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? 😉
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