Exploring Stuff That Makes Life Great
Thanks to our partners we’ve added two new shows today. The first is Next-Gen Walkthroughs which has videos showing entire sequences of what happens in games. If you ever get stuck in a game, don’t bother reading a strategy guide just watch this show. The second show is New Gen Gamers Playground. This is a audio podcast from New Gen Gamers covering the world of games.
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In a surprising turn of events Paramount Pictures has come out and said they will release titles on HD-DVD exclusively! This is huge considering the mega Transformers movie will be arriving on the HD format very soon. Kelley Avery, president of Paramount Home Entertainment, said that the reason why Paramount decided to exclusively release movies onto HD-DVD instead of Blu-Ray is because of HD-DVDs better quality and lower cost. Blades of Glory and Transformers will arrive on HD-DVD this Fall as the first batch of titles.
Dreamworks will also be using HD-DVD as their exclusive format and will be releasing Shrek the Third this Fall as well. Other related studios to use HD-DVD in this announcement are Paramount Vantage, Nickelodeon Movies and MTV Films. However Steven Spielberg’s movies will not be exclusive to HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. Considering how anti-HD Spielberg is to begin with it’s not that surprising.
So far Blu-Ray discs have been outselling HD-DVD because Blu-Ray has the higher install base as PS3’s are also Blu-Ray players. On the other hand the cheapest HD-DVD player is the add-on for the Xbox 360 which hasn’t sold spectacularly yet.
Looking at Fall’s HD disc lineup for Blu-Ray the major two titles are Spider-Man 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean 3.
If HD-DVD does not meet or surpass Blu-Ray sales this Holiday season, studios could begin to question the future of the format. For consumers waiting to adopt a HD format things have just gotten a little crazier.
I own the HD-DVD add-on for the Xbox 360, but I haven’t bought a HD movie since I purchased the unit. I can’t tell a huge difference between HD titles and regular DVDs so why pay the extra money per disc? The huge advantage to this next-gen formats is with box sets. Now you’ll be able to fit more hours of content onto a single disc which makes viewing extra features better for everyone.
Blu-Ray is here to stay because Sony is using it on the PS3. As long as the PS3 is bought by consumers, Blu-Ray will always have a stake in this war. If Microsoft truly wants HD-DVD to win they will have to integrate it with the system. I think Microsoft will release this combo system next year if HD-DVD can survive this Holiday season.
[Via Reuters]
Since the dawning of social networking websites, the user has had the ability to design their pages however they wish. This has led to both good and bad designs. In some cases those designs make people runaway from your page! THIS IS NOT A GOOD THING! So I’m here to give you some Web 2.0 advice on how to solve this issue.
First choose the background for your page wisely. Usually a solid color is best, but if you want a image as your background be aware that others will be looking at your profile. Do not choose a image that’s overly flashy or distracting in anyway. Even if the image suits your personality, the idea is to get people to read your content – not be blinded by it.
Secondly avoid background music/video that automatically plays! Any sound that comes from a website is an automatic red flag to a user. They will quickly figure out how to turn it off and if they cannot within a couple of seconds they either have to turn off their own speakers or exit your page. If a visitor wants to listen or watch the content that you provide on your webpage allow them to do it manually.
The color and style of text is very important and always has been important since the creation of the Printing Press! Why would you bother to write something that no one can read? If you think it looks cute, the liklihood is that someone else thinks it looks dreadful. The way to avoid this is yet again simplicity. Times New Romain, size 12 = perfect. The color of the font depends on the background which the font is placed. Be aware that white text with a black background is hard to read. Read your profile information over and over and see how long you can stare at it without your eyes going blurry. If you can last at least 10 minutes without having any problems then you’ve chosen a good color.
In the world where anyone can create their own internet shrine, make sure that yours is user friendly. Why would you want to spend hours on something that only you read?
So what is it like to edit video with me? Apparently I made a video while I was editing the StuffWeLike.com Podcast Mashup episode. I’m not recommending that you watch this video, but I just found it in my account and it completely surprised me. I remember recording it but I never saw the video previously on Ustream and now it’s up. So here you go…
Over 15,000 counterfeit Nintendo products were collected today across 12 distributors in Guadalajara. Of those 4,500 were Wii game discs. This wasn’t the first time that Nintendo has worked with Mexican authorities to fight against counterfeits, Last month, Nintendo stopped a shipment of more than 5,500 counterfeit Nintendo products entering Manzanillo, exported from China. Prior to that, 23 stores were shut down and more than 56,000 counterfeit Nintendo products were confiscated, including 11,000 counterfeit Wii discs, in San Juan de Dios market in Guadalajara.
“Mexico is Nintendo’s largest market in Latin America, where the problem of video game piracy is widespread,” said Jodi Daugherty, Nintendo of America’s senior director of anti-piracy.
I received my repaired Xbox 360 yesterday at 6pm. I opened it up to find the, as promised, 1 month free Xbox Live gamer card. After unwrapping the console I looked for the dent that my system had and it wasn’t there. No I didn’t receive someone else’s Xbox 360, I received a brand-new one! Microsoft appears to be fixing the Ring of Death issue by sending newly manufactured systems that fix the heat sync issue.
When I powered up the system I could barely hear it running! If you remember turning on your 360 for the very first time when you got it a year ago, it sounded like a beast. Whatever Microsoft did it seems to have worked. I haven’t played any games with the console other than demos off the harddrive, but I’ve left the system on for six hours straight as I downloaded more demos and the system worked like a charm.
I noticed however that when laying the system on its side and running it for hours, the side touching the floor was still very hot, while the opposite side was relatively cool. My suggestion for all you 360 owners out there is to stand your console up when you use it. This way you can get maximum airflow in and out of the system on both sides of the console.
Personally I’m going try and to keep my Xbox 360 off to the side rather than in my media center cabinet.
It took me four posts to cover this repairing event and I’m sad to see this saga come to an end. In total the whole process was 1 month and 1 day.
Considering that Microsoft has extended the warranty to three years, I might break my console on purpose to get the new hardware 3 years from now. Who knows how much Microsoft will have improved the 360’s architecture by that time.