Blu-ray disk to hit 400GB capacity by 2010

Not really useful as so much as just interesting. I get the feeling that film studios aren't even filling up the 50GB's that is provided to them with current generation disks what are they going to do with 4x the space? ...and if that wasn't enough supposedly a 1TB (1000GB's) is ontrack for 2013.

What this really does is provide "options". Movie piracy is so prevelant because what is provided currently by the film studios is easily copied and distributed. If 400GB's of high def interactive goodness was provided with every purchase of a blu-ray movie it would be difficult to distribute all of that.

Also what does this mean for Sony's Playstation 3. Metal Gear Solid 4 was said to use every bit of space on the blu-ray disks. Can we expect more epic games that would approach the current or even future 400GB barrier? Or is that just too much work for the game studios for too little return?

Link

HTPC on the cheap

HTPC (stands for Home Theatre PC), basically you can create a mp3, movie, tivo, bittorrent server that you can then run to any tv/computer in the house for cheap. I'm looking into doing this for myself.

First and foremost is the case for the little guy. I wanted something that I could fit in my entertainment cabinet that didn't look like a computer. A quick look at Newegg and I discovered tons of cases for cheap, some not so much. It looks like you get what you pay for, like this little gem.

Next step will be to gut out your old PC that is taking up space in your closet and install it in your newly bought case. Then you need to install an O/S and all the software you'll be using. Bit-tech.net has an excellent article on installing Xubuntu (Linux) and the software needed. After reading it i'm convinced its so easy my mother could do it, and best of all its free!

Since I have a PS3 I'll be installing a "Media Server", just google it and you'll find it online, so my PS3 can read the mp3's and movies I have on my server.

Honestly i'm a bit jazzed up about this, just need to figure a cool way to turn on the unit remotely (i'm sure the higher end cases can have that handled) and then I think i'll have a nice addition to my entertainment center.

Unreal Engine 4.0 exclusive to consoles

As a gamer I recently bit the bullet and bought a PS3. It was only 4 years ago you could hear me say that gaming on the PC will always be superior to any console. Well I was wrong, or perhaps my tastes have changed. Consoles now a days are so superior to PC gaming in so many ways. Comfort (couch), Graphics (HD TV's), Sound (7.1 surround sound), and cost ($500 for the most expensive console on the market) all seriously out weigh anything you can do with a PC. When you look at it the console is the cheapest way to get a very descent gaming system in your home. So it was after opening my eyes and seeing this I decided instead of continueing to upgrade my computer so I could play the latest and greatest games i'd rather get a PS3 and benefit from having a blueray player.

Well one of the most successful software backends for games (Unreal Engine) recently stated that they were going to focus their efforts exculsively on consoles before considering PC's. This is big news in the gaming community because Epic (the makers of Unreal and its Unreal Engine) has had a huge presence in the PC market thanks to its lisceseing of the engine out to quite literally hundreds of game developers that then use it to make games for the PC market (as well as consoles). However from now on their engine will be optimized for console use.

This move is most likely due to the development cycle for a console system is shorter. The PS3's hardware is set in stone it doesnt change, same with an Xbox 360 or a Wii. A PC however, has lots of different hardware in it. Not 2 PC's are a like, this means that developers have to program for these slight changes in expected harware, as they make the software more suitable for a larget audience it is less efficient and thus graphics are not as refined, physics are lacking, etc.

One could argue there is a lot wrong in gaming in general and PC gaming specifically. People have been saying PC gaming is dead for years, however this might just be the first nail in the coffin.

Pandora + PS3 = Failure

Recently I purchased a PS3, and it was a great purchase. There really isn't any steller PS3 only titles out for it, but thats not why I really bought it. I honestly bought the PS3 because of everything else. I wanted something that would be the center of my entertainment system in my living room, and the PS3 does it nicely. The benfits of a blueray player, and a player of other media (downloaded movies and music) I couldn't pass it up.

Yesterday I got an idea to use the ps3 web browser to go to Pandora and stream music. Unfortunately it didn't work out as well as planned. Pandora's website requires I run Flash 9.0, and the PS3 web browser only has Flash 7.0. There is no way for me to update this. However it looks like the PS3 will accept an installtion of linux. So to get Pandora to pump thru my stereo I would need to boot into Linux with my PS3 and then browse out to the internet and view Pandora's webpage. Seems a little bit absurd. Research i've done online about this, has brought up similar stories but no real solutions, or a time frame when Sony is going to update to Flash 9.0.

How to make $400

1) Buy World of Warcraft play with friends and have lots of fun.

2) Get tired of playing World of Warcraft and sell account.

3) Profit!

I sold my character finally for $400. While originally I was hopeing to get a lot more, I realized that getting anything for something intangible like a MMO character should be celebrated. I think i'm going to put this $400 towards a PS3, it doubles as a HD blueray player and well I guess I could use one. :) ...or I could put it towards getting some new furniture. ...or I could put it towards upgrading my tv which still not sure if its the problem or my cable box.

Regardless its nice to have options, and to be rid of the money sink ($15/month) that is World of Warcraft.

More HD woes

I'm not sure now if its the TV or my cablebox that is causing all these problems. This weekend i'm going to borrow my dad's ps3 and watch a blueray movie like spiderman or something and see how it looks. ...because last night I was watching all night on it and had no real eye strain. I was watching a Terminator 3 which clearly has a lot of action sequences and didn't have any of the stuttering I thought I saw on Monday, though it was a low def signal. Also on the hi-def side I didn't see any real problems watching mythbusters, other then that it seems that after a while watching a saved show on my DVR the video will freeze up but the audio will continue. Also sometimes when i'm in guide view, the preview window in the top right doesn't expand to full screen when I leave the guide (that definitely sounds like a bad box to me). Could these problems be a sub par HDMI cable? Hmm I dunno. Hopefully some of these questions get answered this weekend?

Toshiba calls it quits, HD-DVD loses Blueray wins...Felix rejoices!

As reported here. Looks like Toshiba is finally calling it quits. They've had way too many "partners" jump ship over to Blueray. Off the top of my head I can think of Warner Brothers, Walmart & Bestbuy. This will most likely boost PS3's importance in the home of tomorrow. As its the best bang for your buck, being both a blueray player (that is updateable, and a next-gen console).

In related news...i'm buying a PS3 soon. Costco is bundleing the 20GB version for $500, comes with an extra controller, the movie remote, Spiderman 3 Blueray (who cares), and the new Ratchet and Clank (which I just love that series).

Edit:
BBC's take on it.