Category Archives: DVD & Blu-ray

DVD & Blu-ray, Life, Movies & TV, Tech, Xbox

HD DVD Hunting

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‘Tis a sad day when you have to jump through more hoops to get a new accessory than you did the console itself, but that’s exactly the experience that I’ve had today while hunting for the 360 HD DVD drive, which neither my friend’s shop (there were around 20 in the whole country for independent shops, according to the distributor) nor Gameplay could supply me with for launch day. I doubt I was alone in this experience, so here’s my day.

I’d heard that a good number of PC World stores would be getting a handful of units each for general sale. Got up bright and early at 8am this morning so that I could be at PC World in Poole, the biggest around, for when it opened at 9. I asked in there and they said they were expecting a few but they haven’t turned up, and they might be in their delivery later that day. Went home via the Christchurch branch (the other side of town) but they weren’t getting any, checking every place that might have had them (Tesco, Currys, Comet, etc) on the way. No joy.

Then I had to go to uni so I checked PC World in Southampton while I was there, along with Gamestation, two branches of Game, Virgin, HMV, and CEX. Nothing.

On the way home I detoured over to Poole again to see if their delivery had arrived. Nope. Maybe Monday, they said. By then I was resigned to getting an import on Tuesday, obviously at a premium but not as unreasonable as the current eBay prices, so I went to cancel my unfulfilled Gameplay order which still said “Ordered” since I’d missed out on the initial shipment. Went through their cancellation process and then noticed – after I’d cancelled it, mind – that it had changed to “Being Picked”.

I rang them up to see if that was accurate and, if it was, to see if I could cancel my cancellation. The guy there informed me that they’d managed to get a few more units and mine had been shipped out this morning via courier, so I should get it on Monday.

A happy ending, then. Now I think I need to lie down…

DVD & Blu-ray, Impressions, Movies & TV, Tech

Topfield TF5800PVR Impressions

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Another day, another new gadget. This time it’s a PVR funded, as always, by my good old student loan. Hooray!

Topfield TF5800PVR

Say hello to the Topfield TF5800PVR, known to its friends as the Toppy. By day it’s a mild-manned Freeview PVR with a 160GB hard drive to record 80 hours of material, which by my calculations is how much TV I watch in about three months. It also has component output which is a great boon for an LCD TV user. This thing has some real tricks inside that bland little case, however.

First up is the USB port on the back. It’s used not only for the obvious firmware upgrades, but also to pull the recorded video off the hard drive to the computer where it can be edited, burnt to DVD, stuck on the PSP/iPod, or whatever. Obviously this in no way encourages piracy and putting copyrighted material on YouTube. Never. Not even all the weekend’s goals like they show on Match of the Day 2 in a handy two-minute package.

It’s real killer app here, though, is that it can run its own little applications known as TAPs (Topfield APplications). With some judicious tapping mine now pulls EPG data for the next two weeks from the Radio Times site instead of the basic 7-day EPG that Freeview has (this means much more extensive information including mini reviews of every film that’s on) and has a number of searches running that record anything that matches them (e.g. it searches BBC1 and BBC2 at the weekend for names beginning with “Match of the Day” that are on after 10pm, catching both versions). It also allows me to browse the listings by genre, name, and even content summaries. And that pair is just the beginning. There are tons of the things.

I only got it last Thursday (from Superfi, who were pretty good and the cheapest on Pricerunner) so I’m still learning the ropes and doing that perpetual tweaking that I do – I’ve only just become happy with the setup of my Harmony remote that I bought in March – but I’ve been well impressed with this thing. It’s a decent box on its own merits, and when you factor in the ton of extra functionality that you can download for nothing, it’s brilliant.

DVD & Blu-ray, Movies & TV, Tech, Xbox

A Toe in the HD-Pond

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Look what I got in the post yesterday!

My First HD DVDs

Yes, there’s a few weeks before the Xbox 360’s HD DVD drive comes out to say hello but I wanted to get these purchases out of the way before I’m buried under a deluge of new games. Serenity is an obvious choice and when I first saw HD DVD I was blown away by the video quality in The Last Samurai. Batman Begins is on the way across the Atlantic as we speak (can’t wait to see those beautiful glaciers in HD), and when you add in King Kong I’ve got a nice early library.

I won’t comment on the mental health implications of buying discs that I currently have no way of playing. Surely I’m not the only one who’s done it? In any case there’s a format war to be won this time and I’ve done my part to ensure victory for the HD DVD format. Take that, Blu-Ray!

DVD & Blu-ray, Games, Impressions, Japan 2006, Life, Nintendo, Photography, PlayStation, Xbox

The Final Stretch

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Tomorrow is our last full day in Japan before we head home on Thursday morning, and it’s going to be spent with some lazing around and last bit of shopping thanks to a blister the size of my head (yes, that big) that’s appeared on my little toe. Quite nasty really.

Over the last couple of days we rinsed our JR Passes by taking the Shinkansen to Kyoto and Nikko where a great deal of temples and shrines are found. I took photos of most of them and the toll taken on my feet by the sheer amount of walking will probably turn out to be catastrophic. We ended it by taking a taxi up to Kegon Falls (an expensive choice, but I wasn’t paying so I don’t care) which was really beautiful.

 

Kegon Falls

Being a gamer, one of the main attractions of coming to Japan is the shopping. I did a bit in Australia (the most interesting being EzyDVD’s limited Serenity tin) but they’re generally in a similar boat to us when it comes to the things I’m interested in – only $1,000 for a PS3! – which makes saving money for Akihabara an obvious choice. This is what I picked up, technology-wise:

  • 30GB iPod – Yep, I went to the dark side and bought a 5G iPod. I just use iTunes and podcasts enough now to justify it, and I love watching Consolevania and The 1UP Show on my MP3 player.
  • Cooking Mama (DS) – Haven’t played it yet since my DS is still in the UK, but I bought it on the strength of a couple of recommendations from people who liked Ouendan.
  • Every Extend Extra (PSP) – It hasn’t clicked with me like Lumines, but it’s an interesting little puzzler. I’ll persevere with it before I draw any conclusions.
  • Goku Makaimura (PSP) – Ultimate Ghosts ‘n’ Goblins to most of you. Just mind-bendingly, masochistically hard. I’m inclined to say that it falls on the wrong side of the line between frustrating and challenging, but again I’ll wait until I’ve been able to put in some real playtime before I condemn it.
  • Jump Superstars (DS) – Again, haven’t played it. Supposedly it’s a very good Smash Bros clone with Shonen Jump characters (DBZ, Naruto, etc).
  • Street Fighter Zero 3: Double Upper (PSP) – I don’t think I need to go into how much I like this game and this is a great version, but the PSP has undoubtably the WORST D-PAD IN THE WORLD. I need to find one of those mods.
  • Tekken: Dark Resurrection (PSP) – Great-looking for a PSP title and a decent game, but it’s still Tekken. Probably the most fun I’ve had with the series since Tekken 2 which really isn’t too hard, but it’s supposed to be a compliment here.
  • Viewtiful Joe (GC) – A classic that I’ve been meaning to pick up since I got my Cube going through component. It only cost me like a fiver anyway. Henshin-a-go-go, baby!

I’m not counting the litres of Grape Fanta and a new discovery, Melon Cream Soda Fanta, in the purchases because then this would turn into some kind of epic love poem. In another game-related story, I went into an arcade in Shibuya and played Virtua Fighter 5 which, if I’m honest, really didn’t blow me away. I do enjoy the series but this wasn’t a big leap by any stretch of the imagination, and rather than looking like a graphical showpiece it looked kind of artificial. I suppose I need to wait to try the PS3 version before I complain too vociferously.

This really will be it until I get home. Can’t wait for it now.

DVD & Blu-ray, Games, Impressions, Movies & TV, Tech

Logitech Z-5400

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Logitech Z-5400

I’ve got a decent TV, a decent DVD player, and decent cables connecting everything into it, but the slightly incongruous link is my sound system, an Interact DSS-900, which has served me well enough for a few years but just isn’t that great. It only cost me as much as three of the digital coaxial cables that I use though, so I suppose it’s been good value.

It’s been loud enough to annoy my parents on a regular basis (late night Call of Duty 2 is a particular sore point) but it only supports Dolby Digital and Dolby Pro Logic II which has left DTS on DVDs inaccessible and it doesn’t have a remote which means that even with my lovely Harmony I have to get up to turn it off with the rest of the system unless I want a low hum 24/7.

Anyway, with a student loan to blow I decided it was time for an upgrade, so I went for the Logitech Z-5400. It has a remote and supports DTS which is two of the criteria down immediately, it’s more powerful and so can keep family members awake even more effectively, and it has support for seven devices at once (up from three) while negating the need to flick an optical/coaxial switch hidden away on the back when I want to change between DVD and 360. At a shade under £150 I’d say it’s even better value than the £100 spent on the old one, and just look at the white-on-black LCD. Look at it. That’s worth the money alone. Continue reading Logitech Z-5400 →

DVD & Blu-ray, Games, Impressions, Movies & TV, PlayStation

Advent Children

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It took its sweet time, but Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children – the CGI film arm of the new Final Fantasy VII triptych – is finally out (legally) in the West. I last saw it when I was in Japan seven months ago and can’t imagine why an English dub would take that long to record, but at least it’s here and I don’t have to rely on a typo-ridden fansub to understand most of it.

Advent Children

My impressions of the movie itself haven’t changed, even with the slightly better translation. I enjoyed it but it remains quite esoteric, assuming prior knowledge of the games by, for example, not even naming most of the original protagonists. The DVD addresses this slightly with the 25-minute ‘Reminiscence of Final Fantasy VII’ feature which gives an abridged history, but even that is hard to follow and more useful for those like me who played a lot of the game but never finished it. Obviously it contains major spoilers for those who plan to finish it and somehow don’t know how it ends.

What will draw many people to this is the spectacular CGI. While characters fall short of looking completely lifelike as they did in the previous Final Fantasy movie, The Spirits Within, for my money they’re the best “realistic” CG humans on film so far, and since the whole thing is styled like an anime (no real hair can be that spiky) the occasional flaky animation doesn’t tend to detract. How does a person look when they’re backflipping off a skyscraper, anyway?

Either way, Advent Children remains an action-packed movie with some of the best high-flying combat scenes since The Matrix. It’s enjoyable as a purely visceral experience, which is probably why most exposition scenes are brushed aside in a few minutes to make room for another motorcycle chase. Not exactly deep, obviously, but good fun. Fanboy pornography, basically, and entertaining despite its vapid nature.