Microsoft has just debunked new rumors that it will integrate Blue Ray players into its consoles. The rumor came from within the storage industry that a company called Lite-On will be manufacturing a Blue Ray add on for the 360.

Microsoft claims that consumers can still enjoy their HD content from the download store. A quote from Microsoft states

“For our customers who want a premium movie experience we offer the largest library of on-demand HD content available, and the ability to play back DVDs in high definition.”

This isn’t surprising that Microsoft is denying claims of a Blue Ray add-on. Even if they are planning a Blue Ray add-on, it would be foolish to announce it at this time in the year. It would probably be released closer to Christmas time.

Microsoft just announced that they will be holding a contest to find the most creative home theator setup that incorporates Windows Media Center. Here is a quote from the site.

“Microsoft is looking for the finest and most creative installation utilizing Windows Media Center in a residential system. Submit your best Windows Media Center project for the opportunity to win a vacation for two and visit to the Microsoft campus as well as recognition for as the design and installation firm who built the Ultimate Media Center Install!”

The contest Began on March 13th 2008 and will stop accepting entries on August 1st 2008. They are looking for businesses that incorporates the best custom home theator solution in a customers house. Here are some of the judging criteria.

• Use of Windows Media Center as primary user interface (UI) for media consumption in room or system (depending on scope of install)
• Use of Windows Media Center experiences (e.g., television, music, video, pictures, DVD library, etc.)
• Integration with other, non-PC consumer electronics devices
• Technical merit
• Creativity and originality

And the best part, there are tons of great prizes to be won! Here are some of them.

• An all-expense paid trip for one to CEDIA Expo 2008 in Denver, Colorado, including round-trip airfare, 3-night hotel accommodation in Denver, and participation in a Press Cocktail event announcing the winner
• A trip for 2 to Microsoft, round-trip airfare, 2-night hotel accommodation at the Bellevue Westin and a special VIP day at Microsoft that includes a $1000 cash, a visit to the Microsoft eHome Custom Install (CI) demo room, time with the eHome team focused on the CI channel, and a private tour of the Microsoft MSHome.
• A full-day photo shoot to have professional photographs taken of your winning solution
• A story featuring your entry, interview, and pictures from the photo shoot posted on the CE Installer website
• A Technology Appreciation Package for the homeowner provided by Microsoft that consists of:
  • Xbox360 Elite video game and entertainment system
  • 4 Black Xbox360 Wireless Controllers
  • 1 Xbox360 Media Center Remote
  • 1 Year Xbox Live Subscription
  • 4 Xbox360 Game Titles (actual titles to be determined by sponsor)
  • 1 80GB Zune, 1 8GB Zune, and a Zune Home AV Kit

So if your an owner of a company that does these sort of custom solutions, head over to Microsoft and submit an entry. I wonder if I could tell them that I’m a company who did a custom solution for myself and send snapshots of my setup…

It seems as though the HD-DVD add-on has been axed by Microsoft, so now you can get it for only $50. So if want want to take the plunge, HD-DVD’s and HD-DVD players are dropping in price extremely quick!

Or you can pay full price for blu-ray… Either way you look at it… you win!

I’m sure if you come to this website, you may have already heard the news. HD-DVD is dead. So the question now is, if you were one of the early adopters of hd-dvd, what do you do with all of your hd-dvd stuff, and what does dead really mean?

Well, to tell you the truth, for you early HD-DVD adopters, this is temporarily good news. Why? Well here is why…

The top 5 reasons why the early death of HD-DVD is good for early adopters:

1. HDDVD movies will be significantly reduced in price. Bestbuy, Walmart, and others are already trying to get rid of the stockpile with cutting the prices. So hurry on over to your local hddvd store today and get the best selection.
2. HDDVD players will also be significantly underpriced. Hurry and up and buy one if you want. You can have a next gen player and movies for a fraction of the price of bluray.
3. Now, you will not have to look over at the bluray section of movies with envy. Becuase now you are forced to go blu if you want future releases.
4. Format wars are bad for the tech industry. They slow down technology advancement. So it is good the war is over, and what is good for the tech industry, is good for consumers.
5. That Xbox 360 HD-DVD extension can also be a great paper weight or door stop. Or maybe pass it on over to the “Will it Blend” guy.

All joking aside. This really is good news for the industry and for us as the consumers. So even if you got on the bum end of the deal, and you were an early HD-DVD adopter, in the end, you will end up on top, becuase you have a great HD player at the fraction of the price that all the blu-ray people paid.

Yes… HD-DVD is dead, but dead really means that this is a chance to get a good collection of movies etc. So don’t be forlorn, look at the brightside, at least the battle or war did not last as long as divx or the betamax wars.

Before hearing anything about USDTV, I had bought a USDTV box on craigslist for like $30 bucks. I took it home and hooked it up to my projector, expecting HDTV bliss and to my supprise, the screen was stuck saying that it could not pick up a USDTV signal. I was pretty frustrated and immediately fired of an angry email to the person that sold me the box (they told me I should have no problem). Of course they did not respond and I had to find an alternative. So after searching the far reaches of the internet, I found a tutorial that detailed how to patch the box on your own. In this post, I just was to reiterate the tutorial and express some of the troubleshooting that I had to do along the way. The original tutorial can be found here. So if you can pick one of these things up for cheap, I encourage it. They are fairly easy to patch.

Now onto the H4X0r
Here is a list of everything that you need to make the patch work

• A computer running your favorite flavor of Linux (I would reccommend Fedora Core as it has many drivers and will mount your USB stick on its own)
• A USB stick (probably at least a Gig)
• Download this file

Once you have all of this in check, we are ready to begin…
One thing that I will try to do in this tutorial is to cover all of the bases. I would not quite consider myself a linux guru, so it took me a little bit of troubleshooting to get this working. I will try to answer all questions that I receive.

Here we go…

• Step 1
  Unzip both of the files into a directory that you can easily find (probably /home/yourusername).
• Step 2
  Insert your USB stick. Don’t mount it! If your system automatically mounts it (Fedora will do this) you need to unmount it. If you don’t know how to do this, this link will provide some insight.
• Step 3
  Create a folder inside of the /mnt folder called usb_flash. To do this, open the terminal and type the commands:
  
  cd /mnt
  mkdir usb_flash
  chmod 777 usb_flash
  
  This will be the mount point for our script
• Step 4
  In the terminal, navigate to the directory where you unzipped the files. If you unzipped them to the directory specified above, simply type
  cd /home/yourusername/FTA_conversion
• Step 5
  Run the following command
  ./makekey usdtv_fta.fromService.2.7.15.0602031002.keychain.tar.gz
  What this command does is runs the make key script. Here is the breakdown of the script. – It scans your computer for the location of the USB stick
  - When it finds the stick, it mounts it in the /mnt/usb_flash folder
  - The USB stick is then formatted using the /sbin/fdisk command
  - The drive is then given the ext2 partition using the mke2fs command
  - It then untars the file onto the disk
  - Lastly it does some nerdyness with MD5 and unmounts the stickWhen this process is completed you will see a message that says Keychain successfully created. You may remove the USB drive now. If it fails for any reason, it will spit out some errors. You can see all of the shell code for this script by typing in emacs makekey
• Step 6
  - Unplug your USDTV box
  - Insert the USB stick into the back of your USDTv box
  - Plug in the power cord and turn on the box
  - The update will begin immediately
  - When it is done, it will tell you it is safe to unplug your box. Unplug the box and remove the USB stick from the back of the box and plug it back in
  - After all is complete, it will do a channel scan and some config and you are done!

Troubleshooting
Here I will post the problems that I encountered. I will post more here as people submit issues.

Error: A keychain is already mounted, exiting – This error occurs when your USB stick is already mounted. If you get this error you need to unmount the stick

Error: mke2fs: Command not found. – This is because the script is calling the command like mke2fs, on some system this command cannot be accessed like this. To fix this you will need to open the makekey file (emacs makekey) and edit it the line that says mke2fs $partition >>$logfile 2>&1

Change this line to /sbin/mke2fs $partition >>$logfile 2>&1 and press Ctrl-x Ctrl-s (Save command for emacs). Run the scrip again and this should fix it.

If you don’t feel like creating the patch yourself, or are just having too much trouble, message me and I can do it for you for cheap. Good Luck!.

HDDVD or BluRay. Ever since the release of the next generation media players, there has been a heated debate going on between both parties. Those HD DVD hard core supporters, and the Blu Ray fan club. They argue about image quality, player availability, publishing houses that support thier format, movies made just for thier format and of course price. In the midst of all of this arguing, it is tough to find a clear answer if you are in the market to buy the best available nextgen player for you. And really, that is what it comes down to. Practicality. That is why I wanted to write this “Real World” comparision, becuase I have never seen a review that compares bluray and hd dvd in light of the average consumer. So without further ado, here begins my comparison of HD-DVD and BluRay Disc. I do own both players and am only biased by which product will best suit me as a consumer.

A Brief Overview of HD-DVD:

HD DVD or High-Definition DVD is a high-density optical disc format designed for the storage of data and high-definition video. It is designed to be the successor to the standard DVD format and is derived from the same underlying technologies. Since it employs a blue laser with a shorter wavelength, it can store about 3 1/2 times as much data as its predecessor (Maximum capacity: 30 GB instead of 8.5 GB). A 51 GB triple-layer preliminary spec has been approved.

As of November 6, 2007, 331 HD DVD titles have been released in the USA.

A Brief Overview of BluRay Disc:

The name Blu-ray Disc is derived from the blue-violet laser used to read and write this type of disc. Because of its shorter wavelength (405 nm), substantially more data can be stored on a Blu-ray Disc than on the DVD format, which uses a red (650 nm) laser. A single layer Blu-ray Disc can store 25 gigabytes (GB), over five times the size of a single layer DVD at 4.7 GB. A dual layer Blu-ray Disc can store 50 GB, almost 6 times the size of a dual layer DVD at 8.5 GB.

As of October 23, 2007, 351[2] titles have been released on Blu-ray Disc in the United States (32 of those titles have since been discontinued).

How to compare Blu-Ray Disc and HD-DVD:
I am going to compare HD-DVD and BluRay Disc in the most pratical way for the average consumer to make an educated buying decision. I am going to compare these following areas:

• Image and Sound Qulaity (True High Definition Comparision)
• Benefits and Features of Each Format
• Available Movies / Studio Support
• Players and Accessories
• Price

In comparing these, you can make a decision that will best fit your desires in the next generation format war.

HD-DVD vs. BluRay Disc
Image and Sound Quality Comparison:

Image Quality:
So people always say “Oh is so much better higher quality than [enter opposing format name here]. Because it has the ability to [enter high definition jargon here] and also to [enter more HD jargon here].” But really who cares if all of those specs don’t transfer to what you actually see on your television screen. So let’s discuss the important things that really make a picture better. Resolution, Codec, bit rate, FPS and quality of initial content. Although there are slight differences in most of those areas, they really are almost negligible to the average consumer. So suffice it to say that right now, content on both HD-DVD and BluRay look absolutely amazing and are very very close in quality.

Thus it is a clear tie on Image Quality:
HDDVD: 9 out of 10
BluRay: 9 out of 10

Sound Quality:
When it comes to audio quality there are only 2 things that really matter. First is your codec, and second is your bit rate. Both formats have the ability to play the common surround sound codecs: Dolby Digital, DTS, Dolby Digital Plus, and DTS-HD High Resolution. But the truth is, all of those codecs suck! Becuase ther are what is called “lossy”. In other words, when they convert the audio into that codec, information is lost, that is never re-gained. So what I like to compare are the lossless codecs. Which means when the audio is converted into a codec from the studio, NO information is lost. It is a perfect digital transfer. Now on to comparing the lossless codecs that each format supports. There are 3 major lossless codecs for audio, Linear PCM, Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD Master Audio. Both bluray and HD-DVD have the ability to play all 3 of those codecs. Now the only slight advantage goes to HD-DVD where 2 of the 3 codecs (Linear PCM and Dolby TruHD) are mandatory on all HD-DVD’s while on BluRay disc, only 1 (Linear PCM) is mandatory. So what does that mean to you? If you have a nice sound system, chances are slightly higher that you can play HD-DVD’s with a lossless codec than with Blu Ray. But the differences once again are almost negligible.

Thus it means that once again it is a tie, but this time for Audio Quality:
HDDVD: 9 out of 10
BluRay: 9 out of 10

HD-DVD vs. BluRay Disc
Benefits and Features of Each Format – Comparison:

Each format has its own way of loading, showing content, displaying menu items, interactive content, computer usability etc. This section is going to briefly compare each PRO or Benefit that each format has over the other.

Better on HD-DVD	Feature	Better on BluRay Disc
15 GB	Storage Capacity	25 GB
Slick and Simple	In_Movie Navigation (Personal Prefrence)	Nice but Akward
Mandatory	Internet Connectibility (For content and upgrades)	Optional
Great Logo, Ugly Maroon Color	Appeal (General feel of the quality of the product and corporate image)	Great Logo and Colors
Dual Layer can increase capacity to 30GB	Future Upgrade Ability	Dual and Triple layer capacity increases to 75GB

Altough not a super important category, the features and benefits showcased by each format make Blu-Ray a clear winner:
HDDVD: 3 out of 5
BluRay: 4 out of 5

HD-DVD vs. BluRay Disc
Available Titles and Studio Support Comparison:

Available Titles:
Because this list is ever expanding, I am just going to link to a place that keeps the list up to date:
High-Def Digest: HD-DVD Complete Title List
High-Def Digest: BluRay Disc Complete Title List
at the time of this post HD-DVD had about 5 more movies released than Bluray. Bother were around the 300 title mark.

Now here is where the comparison really comes into play. There are big studios that support only one format or both or none at all. And it is these studios that will make the content that you watch. So Let’s take a look at what studios support each format. Keep in mind, it is not the total amount of studios that make the content greater, but the bigger size of the studio and quality of content that should make a difference.

HD-DVD Studio Support (Games / Movies / Television):

• Buena Vista Home Entertainment
• New Line Cinema
• Paramount Pictures
• The Walt Disney Company
• Universal Studios
• Warner Bros.

Bluray Disc Studio Support (Games / Movies / Television):

• 20th Century Fox
• Buena Vista Home Entertainment
• Electronic Arts
• MGM Studios
• Paramount Pictures
• Sony Pictures Entertainment
• The Walt Disney Company
• Vivendi Universal Games
• Warner Bros.

(Note: All you people out there who see Walt Disney under HD-Dvd support and think that is wrong because there is not conent, take a look here: Disney and HD-DVD )

Because BluRay has the larger publishing house and studio support, it is the clear winner:
HDDVD: 6 out of 10
BluRay: 8 out of 10

HD-DVD vs. BluRay Disc
Players and Accessories:

Regardless of your predisposition to a format the players are really similar. Who makes a better product? Toshiba or Sony? Hitachi or Samsung? In both cases the BluRay supporters have a better manufacturing company making them. Samsung and Sony make some of the best Bluray players while Hitcji and Toshiba make the best HD-DVD players. Now that is just based off of company history and general product quality. If you like a good looking, sexy, player. Than go bluray all the way, but if you want to have a much better price, well then, that leads us to the next section, Price comparisons.

Once again not a super important category, but the sheer names backing the players make blu-ray a clear winner:
HDDVD: 3 out of 5
BluRay: 4 out of 5

HD-DVD vs. BluRay Disc
Price Comparision:

Up to this point, bluray seems to take the winning circle, but truthfully, how much are you willing to pay for the difference. Here is where we make another meaningful average consumer comparison. There are 2 MAJOR costs when upgrading to a next generation media player. First, is the cost of the player, and second, is the cost of the media to be played in the player.

So here we have a simple comparison:

There are a couple more things to consider when looking at cost or the price tag, that is the lowest available player cost. If you just want to get in on the ground floor in this next gen format war, how much would it cost, bare minimum?

Well, Wal-mart just announced a couple of weeks ago, an HD-DVD player for only $99. Yeah… I know that is crazy cheap! Here is proof. And I can’t find a BluRay player that would be considered inexpensive.

In the realm of price, BluRay is grossly expensive and HD-DVD has just some into the range of affordability. With that said, HD-DVD is taking this category by a landslide!
HDDVD: 9 out of 10
BluRay: 6 out of 10

HD-DVD vs. BluRay Disc Comparison Totals:

Image Quality:
HDDVD: 9 out of 10
BluRay: 9 out of 10

Audio Quality:
HDDVD: 9 out of 10
BluRay: 9 out of 10

Benefits and Features:
HDDVD: 3 out of 5
BluRay: 4 out of 5

Titles and Studio Support:
HDDVD: 6 out of 10
BluRay: 8 out of 10

Players and Accessories:
HDDVD: 3 out of 5
BluRay: 4 out of 5

HDDVD: 9 out of 10
BluRay: 6 out of 10

HD-DVD – Grand Total: 39 of 50
BluRay Disc – Grand Total: 40 of 50

Conclusion – The Never Ending Format War:
There is definately no clear winner in this format war as of get. They both have momentum going into this Holiday season and it will carry through to 2008. So what does this mean for you? If you are ready to buy, think of what is more important to you. Price or Overall Quality. If you answer price, go HD-DVD. If you answer Overall Quality, go BluRay. If you could not answer, either wait for a dual format player, or flip a coin.

I hope this little review has opened your eyes to some of the interesting dichatimies in this format war. I hope the format war ends soon, because whoever wins, the truth is, the consumer will be the real winner.

Encode360 is incredibly easy to use (once installed). The installation process takes a few moments to explain as you need some additional software installed, all free I can assure you.

1. Download and install the latest .net framework
   
2. Download and install Windows Media Player 11 (if you haven’t already done so)
3. Download and install Windows Media Encode (WTF?!!1!? Microsoft has a media encoder?)
4. Download and install the Combined Community Codec Pack
5. Download and install Encode360

Thats alot of crap to install! So after you download the Encode360 zip, extract it to a folder of your choice. Next you will need to download yet another application (last one, I promise…kinda). Download FFMpeg. Extract both ffmpeg.exe and ffplay.exe to your Encode360 directory. You can now open up Encode360. But don’t try to encode any files yet, you still need to download one last .dll! The file is called pthreadGC2.dll. I had to do some searching for this file. I couldn’t find a download of this file directly, good thing some guy used it in a project and I was able to extract it. Download this app. Extract the files and open the directory Tools/FFMPEG. Copy the files pthreadGC2.dll and AVSredirect.dll to your Encode360 directory. Now you are ready to go…

1. Open Encode360.exe

2. Add files to be encoded by clicking on the + sign and browsing for your files. Encode360 allows you to queue as many files as you want. Also you can set the resolution in the “Output To” dropdown. Make sure you click the “…” button where it sais “Creat Encoded Files Here” and select a directory to save the files in. Click the Encode button to start the encoding process. This could take a while, depending on the video size. Generally the size increases by about 2.6 times. You can preview the video as in encodes by clicking “Post View”. I believe this will however slow down the encodeing process.

When you are all done, you are ready to view the video files on your Xbox360. Read this tutorial for instructions on how to do this via Windows Media Player 11.

Happy Xbox-ing.

Home Theater Showdown – Battle 1: High Definition Projector Screens
Fighters: J.J. vs. Brandon

Competing Products:
Brandon’s – 120 inch Generic Screen
J.J.’s – 100 inch Saaria Screen

Battle Overview:
Battles are formatted in such a way where the owners talk about the Pro’s and Con’s of their product in each round. Each round has either e heme or a question. At the end of each round there is a winner declared by both competitora and an additional 3rd party. Whoever wins the most rounds at the end, is declared the winner of the battle.

The Specifics of the Projector Screens:
J.J.: My screen is a 100′ inch Saaria Grey Magic II with a gain of 1.1. It is a fixed velvet lined screen.
Brandon: My screen is 120 inches an it is sweet!

Round 1 – The Price and Size of the Screen (Cheapest):

J.J.: I bought my screen on ebay for $262 and that included shipping. My screen is 100′ inches diagonal. To be geeky, I paid $2.62 for each diagonal inch for my screen. I did a lot of research for my fixed screen and this is the one I found, it was a great price in my opinion!Brandon: I also bought my screen from ebay. Ebay is the best place (in my opinion) to go to find great deals on screens. Mine was $220 shipped. My screen is 120 inches (10 feet) on the diagonal. Pretty sweet deal for a fixed screen of this size.

Round 1 Winner:
Brandon and his 120 inch generic projector screen

Round 2 – Screen Quality, Construction / Image Quality:

J.J.: When I received the box in the mail I was surprised by its size! IT was recommended that 2 people do this job, but I was too eager to wait, so I tore into the set-up process. The construction of the screen was very impressive. The metal used as the frame for the screen was very sturdy. The assembly of the screen took about 30 to 45 minutes, but the instructions were clear and as the screen took form, I was glad to see that my $200 screen was not just a piece of junk, on the contrary, once fully assembled, the screen has a lot of physical integrity. The saaria logo on the bottom set’s it apart from generic screens. Saaria also has a very unique way of getting the projector screen material stretched across the frame. It usees metal rods that are then snapped around plastic holds that stretch the screen to it fullest extent without leaving any indentations or stress marks on the sreen. The end result is a water like surface of the screen. Very impressive!Now on the image quality side. It is tough to say how the quality of the image is, because it depends on more than just the screen. But since my competitor and I have almost identical projectors, I would say that my gain is higher. And for my room and my projector (Sony vpl-hs60) that is great! I think the importance of a brilliant picture is important. I know a lot of people talk about how the grey screens are much better for DLP and LCD projectors because the lumen’s are enough, but I think that is bull. I think the picture should be bright and that the colors should be distinct and not washed out. And my screen does just that! It is bright and vibrant while watching it at night, the colors are deep and the blacks are black enough. Needless to say, it is impressive.

Brandon: First off, mine came in like a 10′ box. I had to pay like $90 somthing to ship this bad boy. It was pretty confusing because the screen came with two sets of instructions and they both were very ambiguous. Needless to say, I was up to the challenge. After about 1 hour of battle (and almost cracking the plastice L-joints) my screen was finally assembled. I would have been able to do this by myself, however the wife wanted to help, so we did it together. This was a battle in itself. j/k (if my wife is reading). When it was all said and done, the screen hung on the wall in all its 120″ glory. My only complaint is that it barely fit in my little 10′ x 11′ room.

Mmmm high def goodness… ahhh…… I honestly can’t see a quality difference between screens as far as picture goes. The only drawback to mine, is the frame appears to be made of cheap flimsy metal and plastic. Also the metal is fairly reflective, it’s not covered in velvet like JJ’s is. Overall, I think this screen is great. It would be hard to find a better/larger screen for the same price.

Round 2 Winner:
J.J.’s 100 inch Sarria Projector Screen

Round 3 – The PRO’s & CON’s:

J.J.:
PROs’ – The PRO’s for my Saaria screen are endless! I have been 100% satisfied! The image quality is great, is construction is sturdy, it hangs perfectly flat on my wall and it was easy to assemble and install The back of the screen has a black back so that no light can be transferred from any blocked out windows or anything else. The velvet trim on the frame blocks almost all light so that any overscan (projector light that does not fit inside the screen) is not visible. The screen looks professional and receives compliments all the time. I have been 100% satisfied. Also, keep in mind that other projector screens like dalite, stewart filmscreen, infocus and others start around $700 and go up to $3000 for a screen this size, so to get one this size for $200 is amazing!CON’s – Well, I guess the only CON would be that I wish it was bigger. Even though I already get motion sickness playing video games on this thing, but as a guy, we always want the biggest and the best. Besides that, i would say that there has been NO downside to this screen whatsoever!

Brandon:
PRO’s: Uhh do I even have to say. If you don’t know the pros of having a 120″ widescreen, you probably should not be reading this post. This thing is freaking huge and it’s great.

CON’s: The screen does feel a little flimbsy when not hanging on the wall. May be hard to transport when I move. Thats my only complaint.

Round 3 Winner:
It is a Tie!

Conclusion:

This was a tough decision. Do we take the 120 inch generic mammoth, or the 20 inch smaller quality Saaria. Well, it comes down to what you want. Do you prefer quality or size? They are about the same price, Brandons screen was $1.83 per diagonal inch and J.J.’s was $2.20. Either way, these are a great buy! Sreens this size for this price, you simply cannot lose!!

Winner of the Home Theater Showdown – Battle 1 is…
Brandon’s 120 inch Generic Monster (He Barely won)