roryd » Hardware

BSkyB link with Microsoft on X-Box

roryd — Wed, 27 May 2009 15:38:56 +0000

Ohhh, this could be interesting!

“Rapid TV News understands that the long-awaited link up between BSkyB and Microsoft’s X-Box is at last going to happen. Full details will be announced tomorrow (Friday, May 29). The unveiling “Experience the Vision’ press event will explain more.” – RapidTVNews.com

BSkyB link with Microsoft on X-Box – Rapid TV News

Microsoft Announces the Expansion of the Zune Entertainment Service to New Platform and Markets; Confirms New Zune HD Portable Media Player: Premium Zune digital entertainment service to be available internationally on Xbox LIVE.

roryd — Wed, 27 May 2009 09:36:38 +0000

AT LAST!!!

From microsoft.com: “REDMOND, Wash. — May 26, 2009 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the evolution of Zune, the company’s end-to-end music and entertainment service, to a new platform and new markets. Zune will extend its video service to Xbox LIVE internationally this fall. This marks an important development in the Zune strategy and brings the Zune brand to more than 17 million international Xbox LIVE subscribers. In addition, Microsoft confirmed the next generation of the Zune portable media player, Zune HD. Available in the U.S. this fall, Zune HD is the first portable media player that combines a built-in HD Radio receiver, high-definition (HD) video output capabilities, organic light-emitting diode (OLED) touch screen, Wi-Fi and an Internet browser.”

iPhone 3G 2.0.2 update available

roryd — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 08:47:03 +0000

For all you iPhonies, version 2.0.2 is now available via iTunes. Apple haven’t made it clear exactly what fixes are included, but the address book and text message delays that were common under 2.0.1 seem to have been fixed. (Yes, I finally got one…)

Rock Band for Xbox 360

roryd — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 10:25:45 +0000

Despite the fact that my neighbours may never speak to us again, the kids got Rock Band for the Xbox at the weekend, along with the drum kit, guitar and mic:

All I can say is that it’s awesome! We (the adults) played it until 6:30am Sunday morning, and now have no voices left. The kids resumed a few hours later, and were much more serious than we were. They managed to win a tour bus and a few thousand fans, and unlocked a few new tracks. We had downloaded some extra tracks in the early hours, like the Buzzcocks “Ever Fallen In Love”, “Roxanne” by the Police, and other such classics which we then truly murdered.

If you’re a budding or wannabe Slash, Jon Bon Jovi or John Bonham, and haven’t quite managed to get that contract signed, then this game won’t help you at all.

But it is really tremendous fun.

(Note to self: everything in moderation…)

iPhone on O2 Ireland

roryd — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 14:55:10 +0000

Yesterday, I ordered a 16Gb iPhone, probably a gut-reaction to the O2 announcement that they’ll provide them from March 14th. I grappled overnight with the thoughts of having to live without Exchange push e-mail, and no 3G. I heard this morning that visual voicemail also won’t be supported. Now I hear that the iPhone isn’t supported on 64-bit Vista. We’re just about to roll out that OS flavour to all our desktops, so we’ll just throw that order in the bin.

Maybe later in the year when the 2nd gen iPhone supports 3G and other stuff, and the price is dropped and the extortionate packages and terrible conditions disappear, I’ll look at it again.

Or maybe not. I’ve had a Nokia N95 now for nearly 6 months, and my biggest (only) gripe is it just a little too big and heavy. That apart, it does everything I could possibly want.

Home Network update…

roryd — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 11:18:44 +0000

Well I finally moved the TeraStation, the UPS for it, and the Devolo LAN-over-powerline unit into the attic. The response on the ground floor is a bit on the slow side, but once I start a program, after a few seconds delay, the streaming seems fine in Media Centre.

I’ve got a Netgear GS116 16-port Gb switch ready to go into the attic, but I’m still waiting on Cat 6 cable to arrive. Once it does, I’ll hardwire the two PCs, the XBox and the IP phone upstairs into the switch – easily done by dropping cables through the roof through ducts. I’m still not too sure how I’ll get cable runs into the downstairs rooms without major spousal objection.

Still, onward and downwards…

PS3 to cost €629.99 in Ireland…

roryd — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 17:22:11 +0000

If this is true, I’ll be going down the Xbox 360 route thank you very much.

[Update: Sony has confirmed the higher price is for Ireland only, due to its higher VAT rate. The 60GB PS3 is still set at EUR 599 for the rest of Europe, GBP 425 for the UK.]

Buffalo TeraStation 2TB

roryd — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 11:32:04 +0000

I finally got my TeraStation last week, and it’s been sitting under a coffee table in the den since. It’s not totally quiet, but my wife and kids haven’t complained yet, so I suppose that’s good. I set it up with RAID 1 to give two 500GB shares on the network. All my Recorded TV from my MCE2005 and Vista Ultimate (X64 build 5744) boxes are sync’d to one share on the NAS box using the free Microsoft SyncToy nightly. All my pictures, videos and music are on the other share.

The best thing is that I now have about 300 hours of TV recorded without having to delete stuff I haven’t yet watched. The worst thing is that I now have 300 hours of TV I haven’t watched…

There’s no noticeable network lag when watching recorded TV from the unit (all the DVR-MS files are recorded in High-quality – about 3GB/hour).

The web interface to the box is clean and straight-forward, although the help text popups could do with being re-translated into english, as it appears as if that was an afterthought.

If you’re short of disk space, I’d definitely recommend this unit. Along with the 2.0TB unit (4x500GB), it’s also available in 0.6TB (4x160GB), 1.0TB (4x250GB), and 1.6TB (4x400GB) configurations.