New blogs, best man, and Xbox 360s

April 9, 2006 By

I like finding new tech blogs. Just found a fun one done by Tunji Afonja. He runs his own software development company in Kansas City. Love the name: The Blog of an African Nerd.

How did I find him? A Technorati search for Xbox and Media Center. He wrote a “bold prediction” that the race for the living room is over. Hmmm, I think it’s just starting!

But, if he’s talking about my living room, he’s right. I got my Xbox 360 and I’m installing it.

The Xbox is a sordid tale. Maryam made me take back the one I bought the other night. She did a great whine and freak out show for me. Said we didn’t have the money. Which is sorta true, but what the heck, I needed it for research. :-)

Turns out that whole song and dance was a game of its own. See, she was in cahoots with Chris Pirillo and Ponzi. They had already gotten me an Xbox 360 as a gift for being their best man at their wedding (date to come, but sometime in November/December). That’ll be quite an event, almost as good as Gnomedex!

Why don’t they just get married at Gnomedex? That’d save them some money and trouble. And it’d guarantee that it’d get recorded and Flickred.

Anyway, thanks Chris, now I gotta go to the store and get some stuff to finish off the installation.

Oh, and I can smell a blog vacation coming on. Mmmmm, it smells like Oblivion! (All my friends who’ve tried that game are RAVING about it. They say that it, alone, is worth spending the $400 on an Xbox to get it.

We’ll see.

Filed Under: 1
  • Nice site actually. Gone to my favourites. Thanks for creation.
  • Oblivion is high voltage. Once you get your hands on it, you can't let go until somebody hits you very hard with a heavy piece of wood.

    If you value your other commitments, have your wife or son standing by with a 2x4 while you play.
  • That should say "it *can* only output audio that's already in AC-3."
  • Francesco -

    That's not the best way to set up an HTPC. Using Dolby/DTS encoding is a bad idea. It compresses the signal and usually adds delays. You're much better off getting a card with very high quality 5.1/7.1 analog output, like a Creative X-Fi.

    This is especially true if you want to output very high quality signals like DVD-Audio or SACD.


    J. Random -

    No they don't. If it's like every other S/PDIF out, it can't only output audio that's already in AC-3. It won't encode normal 5.1-channel sound, from games for example. The only cards that can do that are the ones with on-the-fly Dolby Digital encoding, which is not what I want.
  • monkey weeps at the sheer beauty http://monkeyonthemove.textamerica.com/?r=4586667
  • J. Random Poster
    Brandon, the 5.1 capability exists, and as you said playing a DVD demonstrates it. Whether any particular software takes advantage of it is up to the developer.
  • Dean, sorry I missed that.
  • Francesco Simi
    Mini will never replace A Media Center PC.

    The reason is the need for true DOLBY DTS
    encoding, and it is only available from soundcards
    like the HDA X-PLOSION 7.1:

    http://auzentech.com/

    The race for the living room is over because
    windows has such huge support from
    hardware manufacturers. When you will find
    a sound card with hardware dolby encoding for
    a Mac? Never.
  • JT
    Hey, Maryam....Robert doesn't need a 360 to play Oblivion! It is available on the PC ;)
  • Christopher Coulter
    Not being facetious, but beyond the graphics what’s the big deal?

    It's new to the new gen Ritlan kiddies, who never grew up on Muds and PC games. But the action game and RPG in one, has some appeal.
  • Hey Robert,

    Steven, Marydee and I missed you at Trader Vic's. I really hoped you'd show. I wanted to ask you questions about subversive blogging and employers. Maybe I'll read "Naked conversations".

    Any guess why some doctors don't like RSS feeds? As I said to Mike and Thiru when we saw Microsoft Academic Search on Friday (thanks for dropping by) I've had brilliant scientists ask me the most basic questions about Web 1.0. Maybe their brilliance hard drive is so packed they have little room for other things.

    Subversively yours,
    Dean
    UBC google scholar blog
  • J. Random -

    No it won't. Only if it's playing a DVD.

    I'd much rather be using an analog connection (much better audio quality) and have upmixing like Creative's excellent CMSS working for music. And I want to be able to play my DVD-Audio discs like I could with the X-fi card.

    For now I think what I'll be getting is a USB 2.0 PCMCIA adapter and an Audigy 2 ZS Notebook soundcard. It seems that's the best I can get right now that will hook up to the Mini.

    For now I'll be fine with stereo since I use my Xbox 360 to play DVDs most of the time.
  • J. Random Poster
    Brandon,

    The Mini will output 5.1 sound through the SPDIF jack. You just need an amp that has an optical input.
  • Ben
    I don't get Oblivion. I've spent 5 hours on it and it's just another RPG. Get quest, find person, get more quests. Join guild, get missions, level up, kill bigger monsters.

    Not being facetious, but beyond the graphics what's the big deal?
  • Devil's Advocate
    @8 "No 5.1 sound!"

    I don't "get" the 5.1 sound thing except for movies - but mostly I care about music. Music is stereo and I've designed my environment for that with audiophile quality mains and a subwoofer for extra punch. When I watch a movie, it provides all the movie experience I need.
  • Guest
    Wait till you get the MCE extender working. My weekend is made by the Divx/Xvid transcoder plugin, and a health stream of missed series from tvtorrents.com.

    Now...I wonder when we will see the 360 working with the Vista beta releases...
  • As a warning the NX wont kick out 5.1 through the optical for anything except DVD's. I own one and have to use the 5.1 analog out for games and non-DVD audio.

    Enjoy oblivion. It's truly the best PC RPG since Ultima Underworld.

    S.
  • Careful with Oblivion, I've lost over 20 hours to it already!


    @Devil's Advocate -

    I just bought a Mac Mini for that purpose. But I'm encountering one problem replacing my Media Center with it. No 5.1 sound! I suppose I could get a digital cable, but those are lossy and will only give 5.1 from DVDs and such.

    I might pick up an Audigy 2 NX, external USB 2.0 sound card. Sadly, that will only work when the Mini is booted into Windows (which will probably be most of the time, but it's still annoying).
  • I am still one of the few waiting for an XBOX 360 to be availible where I live. As well, once Vista comes out, I will start to build a entertainment center around my PC.

    On another note, I have been writing about my departure from the Mac platform on my blog http://www.brandoncolton.com. It's great there is so much energy about different operating systems, but a dose of reality sometimes is needed with Mac fans.
  • Samuel
    One of my roomates has it for the Xbox 360, the other has it on his computer. My comp is 4 years old so I'm stuck replaying Morrowind (the game before Oblivion).
  • Oblivion is kickass. I'm not an RPG'er, so take that with a grain of salt. But, I've played 20 hours of it already and I've only had it for 5 days. That's bad, right? ;-) Oh, and I haven't even *started* on the main quest, that's just doing SOME of the things available to the side.

    Btw, Gamer Tag: "Jeremy Wright". Feel free to add me mate. I also highly recommend Perfect Dark, Burnout, Geometry Wars, Zuma (for the wife) and The Outfit Demo (I'm addicted to it).

    Oblivion was my game for this month (I'm trying to lose weight, and I get to buy a game for every 5 pounds I lose... ironic, eh?).

    Anyways, hope to catch you online again sometime. Been ages since we've played :)
  • J. Random Poster
    So what is this, another World of Warcraft wannabe?
  • What is your gamertag gonna be robert?

    You can join me, and some other MVPs for some Ghost Recon Advanced War Fighter sometime.
  • Heh, coincidence. I just received a free Xbox this weekend too, as an award through the Microsoft Student Ambassador program. Planning to hook it up this evening. :)
  • Devil's Advocate
    Mac mini/front row/an amp some speaks/big flat screen - few other zones covered with airtunes modules and various amp/speaker combinations matched to the room.

    Yep, I'm done. Look ma, no windows.
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