video games (besides this one)

Haha I was on with him yesterday! xD

i like star wars kotor 2, lego star wars 3 , Star Wars the Force Unleashed, The noire, rainbow six vegas 2, all the splinter cell, metro 2033 (I'm waiting for last light) obviously for xbox 360 if anyone wants to add me my name is PandaKungFu11

PandaKungFu11 wrote:i like star wars kotor 2, lego star wars 3 , Star Wars the Force Unleashed, The noire, rainbow six vegas 2, all the splinter cell, metro 2033 (I'm waiting for last light) obviously for xbox 360 if anyone wants to add me my name is PandaKungFu11

I can't get an internet connection to my Xbox ATM so I can't add you.

I don't even have a gold XBox Live account, or any XBox games I can play online anyways.

And while we're on the subject...
Mass Effect

Mass Effect the best trilogy ever dated, I have recently finished the third ep. obviously before I finished the second and the first is beautiful as a game, shepard is a myth, the third ep. makes you cry, luckily they put the extended cut in this way I saw the final full

I'm obscenely late to the party... but I acquired a 360. AngelofSand.

Angel wrote:I'm obscenely late to the party... but I acquired a 360. AngelofSand.

So that's you ok. I was like who the fuck is this when I signed on today. lol

Wait, you acquired a 360? I thought you hated consoles altogether? lol.

I do. $250. I can make it into a media center if I get bored with Gran Turismo Microsoft Edition Forza 4 and Trials Evolution and I don't find anything else worth playing.

Angel wrote:I do. $250. I can make it into a media center if I get bored with Gran Turismo Microsoft Edition Forza 4 and Trials Evolution and I don't find anything else worth playing.

Heh, if you wanted to make a nice media center out of a console, I would have recommended an original Xbox. I believe they're easier to mod.

The original Xbox is an absolute nightmare to mod because there's several different motherboards floating around in them, and each revision brings different problems to the table for it. I didn't say I'd even be modding this one, out of the box it does enough.

Well... the 360 also can run DVDs, play music, Netflix...
Heck... I might just send my old DVD player downstairs and use the 360 myself.

Angel wrote:I didn't say I'd even be modding this one, out of the box it does enough.

LOL, it won't play Blu-Rays (not really its fault), won't rip songs from a CD unless they're in .cda format, and it can't even copy music from a USB drive to the HDD. Some freaking media center. If Microsoft really wants to seize that market then they better try a whole lot harder than the 360.

Artificial wrote:

Angel wrote:I didn't say I'd even be modding this one, out of the box it does enough.

LOL, it won't play Blu-Rays (not really its fault), won't rip songs from a CD unless they're in .cda format, and it can't even copy music from a USB drive to the HDD. Some freaking media center. If Microsoft really wants to seize that market then they better try a whole lot harder than the 360.

It is the fault of Microsoft for opting for HD-DVD (lulz) and even then making it a ghetto usb add-on no less. Aside from the music the Xbox is a super capable media center with all it does (minus lack of ray blus) and playing music through a tv seemed really dumb to me, and still does. and apparently the next Xbox will have two skus again one designed for media center and the other for gaming. AND (last one promise) the 360 is still doing good, it sold 750,000 on black furday ( I was one of them).

Artificial wrote:

Angel wrote:I didn't say I'd even be modding this one, out of the box it does enough.

LOL, it won't play Blu-Rays (not really its fault), won't rip songs from a CD unless they're in .cda format, and it can't even copy music from a USB drive to the HDD. Some freaking media center. If Microsoft really wants to seize that market then they better try a whole lot harder than the 360.

On the topic of Bluray discs:

There's a reader in my desktop machine, in my laptop, and I have access to a standalone player. Care to guess how many movies I own in Bluray (or DVD, or VHS, or Betamax, or 8MM)? 3. 2 Blurays that also came with the DVD, and 1 8MM film reel. I'm not hurt by a lack of disc playback, it's a rapidly declining medium in favor of web-enabled content, which it plays back just fine. To me, a Bluray disc is an expensive coaster.

On the topic of ripping from CDs:

...why? I own broadcast quality ripping software, and this brings us to the next point...

On copying music to its hard drive:

I have a projector set up. Bulb time is precious; squandering it on music playback is silly. The optical output from my x-Fi feeds the speaker system, which allows me to playback lossless with post DSP through a full hi-fi stereo set up.

I'm not trying to dismiss the fact that it's not a "media center" in the truest sense of the term; simply that the functionality it lacks, I have no need for.

Youtube, Netflix, Pandora (if you're clever), Amazon Instant Video, a GUI that isn't a massive pain in the ass on a large screen without a mouse and keyboard unlike HTPC solutions... does what I want.

Also, Forza 4 and Trials Evolution aren't half bad.

Angel wrote:
Youtube, Netflix, Pandora (if you're clever), Amazon Instant Video, a GUI that isn't a massive pain in the ass on a large screen without a mouse and keyboard unlike HTPC solutions... does what I want.

Also, Forza 4 and Trials Evolution aren't half bad.

But a computer could do all of those things. Why not use that instead? Just hook your computer up to a TV and boom. The only thing you won't have is any exclusive Xbox games.

Angel wrote:...a GUI that isn't a massive pain in the ass on a large screen without a mouse and keyboard unlike HTPC solutions...

A mouse and keyboard do not belong in the living room. Period. Yes, there are "remote controls" for PCs that will sorta kinda halfass get the job done, but the software blows, using a mouse cursor without a mouse is painful at best. About the only thing that a keyboard has over the 360's GUI is the ability to type without that bloody on screen keyboard, but I haven't found it to be enough of an issue when it can guess what I want in two characters, on average.

I've looked into the viability of an HTPC before. I've even tried it. The TV tuner cards, capture cards, having to leave a mouse and keyboard on top of a remote control that only sometimes worked as intended, various kinds of software... the project RAPIDLY accelerates beyond the realm of just using pre-existing standalone equipment, financially and realistically.

The media center software available for computers is not ready yet. MediaPortal, a popular free and open source solution, is the closest I've gotten to being a functional system, and at best, because ALL of these forms of software require third party encoders and decoders to enable any analog functionality, such as FM and NTSC cable (yes, analog cable is still very much a thing, and in the case of where I live, it's actually a hybrid analog/digital system as they run on different frequencies), the picture quality becomes horrendous and audio synchronization begins to fail. Windows Media Center is about the only other thing out there that begins to work correctly, as shocking as that might sound, but doesn't have any idea how to handle a hybrid cable system and thus is useless.

Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, Pandora, and Youtube are all things that natively require a browser and Flash on a PC... and frankly, Flash consumes so much in resources, that to use it on a machine like my own, it draws approximately 700 watts of power, which is significantly above my idle draw of about 300 watts, and even that number exceeds the 360's maximum potential, making it cheaper and more efficient to run.

Here's some morals to this story:

HTPC: not ready; waste of time, effort, and money until some major advances in software are presented.

If you want a reasonable home theater setup, it's going to end up being a cluster of standalone equipment right now. A DVR if you care about TV channels and want that functionality, an FM receiver, which is usually on an A/V receiver, which is a must for any nice speaker setup anyway, a screen of some kind, a disc player of your choosing, a device that can access web content without being miserable to control, and whatever you want for sources.

My particular setup involves a Yamaha RX-V367 receiver, Bose 301-V bookshelf speakers, an Acer HD projector (not sure of the model number, it's my roommate's), a 100 inch projector screen (roommate's), an ASUS laptop running a TV tuner card *trying* to be a HTPC (like I said, it works, but it's a tremendous pain in the ass, my roommate fights with it more often than I do and has a keyboard and mouse sitting on the coffee table for it, I hate TV), a 360, and an antiquated Wii pretending to be a Gamecube.

Angel wrote:

Angel wrote:...a GUI that isn't a massive pain in the ass on a large screen without a mouse and keyboard unlike HTPC solutions...

A mouse and keyboard do not belong in the living room. Period. Yes, there are "remote controls" for PCs that will sorta kinda halfass get the job done, but the software blows, using a mouse cursor without a mouse is painful at best. About the only thing that a keyboard has over the 360's GUI is the ability to type without that bloody on screen keyboard, but I haven't found it to be enough of an issue when it can guess what I want in two characters, on average...

If you have an android tablet, get xbox smartglass and type with the tablet keyboard. it's the greatest thing. it also works on phones as well.