37" Westinghouse LCD 1080p - First Impressions

Well, my graduation present (the Westinghouse LVM-37w3se) arrived yesterday morning, and I only got a chance to unpack it and make sure it worked before heading out to work, but once I got home, it was time to experience the HD revolution.

The first thing I did was hook up the TiVo, since it's one of those things I just can't live without. Sadly, being on the cutting edge means making a few sacrifices, and the TiVo's low-res display looked terrible once it was deinterlaced and upscaled to the 1080p of the screen. Of course, I knew this going in, but was a bit surprised at just how bad it really looked. It didn't help that I was literally kneeling in front of the screen while I set everything up, either. Of course, the PS2 and Wii fared about as well. Only capable of 480p, both consoles looked just terrible blown up, even over component connections.

Next was the Xbox 360. I just couldn't take another disappointment, so I hooked it up to the VGA port of the TV, went into the system settings and set it to 1080p widescreen. It was absolutely gorgeous. No more "dot crawl" like I had on my old Sony, fonts were smooth and clear in the Dashboard, and the whole thing just looked, for lack of a better word, spacious. Seriously, it felt like you had room to move around in that thing.


I couldn't let it rest there. I hooked up the Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive and threw in a copy of Mission: Impossible III to see if there was really that much of a difference. I remember being blown away by the quality of DVD when it first came out, and HD-DVD is a similar leap forward. It was really impressive just how good it looked. The "In-Movie Experience", or IME, was nifty too, adding video overlays of commentary or other features while you're watching.

Was it really that much better than DVD, though? I'm not sure yet. My next test will be to run my DVD and HD-DVD copies of Mission: Impossible (the original) at the same time and flip between them to see how different they look, controlling for the fact that the DVD would likely be upscaled by the TV rather poorly.


Speaking of which, I heard that the last Dashboard update for the Xbox 360 added the ability to upscale DVDs to 1080p over the VGA connection. So I tossed in the first Harry Potter movie to see how it worked, prepared to be disappointed after M:I III looked so great. Despite the very dark opening scene lacking detail, it actually looked pretty amazing, and didn't look like it was upscaled. It certainly wasn't as razor-sharp as M:I III (you could see every pore in Lawrence Fishburn's face), but it was more than adequate.

I pulled out Star Wars: Episode I and ran the THX Optimizer, a special video tuning program on the DVD. After adjusting the settings in a dark room, I flipped back over to the TiVo and noticed two things. One, properly adjusted, the standard definition upscaling doesn't look too bad. Don't get me wrong, it's still awful, but it's at least watchable now. Second, viewing distance matters a lot. From right in front, it was all a mess, but 8-ft. back was a slightly different story. Macroblocking (giant pixels) was less evident, and it just felt a bit smoother.

For my last hurrah for the night, I turned the Xbox 360 back on and threw in Gears of War. I'd played this on a 1024x768 projector on a giant screen at MindCamp, but WOW. I was absolutely blown away by the graphical fidelity. I don't know if it's rendering a 1080p frame buffer, or just 720p upscaled, but it just looked amazing. The best way to describe it is like playing a war movie set in the future. I expect to really impress some of my friends when they see just how good it looks at 1080p.

So that's it for now. I have more stuff to try, but it'll take a few more days to get everything together and whatnot. Next up: Windows Vista Media Center and HDTV!

Oh My God of War II

I finally talked the wife into letting me get a new game as a present for making Dean's List again last quarter. After much hemming and hawing, I finally chose God of War II for my dusty PS2, since the praise heaped upon the title has reached near epidemic proportions. Not only did my lovely wife let me get the game, she (get this) bought it for me. Managed to get the last copy at Fred Meyer, too. She's the bestest wife ever!

I managed to hold off playing it for approximately 45 whole minutes (I was watching Planet Earth on Discovery) before getting my hack and slash on. The game is every bit as epic as the press would have you believe, and it's not at all an understatement to say that you'll be jabbing your twin swords into the eye of a Collossus inside of 15 minutes flat. The cinematics are also quite amazing, and it's possible that I might include this game in a project I'm working on about Video Games as Art for the UW. Not only is the art direction superb (the camera alone deserves some sort of award), but the game does a great job of conveying emotion.

My wife was half-stunned, half amused by the sex minigame and relative plethora of nudity to be found in even the game's first few hours. Nothing says "mature game" like nipples and ass-crack, I suppose. Still don't think I could tempt her into picking up the controller, though. She might like to watch it, but there's enough of a leap between watching and playing that I don't think she'd ever traverse the gap.

The only thing that would have made this game perfect? Achievements. Damn the Gods for making this game a Sony exclusive!

Guitar Hero: 80's Edition

According to Joystiq (who cites EGM), we should be getting an 80's edition of Guitar Hero on the PS2 by spring.

First the iPhone, now my much wanted 80's Guitar Hero? That cements it ... it's the coming of the apocalypse. But I welcome Armageddon with open arms, because I'll be rocking out 80's style the whole way, baby!

Speaking of "open arms", there had damned well better be some Journey on that disc!

Speaking of Bullies ... Sony Turns to Corporate Douchebaggery

Kotaku is reporting that Sony has managed to win a major battle in the war against grey market imports, basically by suing the company into the ground. The company in question is Lik Sang, one of the largest import companies on the internet, and one that I've personally used in the past for games I knew would not be released stateside.

Never mind the fact that Lik Sang already had a British judge rule against them for selling the PSP without Sony's permission, and never mind the fact that Sony made the PSP region-free and is now trying to put that genie back in the bottle. Hell, let's even ignore the fact that Sony's own upper-tier executives in Europe purchased PSP's from Lik Sang because they couldn't get them from their own company.

Sony could have filed a single lawsuit and have seen this reach a decision, which is exactly what happened. Sony stooped to new lows by filing the same lawsuit in every single EU country, basically drowning Lik Sang in paperwork and lawyers fees. Sony wins because Lik Sang can't afford to defend themselves. The end result is that Sony didn't just say, "Hey, stop selling our stuff, if you don't mind." They proceeded to nothing less than thuggery by beating the company while they were down.

This story is a perfect example of just how desperate Sony is, and is basically lashing out in all directions at once. The lawsuit(s) simply doesn't make sense. Sony is basically attacking it's most passionate fans by going after a company that serves their interest exclusively. The only people that use import services are the hardest of the hardcore, the fans that want to play everything, regardless of where it came from. It's the exact opposite of the message they were trying to send by creating such a powerful console in the PS3, which caters to that same fanbase.

Now the real question is, what does Sony win by doing this? Are they protecting their profit margin ... after all, products sold in Europe are frequently marked up beyond belief because the market there is starved for these products. (Even with import markup, it's usually cheaper to buy grey-market than through retail channels.) Why wouldn't Sony simply cater to the customer instead, offering Europeans the opportunity to buy direct, or even lowering the ridiculous markup to something more reasonable to encourage purchasing locally? Or hell, why not even realize that you've continuously screwed this territory over with delays and "third-tier" status for so long, and that those customers matter too?

Well, it doesn't matter. Now that Lik Sang has curled up into the fetal position, Sony has vowed to do the same to anyone trying to sell a PS3 into Europe before the launch in that territory. Again, this isn't a matter of getting them to stop selling your products "illegally". It's a matter of ensuring that those companies, frequently very small operations, can never sell anything to anyone ever again.

I was a Sony fan for a long time. My living room TV is a Sony. I have several S-Video switches that are all Sony. I've had Sony cameras, camcorders, as well as a PS1, PS2, and a PSP (until I realized I'd never get a decent game for it). I have had DVD players, home theater receivers, and other electronics all from a company who's brand name was synonymous with quality. While I don't live in Europe, this activity affects me as well, and Sony just sent a message loud and clear that they don't want my business. It's the same message they've been sending for months, with the ridiculous prices on the PS3, and bad PR.

Sony's got their wish. I'm not a customer of theirs any more.

Bully For Me

Saturday was a school work day, with two group meetings early in the day. Once I got home, however, I found a copy of Rockstar's latest, Bully, waiting for me.

I stayed up until 2AM playing it.

The game is very accessible, but they way they've structured the game in several places serves to keep the tension up. You're basically in perpetual trouble, late to class, out past curfew, etc. When you're trouble meter is on the rise, you have to avoid the prefects or you'll be busted on the spot (though you learn ways out of that). The more trouble you're in, the more likely you are to get a one-way ticket to "The Head's" office.

The best part of the game is the humor. The game is literally laugh out loud funny at times, whether from the salacious bits of being the little mack daddy on campus, or the idea of helping out your drunken English teacher. The style and humor are baked into the game, and while it's over the top, it's no so out there to keep you from buying into this world.

I'm not sure where I'll find the time, with class, work, and a leadership conference this weekend, but I really want to finish the game before the end of the month. I want to try out Final Fantasy XII before Wii drops in mid-November.