loonyblog.

To be fair, Netflix’s recommendations aren’t spectacular either…but this is just bizarre.

My ultra-swanky Toshiba RS-TX20 TiVo/DVD-R arrived yesterday, and naturally I couldn’t wait to install it. As I went through the process of hooking up the thing, I intentionally removed all of the superfluous cables that have made my life a living hell for the past few years. The whole reason for getting a combination TiVo and DVD player/recorder, is so I can completely remove my VCR, DVD player and TiVo, and replace them all with one simple box. And that’s exactly what I did.

Everything was going great. The TiVo was plugged into my TV via a component video connection, the audio was a digital optical connection to my receiver, and the cables from my cable box were all set to go into my TiVo. The problems started when I plugged it in and began Guided Setup.

But of course, it’s never that easy. Read on for the whole story.

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It’s that time of year again…we’re just two weeks away from the January MacWorld expo, and the Mac rumor sites are abuzz with possible announcements. The one a lot of people are yelling and screaming about (mostly with joy) is the possibility of a sub-$500 iMac, and that would be cool, don’t get me wrong, but it doesn’t affect me as an existing Mac user. No, what I’m much more excited about is this story regarding a new iLife suite.

According to Think Secret, the new version of iLife will contain a new, HD-enabled version of iMovie that supports 16×9 resolutions (finally). Hopefully this also means the unbelievably frustrating DV file size limitation’s been removed as well. (In the current version, large movies have to be split up to be imported into iMovie, which makes burning movies using iDVD very frustrating). But even cooler than that, is the rumor that iDVD 5 will support dual layer DVD burning. Hallelujah! Praise be to Apple. Dual layer DVD drives are remarkably cheap, but I haven’t bothered upgrading because the only software that supports it right now is Toast, and that’s way too bare bones for my taste (technically DVD Studio Pro supports it as well, but you still need to burn the disc using Toast, and DVDSP is way too much money for a non-pro like myself). Being able to burn a two hour movie onto one DVD at full quality makes me giddy with excitement.

Of course, since we’re moving in the very near future, I’ll need to sell off something to be able to afford that upgrade. Fortunately I’ve got a copy of Shining Force III sitting on my shelf that should be worth just enough to cover that cost. Hmm…stay tuned to eBay.

I was reading this article at Reuters (via /.) about Intel’s new plan to take on AMD, IBM and other processor rivals, when I stopped on this bit:

Baker’s group will lead the industry forward on three new technologies; the move to dual-core, or two-chips-in-one, microprocessors; the shrinking of chip feature sizes to 65-nanometers, small enough to be on the same scale as viruses; and the move to more productive 12-inch silicon wafers.

That’s right, processors with components as small as viruses. The actual CPUs won’t get that small of course, this just means they’ll be able to cram even more into that same CPU-size or smaller. My brain can’t even comprehend the current size of processors, which are already into the nanometer range. But that’s some seriously small stuff we’re talking about here.

When I last upgraded my game PC, I spent a moment to really look at my CPU. With the Athlon processors, you’ve basically got a roughly 3″ square piece of ceramic with an itty bitty CPU in the center. As I applied some thermal paste to the CPU center (but not the ceramic!), it sort of struck me how odd it was to have this big giant (comparatively) thing for something that was barely larger than my fingernail. The naked eye can’t see much of anything on there, and let’s face it, that’s been the case for a really long time now. And maybe I’m just crazy to even think about this…I mean, my new cell phone has more complex wizardry than my first few PCs combined, but it is amazing how fast these technological leaps are coming, even if Moore’s Law has long whizzed by demand from the general public.

Every year between Christmas and New Year’s, the video game industry more or less shuts down. Since I now work full-time in this industry (that is, I no longer have a day job), that means there’s no particularly important work to be done, and since my vacation days expire at the end of the year, I’m using up them all and taking the rest of the week off.

So what am I going to do with all this spare time?

Um. Not much. I guess I’ll sleep and play a lot of games or something.

This is my kind of vacation.

From News.com.au:

OSCAR winner Steven Spielberg will bring one of the toy phenomenons of the 1980s to the big screen – generating a booming adult collectors market for the robots known as Transformers.

The director has announced he will follow next year’s The War of the Worlds with a live-action tale of the mechanical heroes who disguise themselves as cars, trucks and jets.

Okay, I have just as many fond memories of Transformers as the next guy (and Lion will always have recorded the definitive version of the theme song), but seriously, WTF?

My guess is that in the coming months we’ll hear about John Woo’s new Go-Bots movie, Michael Mann’s Voltron, Sam Raimi’s Bionic Six and of course, Quentin Tarantino’s Mr. T and the T-Force.

As we’re gearing up to move in the very near future, I’m attempting to simplify my digital life by shedding weight wherever possible. Because of this, I’ve decided to replace our separate TiVo and DVD players with a combination DVD recorder and TiVo (I may think TiVo’s days are numbered, but I’m going to enjoy it while it lasts). To finance this consolidation, I’ve decided to sell off a few key parts of my collection. I’m going to sell off my uberhacked TiVo as soon as the new one arrives (and is set up to my satisfaction), but for now I’m selling two things: my copy of Snatcher for Sega CD, and my GameCube. Snatcher is up for sale on eBay, and I’m selling that because it’s worth a lot of money, and I doubt I’ll ever play it again. The GameCube is up for sale on Shackifieds.

I’m selling my GameCube for one simple reason: I don’t play the thing. Since buying the system several years ago, there have been only two decent games for the platform: Ikaruga and Soul Calibur II. As much as I like those two, they’re really not that good, and there’s absolutely nothing on the horizon for GameCube that interests me in the slightest.

These days, I’m no fan of Nintendo, and I make no attempt to hide that. I think Nintendo is making themselves too niche oriented for their own good, and they seem to be getting less and less relevant to the industry at-large with each passing year. Am I saying that the company is going to go under? No, I definitely am not. But the DS is everything I hate about Nintendo right now. It’s a novelty, one that is kind of cool for about five minutes, but eventually gets tiresome. I don’t doubt that Nintendo’s going to make money on the thing (they already have), but I’ll be surprised if anyone but Nintendo’s own development studios manages to take advantage of the hardware.

I wanted to like the GameCube, really I did. But every game that came out was a disappointment to me. Metroid Prime was good but lifeless (no dialogue == suck). Mario Sunshine was a big let down. Zelda…well, I’ve never liked the series, so I can’t say I was disappointed there. The only game I regret never getting to play is Paper Mario 2, but even that doesn’t interest me enough to hang onto the system. I’m sure it’s fun and all, but I always have Mario & Luigi for GBA.

Sadly, the future prospects for the system don’t appeal to me either. Advance Wars was the one I had high hopes for, but they managed to screw that up by making it a third person action game. Resident Evil 4 should be pretty good, but I’m just burnt out on that whole genre (and if I change my mind, there’s always the PS2 port). As for the new Zelda, it certainly looks less grating than the last one, but somehow I don’t expect the gameplay to change much at all.

So will the GBA be the last Nintendo system I own? Quite possibly. SPOnG is hardly a reliable source, but this rumor (which didn’t come directly from them) suggests that Nintendo’s next home system will have a non-traditional interface. Considering Nintendo’s recent statements about gaming in general, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this turned out to be the case. Since non-traditional interfaces do nothing but send me running in the opposite direction, I don’t have much confidence in Nintendo’s ability to make a game or system that appeals to me anymore.

Yes I know, as a card-carrying TiVo geek I’m talking blasphemy, but let’s face it people, the writing’s on the wall. Okay, yes, the Netflix deal will rock, and yes, the the HD DirecTiVo is awesome but this story at Engadget is pretty scary.

Here’s the deal: Comcast is coming out with a Motorola DVR that has 60 hours of standard TV, can record HD broadcasts and HD on demand, and has two tuners to record multiple shows at once. All of that for just $10 a month extra on your cable bill? There’s just no way TiVo can compete with that.

So far TiVo has survived the onslaught from cable company DVRs on quality alone. Those DVRs never had season passes, or any of the features us TiVo lovers have come to enjoy so much. But it’s only a matter of time before those cheap DVRs get as good, or better as TiVo. It pains me to say it, but unless TiVo gets a deal with a major cable company, their days might be numbered (especially if the DirecTV deal expires, which has been rumored for ages now).

From Dark Horizons:

Citing Chow’s wife, Jasmin Chan Wui-nin, Chinese-language newspaper Apple Daily said Chow will play the famous 15th century Chinese pirate Cheung Po Tsai for the second and third installments of the film.

Chow will team up with members of the original cast including Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Geoffrey Rush and Keira Knightley along with newly joining Keith Richards as the father of Depp’s character.

Waitasec…did that just say Keith Richards is going to be in this movie?

(This post is the second in a series looking back at some of my favorite comics of all-time. The first installment, looking back on Watchmen, can be found here)

Every now and then, on message boards, newsgroups, or at conventions or any other random gathering of comics geeks, the question of what is the Greatest <comic character name here> Story Ever Written. Now, I’m not sure what the greatest Spider-Man story ever written is (if I had to guess, I’d say either the Death of Gwen Stacy or Fearful Symmetry, but I’m hardly an expert) and I think I have an idea of what the greatest Batman story is, but there’s one thing I have absolutely no doubts about in any way, shape or form: “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow” by Alan Moore, Curt Swan, George Perez and Kurt Schaffenberger, most certainly is the Greatest Superman Story Ever Written. Read on to find out why.

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