DVDGuy’s Blog @ Digital Digest

This is a nice and short blog. I love the GTA line of games, and I’m eagerly awaiting GTA IV. Xbox Live and Xbox.com will soon host a new GTA IV trailer (the third one) and I for one will download it ASAP.

It’s a shame that the game was delayed for so long (conspiracy theorists say the Xbox 360 version was finished by the original release date, and only the PS3 version was delayed. But Take-Two/Rockstar did not want to or could not under licensing terms make GTA IV a Xbox 360 time-limited exclusive, so they pushed both release dates back to March 2008), but I think it will be worth the wait.

Just a reminder that the Xbox 360 “Fall” update (that’s autumn for some of you, and spring for people here in the southern hemisphere) is available today, DivX and XviD playback included.

I’ve been writing a new version of the Xbox 360 DivX/XviD Playback Guide, since the old version is no longer relevant. The new version basically covers the same instructions on how to get TVersity up and running to share your media files, but also adds Windows Media Player 11 instructions on how to do the same. I actually had some problems with media sharing on WMP 11 at first, because I had manually disabled the SSDP service (which is used for the UPnP service, which is itself required by the WMP media sharing service), so if you have problems with media sharing and your firewall is configured correctly, then this is where to look.

Once the update becomes available to me (in 5 hours time, it seems), I will do some final testing and then upload the new version of the guide.

A warning about the dashboard update, or any major update: there’s bound to be problems and new bugs so be patient. Here’s one that’s just come to light.

I can’t believe we’re in December already for 2007. Where has it all gone? I mean it seemed like it was only yesterday when I was going around from shop to shop after the Christmas rush to buy myself a Wii console, and now it’s nearly a year on (and people are still going from shop to shop trying to buy a Wii console). It’s quieter week, mainly because my mind has been elsewhere (writing the PS3 H.264 Conversion Guide), so I might have missed or not cared about a few news stories here and there. Sorry about that.

In copyright news, Canada’s movie studio friendly government is seeking to implement even tougher copyright laws that will make the US DMCA look weak by comparison. Well that’s what happens when you elect right leaning governments – just look at what’s happening in France too with their newly elected US-loving President.

Moving quickly onto HD news, it’s been a week of where both HD format groups are throwing stats at each other. First, the HD DVD people say that HD DVD player sales have topped 750,000 – impressive. But maybe not as impressive as Blu-ray‘s claim that they rule in Europe and during the Black Friday sales in the US. I really need to write a summary of what’s going on in the HD wars, but from the current data, it seems:

• HD DVD sells more standalones
• Blu-ray sells more players overall if you include the PS3
• More HD DVD movies are sold per player
• But Blu-ray has more movie sales overall because it has more players, even though it sells much less movies per player
• Movie sales are generally influenced by big releases, title such as 300, Transformers, Spider-Man 3 and Ratatouille, and the more releases a side has for that week, the more sales it generates (well, duh). It does seem that Blu-ray has more “hit” releases than HD DVD at the moment

There is finally a non-Toshiba cheap HD DVD player out on the market, not that there’s anything wrong with Toshiba players. Venturer has put out a HD DVD player based on the Toshiba A-3 for $199 – not very competitive when you look at the prices the Toshibas are selling at. I’m sure the actual store pricing will be a lot lower. While prices might not be quite competitive in the US, I’m hoping that the Venturer might come to Australia and bring prices here lower – Toshiba player prices are high here due to various reasons such as our prices being matched to European prices due to Toshiba’s corporate structure, but many of these reasons don’t apply to Venturer and Asian made players. And while not HD news strictly, many reviewers are hailing the new Pioneer “Kuro” plasma as the best TV out on the market. As an owner of a 4th generation model (the Kuro is the 8th generation model), I only have good things to say about the Pioneer plasma range. While I’m not sure about the “best in the world” rating, it’s certainly up there, although other brands such as Panasonic are not far behind. The Kuro is available in 50″ 720p, 1080p and 60″ 1080p models – if I had the money now, I would upgrade my panel to the 50″ 1080p model, 60″ if I win the lottery.

Gaming next, and as mentioned in the intro to this piece, the Wii is the thing everybody wants this Christmas, which is funny, because it’s in the same position as last Christmas. Not wanting to sound smug or anything, but if you really wanted a Wii, why wait until the Holiday gift season to get one? I’m sure there were a few available back in June if you really wanted to get one. Wii stocks are so low that even the PS3 has managed to outsell it in Japan. It is very impressive figures for the PS3, don’t get me wrong, but if the Wii’s stock in Japan wasn’t limited to 160,000 or so, it would have killed the PS3’s 180,000 sales and probably beat every other console combined. The PS3 is doing very well due to the 40 GB lower priced model (how can I argue against that when I’m one of the people who joined in with the buying) and could top the Xbox 360, but not according to Microsoft, which Sony has come out and criticized. I will have to wait and see for the final figures before choosing to believe either side. The PS3 is also a hacker’s dream because its processor is optimized for hacking like activities. I just hope the console is locked down tight security wise, because I don’t want my PS3 to help some hacker’s attempt to hack into the Pentagon or something. And the official list of updates for the Xbox 360 “Fall” update has been released by Microsoft,  and it’s a huge list. I won’t go through everything, except to say that it looks like Microsoft have beaten Sony to the punch by getting DivX and XviD support into the console first, unless Sony releases a surprise firmware update in the next two days that is. The DivX support is quite extensive, covering all the advanced encoding features like GMC, Q-Pel and B-Frames (read our DivX Setup Guide to find out what these mean), and up to 720p resolution at 5 Mbps. And AC3 5.1 audio support, as well as MP3 support, is included too. So it looks like pretty much every DivX/XviD file out there will be supported. Will this make the 360 the most popular hardware device for viewing pirated TV show episodes? That is if we still end up having any episodes to download due to the writer strike.

Until next week …

As promised, this blog post will talk a little about my experience with buying the PS3, setting it all up, and the experience of my first week of using it. Regular readers will know that I already own a Wii and a 360, so gaming wise, I’m pretty covered already. Therefore, my main purpose for the PS3 remain video playback, in particular, Blu-ray playback. Before this, I was format neutral in spirit, but HD DVD only in practice. Getting a Blu-ray player, and the PS3 being one of the cheaper ones (despite being one of the best players, certainly the most upgradable and future proof), was therefore the next logical step.

I live in Australia. Melbourne to be exact. And even though the Australian dollar is at an all time high (or thereabouts), our PS3s are still overpriced – we pay dearly to subsidized people in the US, it seems. Before I buy anything, I always do a quick search online to see if there are any bargains to pick up. I stumbled upon DTV Forum Australia, a forum I have visited on and off in the past. There was a thread in there about PS3 bargains, and from the thread I found an offer for a standard PS3 40 GB with wireless controller, plus the Sony Blu-ray remote and a redemption offer for 3 Blu-ray movies (Casino Royale, Ghost Rider and Spider-Man 3), all for $11 less then the recommended retail price (RRP is $699, or $USD 620 – I told you our PS3 was overpriced). This was the best deal I could find, and so I decided to go shopping.

But before I went, I decided to make a list of the things I will need to get the PS3 Blu-ray up and running (I don’t like pen and paper, so a mental list it was). The first is an HDMI cable, which the PS3 package does not include unfortunately – even the component cable is sold separately, which is a bit cheap on Sony’s part I might say, especially when we’re paying $220 more than our US counterparts). But since the single HDMI connector on my TV was already being used, and my AV receiver does not support HDMI, the only solution is to get a HDMI switch. I decided on the Joytech HDMI TriLink. And this of course meant getting a second HDMI cable. And unlike the US package, our PS3 package does not include a movie in the box, so I will have to get a Blu-ray movie to test the damn thing, since I did not want to wait 6 to 8 weeks for my free movies to arrive. And I almost forgot that I also needed an Ethernet cable, since the PS3 doesn’t include one of these either (but to be fair, it does include wireless network support). And I really did forget that I also needed an optical audio cable, but luckily I added it to my mental list before I set off to do the shopping. The PS3 might be a cheap-ish Blu-ray player (by our standards), but the needed accessories makes it not so cheap after all.

Buying the PS3 went somewhat smoothly. The hardest part was getting the huge box to the car, which was parked some distance away. The Xbox 360 box was large, but manageable. This PS3 box was much bigger than I had expected, and much heavier too. While the salesman was himself struggling to get the box from the back of the store to me, I had a look at the “Buy 2 get 1 free” offer they had for Blu-ray movies. In Australia, our Blu-ray and HD DVD movie prices are outrageous as well – usually $USD 35 per movie ($30 if you’re lucky). The movies in the B2G1F stand was even more outrageously priced, at $USD 45 per movie. No thanks. I will have to go to another store to get my Blu-ray movie, which I had to go to anyway for the other accessories.

So to the other store I went, and my credit card was taking a pounding by this point. And remembering a mental list when you’re carrying 5 KG boxes the size of a small car is not recommended – at one point, I had to go back to the same store twice because I had forgotten to get a few things, the second time I almost forgot another item (the optical cable again). For the record, I purchased Rocky Balboa on Blu-ray because I was interested in its AVC H.264 encoding, and also because I haven’t seen the movie before. Here’s the list of damages at the end of the day (in Australian dollars):

PS3 – $688
Rocky Balboa Blu-ray: $40
Joytech TriLink: $60
2 x HDMI cables: $60
1 x Ethernet cable: $10
1 x Toslink cable: $20

So all together, that’s $878, which translates to nearly $USD 780. If I was in the US, the whole package probably won’t cost me more than $500, $550 at most. Oh well.

The wallet bashing was over, time to get home and set it up. It wasn’t too hard, to be honest, other than the fact that I have far too many cables already going everywhere, and having more cables did not help. The PS3 setup was pretty easy, setup the HDMI output, set up the optical audio and that’s it. What took a long time was inputting the usernames, sign up details and downloading the updates, but all the consoles are like that these days.

For the past week, I’ve been testing the PS3’s video playback functions, mainly to help me write the PS3 H.264 Conversion Guide (which I’ve updated today to add instructions on how to get AC3 5.1 audio tracks, with some trickery involving MKV to VOB conversion). I’m very impressed with both Blu-ray and the upscaled DVD playback, and if not for the fact that the PS3 is not region free for either of these formats (DVD in particular), I would make it my primary disc player. But as such, my existing region-free upscaling DVD player will still have to occupy a space on the home theatre rack. In between video tests, I’ve been running the Folding@Home software to help contribute some work units to our team.

My TV (Pioneer PDP-504) has what Pioneer calls PureCinema Advanced, which is just 3:3 pulldown (24 FPS -> 72 Hz) for smooth film playback. For whatever reason, I can’t get it to work over component without glitches, but over HDMI, it works a treat. Watching a Blu-ray movie with this option turned on is really fantastic – smooth pans that you don’t see with 3:2 pulldown. I know some people hate PAL speedup, but I find it much more acceptable than 3:2 judder. Now I’ll have to go about upgrading my Xbox 360 to a HDMI capable (and quieter) model, to make HD DVD viewing just as nice.

The next thing I want to try is to make my own AVCHD disc to play on the PS3. AVCHD is basically a mini-Blu-ray, supporting H.264 video and AC3 audio. Nero Vision supports making these types of discs, but there’s still a couple of things I need to figure out. If/When I do, I’ll write a guide for it.

So that’s my first week with the PS3. I’ve done some work, enjoyed some movies and helped out a good cause by donating the free processing power, so all in all, it’s been a good week. PS3 for upscaled DVD and Blu-ray playback is highly recommended.

After finally getting a PS3 last week, I got around yesterday to start testing the playback of H.264 files on the PS3, and today, I finished writing a guide for it. It is very much based on the Xbox 360 version of the guide, but with a few added things like AAC 5.1 audio, which the PS3 supports (sort of). Guide linky below:

PS3 H.264 Conversion Guide

The playback quality is excellent, and it’s fun watching the bitrate display show just how variable the bitrate is during playback. If you have an AV receiver that supports AAC decoding, or one that has HDMI input and supports PCM 5.1 audio, then you will be able to enjoy 5.1 channel audio as well.

If you don’t have any H.264 files to test playback, you can download some from our movies section – the ones marked “Xbox 360 compatible” will be PS3 compatible too.

More on my initial PS3 experiences later this week …

Update: A new version of the guide has been release, and it now includes instructions on how to get AC3 5.1 audio for those that don’t have AAC decoders. It uses MeGUI to make a MKV file, and then uses a tool called mkv2vob to remux it into a VOB file. Don’t ask me why, but it works and the PS3 plays it perfectly, even though VOB files are not designed to hold H.264 video.