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After months of putting off buying the Xbox360’s wireless adaptor due to it being overpriced, I finally just gave up and bought one. Happy to finally get rid of the Linksys Wireless-G Game Bridge that has been a problem since day one, it was just my luck to discover that I couldn’t connect to my wireless network. After about an hour of trying everything I could, I gave a quick google search and discovered others were having problems connecting to an Apple Time Capsule router also. I had waited so long to get the wireless adaptor for the 360 that I wasn’t going to give up.

My Time Capsule is basically an Apple Airport Extreme 802.11n Router with a hard drive built in. The router supports 802.11 a/b/g/n while the 360’s wireless adaptor supports a/b/g. My laptop is a/b/g and the only other device I connect wirelessly is my iPhone which is b/g. This left me with a few choices. Currently I run the Time Capsule in 802.11n with b/g compatibility running at 2.4Ghz.

I’ll spare the details of the hours of headache trying to get this to work by saying this: the Xbox360’s Wireless Adaptor does not work with Time Capsule…yet. Well thats not entirely true. Lets looks at what options we have:

802.11n (2.4Ghz) = Not Supported

802.11n (5Ghz) = Not Supported

802.11n (802.11b/g compatible) (2.4Ghz) = Not Working

802.11n (802.11a compatible) (5Ghz) = Not Working

802.11b/g (2.4Ghz) = Not Working

802.11a (5Ghz) = Not Working

802.11g (2.4Ghz) = Not Working

802.11b (2.4ghz) = Working

So out of 8 modes, 6 of which are supported, only 1 mode works. 802.11b is the only mode that allows the Xbox360 wireless to connect. Pretty worthless. Right now this looks to be a Microsoft problem as there are reports of the wireless adaptor not connecting to other draft N routers. Hopefully Microsoft will add support for Time Capsule in the Spring Dashboard update like they added support for Airport Extreme 802.11n routers in the Fall Update back in December. Until its fixed, you will either have to run your wireless network in 802.11b only mode or hardwire the Xbox360 using Cat5.

Nullriver’s Connect360 was just updated to version 3.2 adding support for Divx and Xvid files. Connect360 allows Mac users to stream Music, Video and Photos to a Xbox360. You will need to have the Fall 2007 Dashboard update installed on your Xbox360 but once you do, you will be able to stream Divx and Xvid encoded AVI files directly to your TV (finally!). The program costs $20 but they offer a trial version on their webpage.

Decisions, decisions. Apple revamped their entire line of iPods yesterday and introduced a new model, the iPod Touch. The iTouch, as I call it, is the iPhone, without the phone. To me that translates to “everything I wanted in the iPhone without losing my Blackberry and switching carriers”. And speaking of the iPhone, they officially discontinued the 4GB model in favor of the 8GB model, then lowered the price by $200. iPhone now costs $399 which is very attractive but also at the $399 price point is the new 16GB iPod Touch.

iPod Touch:
I haven’t been this excited for a product in awhile. In a previous post I stated I would pass on the iPhone. My dependance on my Blackberry and switching to AT&T were really my only reasons not to purchase one. Otherwise I thought the iPhone was amazing. Now Apple has all the amazing without any of my worries. Without a doubt, I’ll be picking up the iPod Touch the day its released. I went as far as to pre-order it from Apple.com last night but when I seen they charged me sales tax, I said screw it and I’ll just pick one up at an Apple store when they are available. I’m all about instant gratification. Its just my luck that the only product that wasn’t in stores already was the iPod Touch. Apple’s site says it ships by Sept. 28th. That’s along time to wait when you want something today. That’s around the same time the T-Mobile Blackberry Curve is rumored to be released so I should have some new toys to play with at the end of this month.

iPod Nano:
The Nano’s got a major overhaul with a new design, interface and video support. Unfortunately it seems the Nano is the sleeper product of the day being overshadowed by the Touch and the iPhone price drop. If the Touch wasn’t released, I would have ran to the store to pick up a new Nano without a second thought. $199 gets you a 8GB Nano that plays video. That’s epic.

Afterthoughts:
The 2-3 week wait for the iPod Touch is actually good for me. It will give me time to sell off my G1 Nano and my AppleTV to make room for the new iPod. My decision to sell my AppleTV stems more from my currently living situation than the new iPods. My HDTV has died and only have access to an SDTV so the AppleTV will do nothing more than collect dust for the next few months. With the Xbox 360’s support for SDTV, h264 and the help of Connect360 for my Mac, I don’t lose much from not having my AppleTV. Don’t worry little AppleTV, we may one day meet again.apple

I’m taking the week off from the gym this week. I’m just exhausted and sore and need some time to rest. I’ll restart my 5K schedule this monday again but in the meantime I picked up Dance Dance Revolution Universe for the Xbox 360 to keep up on my exercise while I’m not at the gym.

The selling point for me is the Workout mode. When you turn of Workout mode, the game will calculate how much calories you are burning while playing any of the modes in the game. From the workout mode screen you can adjust your weight and get a graph of your calories burned by each day. This makes it easy to enter into Traineo for me and its a nice way to keep up with your progress.

My biggest problem seems to stem from the all hardwood floors in this house. Everything shakes while I’m playing because there is nothing to absorb the vibrations. I picked up some interlocking fitness mats from Walmart and they seem to help some, but when I have to jump on double arrows, I’m afraid I’m going to end up in the basement.

Dance Dance Revolution Universe was released this week for the Xbox 360. The soundtrack sports over 65 tracks with even more downloadable via Xbox Live. The game comes with a bunch of new modes, with new modes geared toward beginners and multiplayer.

I’ve been waiting for a new DDR game for awhile and I’d probably going to pick this up. I’d really like to see some reviews about the pad first tho. I don’t have the room for the pad without moving some stuff around but with Guitar Hero II coming out (hopefully) next week, I’m going to have to make some room anyways. I’ll wait a week and see what kinda reviews pop up about the pad itself but IGN gave DDRU a 8.7 and winning its Editors Choice award.

Ikaruga, the pseudo-sequel to Radiant Silvergun, is probably the last great shooter. Originally released on the Dreamcast in Japan and then in the US on the Gamecube, it now looks like it may be headed to Xbox Live Arcade. The game has been seen in an unplayable form on the Xbox debug machines.

For those who haven’t played it, its a vertical shooter where you change “polarity” so you can absorb that color bullets. Its hard to explain but it makes it for a new (and difficult) twist on the classic shooter. I would love to see Radiant Silvergun come to XBL too but thats just wishful thinking.

First Castlevania: SOTN and now this. XBL is quickly becoming the “killer app” for the Xbox 360.

After I bought my HD-DVD add-on for the Xbox 360, I started looking at the VGA cable due to that being the only way you can run 1080p(which my TV does not support) and upscale regular DVDs. One other advantage is you can run your TV in native resolution meaning you get cleanest possible picture because the Xbox 360 and TV doesn’t have to scale the picture to match.

Most 32″ LCD TVs use 1366×768 as their native resolution and not 1280×720 which is what 720p is. So when running 720p, the Xbox outputs a 1280×720 signal and the TV upscales it to 1366×768. Its not a big difference but there is some scaling going on. When using the VGA cable, you can run in whatever native resolution your TV is. My TV is 1366×768 and the closest option I can pick in the Xbox is 1360×768 which is about as close as it gets without being perfect. Now my Xbox is outputting a signal that my TV doesn’t have to scale so its very clean.

One problem a lot of people have with the Xbox 360 VGA cable is that it gives a very washed out display compared to using component cables. I was one of these people. The picture was so muddy I couldn’t stand it and went back to using component cables. A couple of days ago an article on digg popped up taking about how to fix the washed out look. Unfortunately, it only applied to Dell and some Samsung monitors.

This got me thinking and I started googling around to see why this was happening . A lot of people seem to have the problem but no real answers. On a whim, I started messing with the brightness and contrast controls but couldn’t really make it look any better, mostly worst but then i got an idea. When I first got my TV, I calibrated it using Avia. But my TV, like most others, have different settings for each input. So I broke out my Avia DVD, popped in in my Xbox and reran the calibration. While the video was playing, it didn’t seem so washed out and honestly, games and movies looked OK with the VGA cable, just the dashboard was muddy.

When adjusting the Black Level (Brightness) everything came into place. I turned down my Black Level to 0 and it was still too bright. I could still see both white bars moving. I left it at 0 as i couldn’t get it any lower and went back to adjust the White Level(Contrast) to make sure everything was still ok and it was.

I stopped the DVD and went back to the Dashboard and boom, the washed out look was gone! I’m sure it could be better as I couldn’t properly calibrate it due to not being able to lower the Black Level any more but it looks damn good. So good I’m sure in 2 or 3 days I won’t even remember what component looked like. So if you getting a washed out picture using the VGA cable, try lowering your Black Level(Brightness) to 0 to see it the picture improves.

Definitely try and get your hands on Avia and calibrate the screen properly too.