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I lucked out on this one. I just happen to be San Francisco for Macworld the same day that Capcom was throwing its Lost Planet release party. You may remember something about me being on my 5th Xbox 360, well, the only reason I didn’t return it was because of Lost Planet. I played the E3 demo and I was hooked. I couldn’t wait for this game to get released.The Release Party was good times. Free food, free drinks. They had a screen printing booth where you could get your own t-shirt made up for you. (I got two). Rock climbing wall, ice sculptures, DJ and even legos. There was about 100 stations setup for 1000 people, so I didn’t really get a chance to play.I did enter the tournament tho. I was in group 4B for the tournament and placed 12th. I suck.Obviously I had the game on pre-order back here but at around 9pm they started selling the collectors edition for $75 that included a free t-shirt, poster and you could get it signed by the developers. So I got mine copy signed which is awesome.Brian Dunn has some pictures up from the eventThats me baybee!!My own Flickr set

January - started using Mac OS X

February - built dedicated computer to run Mac OS X on

March - Starting using iTunes to manager my media

April - stopped using Bloglines, switched from Exchange to Google Mail and Google Calendar, bought a Jimi wallet

May - switched Layout, Skype is free for the rest of the year, started a new job, Macbook’s released, went to grand opening of Apple 5th Ave store, bought my Macbook

June - joined valleyshwag, MC360 released for XBMC, bought a Nintendo DS Lite, canceled my Final Fantasy XI account after 3 years

July - switched to Flock, Macbook got hit with discoloration, started running using the Nike+iPod kit, Macbook Random Reboots started

August - switched from del.icio.us to Shadows, started using OpenDNS, got hard to find Trauma Center and Phoenix Wright for the DS, new mc chris and Evanescence albums, bought the Timbuk2 blogger bag

September - started new full-time job, fall TV season starts, bought a Xbox360 after Guitar Hero 2 is announced with new controller, canceled my Myspace account

October - got tickets for macworld 2007, Xbox360 troubles, 300 trailer, Macbook RSS fixed, bought my first Blackberry, my Xbox360 has its own blog

November - interviewed for MacNewsWorld, Gears of War, Guitar Hero II and Elite Beat Agents all released on same day, turned 28, XBL Video Marketplace released, subscribed to Netflix and Gamefly, bought an HD DVD

December - Geekdrome dead, started reading comics again, finally found out what all the hype about Battlestar Galactica, Veronica Mars and Greys Anatomy was all about

Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year. 2006 looks to be a great year, HD looks to be taking off with LCD HDTVs prices dropping faster than Paris Hilton in a homemade video. Xbox360 (finally on shelves), Playstation 3 and Revolution all dropping this year, should make it exciting in the gaming community. Hope PSP finally gets some �killer app� games as mine has been just sitting collecting dust. I have no use for $20 UMD movies. I really have no idea why UMD movies are so popular, why on earth would anyone want to watch a full length film on a screen that small is beyond me. I don�t think they are a bad idea, I�m just dumbfounded as to why they are more popular than games on the PSP. I have a couple of goals this year, first being to buy my first Mac, the plan is to pick up a Intel MacMini when they get released. I want to completely switch over to Mac for my desktop. Tho this might not happen because Windows Vista will be out this year and I�m going to definitely be all over that. I�ve really been trying to make MCE work in my home and want to see what they do in Vista MCE. Its not quite there yet in MCE 2005 for me, but I�m hoping with Vista and xbox360 it will finally be what Ive been looking for.

That was my first post of 2006. Let take a look back.

• 32″ HD LCD TVs can be found for $500 now
  Nintendo Revolution is now the Nintendo Wii
  PSP never got any “killer apps” and UMD died a horrible death
  Bought my first Mac but it was a Macbook and not a MacMini
  Made a complete switch to Apple
  Really have no interested in Microsoft Vista any longer
  Vista and Xbox360 have been replaced with me waiting for the Apple iTV now

Let do alittle experiment.

V for Vendetta HD DVD was in my Netflix queue and went into “Processing” at about 10:30 am today. At about the same time, I was checking out the new Video Marketplace on my 360 and one of the (only) HD movies they offer is V for Vendetta. I rented it from the Marketplace for $6 and it started to download. I tried to cancel my Netflix queue but it was too later as it was already in Processing. So both are on there way. Lets see which one makes it first.

Update 1:
At around 6pm tonight, I was around 7% for the download and V for Vendetta had already shipped from Netflix with an arrival date of 11/24.

Update 2:
Checked my download at 1am and my download has stopped. Not sure how long its been. There is no Active Download nor any movies in my Video section. So I’ve restarted my download.

Update 3:
Download died once again at around 3am last night. Restarted at about 3:45am. Woke up at 11am to find it had stopped again. Restarted right away. Currently at 3%. Download restarted at 0% at the 3am for whatever reason. No mail today due to Thanksgiving holiday.

Update 4:
Came home from Thanksgiving at around 2pm today to find I was logged out of Xbox Live and my download has stopped one again. Restarted download as soon as I logged back in. Download is currently at 8%. Mail came today but no Netflix packs. The race is still on.

Update 5:
Just got home from work at 2:44am and the download is still going. Woohoo! Maybe they are finally fixing the bandwidth issues at MS. File is only 27% tho. Mail should be here in about 8 hours.

I don’t have cable nor do I want it but there are things I want to watch. To fill this need, a mixture of iTunes, Netflix and bittorrent gets the job done. So when Microsoft announced TV and Movies would be coming to Xbox360, I couldn’t help be excited. Right now I need to hookup my laptop to my TV to watch iTunes shows and movies or my own stuff using Frontrow. While it works, its less than ideal.

Strike 1: 360 isn’t equipped to handle HD content.

The biggest thing that got me excited was Microsoft would be offering HD content unlike iTunes or even bittorrent for that matter. My only HD fix right now is through HD DVDs on Netflix. With all HD content, the first problem is storage space. The Xbox360 has a 20gig HDD and only 13G is useable. That equals 2 HD Movies or 6 HD TV shows at the most. That would be ok if you could pull the content off and stream it using the 360’s new found Video Streaming but alas you can’t. I would settle for be able to connect a external USB HDD and having MS format it with screwy encrypted DRM’d filesystem just to be able to use it as extra storage.

Strike 2: Lacking Content

I was all about the CW and adult swim shows as iTunes does not carry them. The only shows I watch that I cannot get from iTunes are Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Robot Chicken, Veronica Mars and Smallville. Well, 3 of those are available from day 1 on the Video Marketplace. ALL RIGHT! Not so fast. While they are available, only the First Season’s on each of them are and there aren’t even in HD. Utterly useless. And thats not all, most shows and Movies are not in HD. Only a handful of each.

Actually content is weak with todays launch and hopefully it will continue to grow. With with the exception of V for Vendetta, not one movie is current and roughly 1/3 of all the TV shows are cartoons.

Strike 3: Pricing

Pricing isn’t horrible but $6 for a 24hr HD movie rental is little steep. For a penny less, you can get a 30d ay rental from Netflix. TV shows are on par with iTunes but as with iTunes, you pay the same price for a 15 mins episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force as you do for a 60 min CSI episode. I’m not upset about the pricing but I would have loved to see $1 TV show rentals and Movie purchase’s. I’m more likely to re-watch a movie than a TV show.

And for the record, MS Points suck. 480 points = $6?! huh? Ho much is 262 points? I don’t know either but I do know $6 is $6.

Closing thoughts

I bought an episode of CSI Season 7 and V for Vendetta today. Right now its been 6 hours since I purchased them and CSI is only 19% complete and V for Vendetta hasn’t even started. Obviously this is because everyone is hammering the servers but even when TV Shows and Movies launched on iTunes, I never had this problem. V for Vendetta HD DVD shipped from Netflix today. It will be interesting to see which one i get right.

Another problem I you can’t stream while you download. I’m going to have to wait until the full movie downloads before I can watch V for Vendetta. Even iTunes lets you stream.

I do like the fact you can download the SD version of HD content for free. Score one for Microsoft.

Connect360 was just updated today to support Video streaming. Connect360 allows Music, Picture and now Video access from your Mac to your Xbox 360. It will scan your iTunes and iPhoto libraries and share them to your Xbox 360 over the network. I love this program and is a must have for any Mac and Xbox 360 owner. Version 2.8 just added streaming Video support that was added to the Xbox 360 in the Fall Dashboard update. After you install the new version and start the service, it will index your “Movies” folder . Right now its only WMV support as thats all the Xbox 360 supports but I’m hoping they will find a way to support transcoding mpeg4 files somehow.

[Trial Download]