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.
Kunal Kundaje
· 3 years ago
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. :)
Matt Gerlach, Xbox MVP
· 3 years ago
What is your gamertag gonna be robert?
You can join me, and some other MVPs for some Ghost Recon Advanced War Fighter sometime.
J. Random Poster
· 3 years ago
So what is this, another World of Warcraft wannabe?
Jeremy Wright
· 3 years ago
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 :)
Samuel
· 3 years ago
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).
Brandon Colton
· 3 years ago
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.
Brandon Paddock
· 3 years ago
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).
Stepto
· 3 years ago
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.
Guest
· 3 years ago
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...
Devil's Advocate
· 3 years ago
@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.
Ben
· 3 years ago
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?
J. Random Poster
· 3 years ago
Brandon,
The Mini will output 5.1 sound through the SPDIF jack. You just need an amp that has an optical input.
Brandon Paddock
· 3 years ago
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.
Dean Giustini
· 3 years ago
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
Christopher Coulter
· 3 years ago
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.
JT
· 3 years ago
Hey, Maryam....Robert doesn't need a 360 to play Oblivion! It is available on the PC ;)
Francesco Simi
· 3 years ago
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:
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.
scobleizer
· 3 years ago
Dean, sorry I missed that.
J. Random Poster
· 3 years ago
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.
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.
Brandon Paddock
· 3 years ago
That should say "it *can* only output audio that's already in AC-3."
Andy
· 3 years ago
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.
jack
· 2 years ago
Nice site actually. Gone to my favourites. Thanks for creation.
All Comments
Yep, I'm done. Look ma, no windows.
You can join me, and some other MVPs for some Ghost Recon Advanced War Fighter sometime.
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 :)
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.
@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).
Enjoy oblivion. It's truly the best PC RPG since Ultima Underworld.
S.
Now...I wonder when we will see the 360 working with the Vista beta releases...
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.
Not being facetious, but beyond the graphics what's the big deal?
The Mini will output 5.1 sound through the SPDIF jack. You just need an amp that has an optical input.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
If you value your other commitments, have your wife or son standing by with a 2x4 while you play.