because of my incredible consumer-whoreism tendencies, I walked out of there with a new device that will help kill time on the bus. I’m so conflicted, because on one hand the 20GB black and white unit still technically works for what I need it to… but on the other hand, it’s so shiny and will play videos of Jack Bauer gettin’ some terrorists and it’ll hold all my music and… stop it.
I’m going to have to put in some extra hours for work for this one, at least.
The other interesting expedition today was to the Sony Store. I am of the opinion that Sony makes a certain number of things with really decent quality:
Unfortunately, the company is currently on this huge “Full HD” or “True HD 1080″ kick, which basically means that their really expensive TV’s will support a native resolution of 1980×1020 running progressively (60fps.) This is due to their launch of the PS3, which doesn’t have an internal scaler, so your games run at either standard-def or 1080p; if your TV doesn’t support 1080p, guess what mode you’re running in?
What was mildly amusing that the TV shown in the front of their store had an infomercial going on about Full HD 1080p, blah blah blah… until I realized it was a 42″ Grand Wega LCD projection model, which has a native resolution of 720p and doesn’t support the Full HD variety.
I also took a look at the PS3 on display in the store, which failed to impress. (Hint: show the XMB interface and perhaps flOw; both of those things look pretty. I don’t want to see NBA ‘07.)