hirolash's blog

Streaming MP4 video to your Xbox 360

I've been working hard to find a program that would convert my video library into a codec that offers great quality and future support for hand held devices, game consoles and computers alike. The requirements are simple:

• Ease of use
• Free
• Great quality
• Batching (to do multiple videos at one time)

 Hmm, sounds like you would have to pay for that but luckily there are some options out there. I’ve played with a few but decided on handbrake in the end. Handbrake started as, and continues to be a Mac program. I played around with the first Windows version which was command line only, that didn't last very long before I put it down. I live and die by the GUI my friends. But now it is a full featured program that meets all my requirements listed above. It even has some presets; one of them is for the Xbox 360, using an MP4 container with H.264 video codec. I’ve played with and have done video in Divx and Xvid, both are good but I couldn’t get the same quality out of them at the same bitrates and file size as I can with H.264.

I ran into a problem that I did not anticipate, I store all my videos on my WHS (Windows Home Server) and Windows currently does not stream MP4 video to the Xbox 360. The Xbox 360 literally does not see the MP4 video on my WHS shared video folder. The key here is the MP4 container that holds the H.264 encoded video. In order to get it to work I had to change the container (file type) to AVI. So if your video is called “Aliens.mp4” you change it to read “Aliens.avi” only changing the file extension and not the file name. This works without any problems at all. I’m still a little confused why Microsoft won’t allow MP4 video to stream over a LAN but there you go.

Now this is only a problem if you are streaming the video to your Xbox 360. You can attach a flash drive or an external USB hard drive to the Xbox 360 and the video will play as is.

Currently I’m still playing around with my setup and trying to get the best possible entertainment experience, with the least amount of hassle. The Xbox 360 offers a lot in that department but needs to open the doors a little wider to include MP4 streaming. The new Xbox 360 interface is gorgeous and I can navigate it using my Logitech Harmony Xbox 360 remote, which also runs my entire entertainment system.

Update: Here is a great step by step guide I found on converting DVDs to H.264 video files, even tells you how to stream them to your Xbox 360 and/or PS3: Click Here

Alien from vegetables

Greetings and Salutations to our new vegetable overlords.

Alien

Alien 2

Windows Home Server and HP Mediasmart Home Server

IMG_0111

 My Windows Home Server (WHS) box was thrown together out of spare parts I had taking up space in my closet. When I first started playing with WHS it was in open beta. There was a few problems that I contributed to the beta build and when it was out of beta I thought the problems were related to my crazy box, did I mention that the BIOS on the mobo is wrong? I don’t mean outdated I mean not for this mobo type stuff. Surprised it even works. The chipset works but it is identified as something totally different than what it is. What do you expect, it was free people.  So I had an extremely long boot time like 8 minutes and for some reason the connector software could see the WHS box but would not connect to it. The boot time problem, I wasn’t really worried about because once it is up and running you don’t shut it down. The connection software problem was a mystery but wasn’t hard to get past, I just mapped the shared folder on the WHS, no problem. So it has sat on my rack in the laundry room for some time now, just running like a good little server should, not bad for free. Now however, I have out grown my old WHS, all the drive bays are full and I have two external USB hard drives

connected to it as well, time for an upgrade. I decided to replace it with an HP Mediasmart Home Server, as of late, it has been mocking me on Amazon and I just had to have it. The model I got HP EX470 comes with a 500GB hard drive. I also bought a 1TB hard drive to get me started. Here is an interesting thing about this server I did not realize when I bought it, it's not even a foot tall! I would compare the over all size to the drobo. I was a little nervous about it not having a VGA port for a monitor and kind of felt that sting for about 2 hours while trying to set it up. Remember that problem with the connector software? It’s back with the new HP WHS. They do provide you with some tools that scans your network and tries to point you in the right direction of the problem but in my case it just ran me in circles about my DDNS and my network router which is a PC with IPcop installed. After making several changes to my IPcop settings with no luck at all of fixing this connection problem. I stepped back and come to the conclusion that the problem was not IPcop. Well, not being 100% sure about that, I decided to take IPcop out of the loop and try connecting through a Linksys router I use as my wireless network in my home. I tried connecting to the HP WHS and it would see the server but would not connect to it, same problem. So realizing the problem was not my network it had to be something else. The answer was to manually add the server’s IP address and host name to the HOST file in all the client PCs, which is in the C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc directory. Another interest point to keep in mind is if you’re doing this on a Vista PC you have to go into Safe Mode to edit the file.

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After all the dirty work was done and my network was back to the way it was originally, everything worked wonderfully. Even after all the power cycling of the HP box it still sat at the setup screen waiting for me to enter in my configuration preferences. I’ve got to add HP has included some add-on software to the WHS that really helps guide you through the process of fine tuning your WHS and setting up the extra features that usually get over looked. Over all I am very pleased with HP. That's saying a lot because I am a Dell man.

Give your xbox360 it's own voice

360voice

Well, not literally it's on voice, but how about it's own blog, you heard me. I signed up for this service two days ago. You can sign up to give your xbox360 a voice, blog at 360voice.com let your xbox360 tell you how wonderful it is and how bad you are. checkout what my xbox360 has to say about me Hirogen360.

In the Beginning

In the Beginning

In the beginning, there was single player games. As the number of players grew and individual scores raised out of competition. A cry was heard for player vs player challenges. The games were good and the people were happy, until unrest spread through the masses, another cry came "give us more!" then from the heavens a light came forth the birth of Massive Multilayer On-line games were indeed upon us all, the people rejoiced. After a time of harmony and peace with their new found love of MMOs a sinister evil grew to prey on the weak and noobs, Guilds were formed to try and control this spreading evil but yet the evil kept growing stronger and stronger. Yet another cry came forth "protect us from this evil!" A great crack was heard as worlds where split asunder. The people were given a the right to choose there lives, one of friendship with all players and one of strife with them. having the ability to choose made the people happy once again. Communities were formed and friends were let in, conversation, banter and fun. This has pleased the masses for now. Live is the answer we were looking for, without even knowing the question, just a desire for fun, a second Life was born of this one and thrives on our love of Live.   

Batman - The Dark Knight

Batman-dark-knight-joker

The Dark Knight is an amazing movie. I went into this movie thinking it was going to be good. Hoping that it would live up to all the hype and for the most part it did. I went the extra mile to watch this movie in imax too. The closest imax theater that was showing TDK was a 5 hour drive from my house. But to be fair my girlfriend lives 3 hours from me in the same direction so your call on my trek to watch TDK on an imax screen. I walked away from this movie wanting more Joker and not really caring about Batman. This movie screams for a sequel, story line, characters and box office take. TDK has broken all the records so far, midnight showing, first day and first weekend 198+ million, wow and I'm going back to watch it again in a regular theater. I left the imax theater with a great sense of loss and dread. Heath Ledger was a artist and he will sorely be missed by me and others. The dread I feel is that they will make a sequel and someone else will have to fill Heath's shoes. Even though I really want to see more I don't think anyone can capture the Joker as well as Heath did, thank you Heath.
Why So Serious?
The Dark Knight should be enjoyed at least twice in the theater and one of those should be imax.

Awesome Salsa Recipe

Here is my homemade awesome salsa recipe, over the last few months the ingredients have changed a bit, but perfection is the goal and I think this is pretty close.

Ingredients:

My Salsa

5 tomatoes
1 can of black beans 15oz
1 bell pepper
1 yellow onion
1 bundle of cilantro
3 scallions
8 jalapeno slices
1 lemon
1 lime
3oz crystal hot sauce
2oz vinegar
Seasoning salt
Cumin

What to do with all this stuff:
Tomatoes:
I chop the tomatoes up by hand; it seems the only way to get them just right.
Black Beans:
I wash the black beans until the water runs clear.
Bell pepper, yellow onion, cilantro, scallions and jalapenos:
I take all of these ingredients and throw them in to the food processor to be chopped up.
Lemon & lime:
I squeeze the lemon and lime, making sure the seeds don’t go in to the salsa.
Hot sauce and vinegar:
Add to the mix.
Seasoning salt and cumin:
I add both to my taste, no real measurement.

I hope you enjoy my salsa recipe; it is a really big hit around my house and circle of friends.

So you want to upgrade your PS3 hard drive

I've ran into a problem that I haven't read about while upgrading my PS3 hard drive. I thought I did my research on the subject, I watched the cnet video here and a youtube video here. I've also read a few blogs on the subject here and here. I thought I was prepared for what awaited me, little did I know what changes lay in wait. Since my PS3 is one of the newer ones that came with a 40GB hard drive, I just knew I would be able to turn it into a 250GB monster. I bought my drive from newegg.com (thank you very much), whipped out my screw driver and went to work one evening after my day job.
I think the biggest difference is I don't have anything on my PS3 that needs to be saved. Sure, I used a USB flash drive to copy my saved games but that's it. After I replaced the hard drive and powered up the PS3 I was greeted with a message asking for media with firmware 2.41 (which was installed on my PS3) or newer. No one said anything about needing the current installed firmware or newer on some media like a disc, USB flash drive or external hard drive before the PS3 would accept the new hard drive. I started checking every site I could think of and googled even more, I could not find anything. In my ever increasing frantic panic I came across the playstation.com website, Specifically this page here. which has the latest firmware for down load and instructions on how to install it using a USB flash drive. I followed the instructions, got the firmware installed and then the PS3 gave me the option to format my new hard drive. I had to setup my PS3 as if it was brand new, created my profile again and had to sign in to my account which one blog (linked to above) said the PS3 retains that information. Nonetheless, my PS3 is working perfectly now and my saved games are all good to go.
I don't know if this is something new with the 2.41 firmware or maybe new hardware configuration due to Sony trying to cut cost or because I did not use a external hard drive to back everything up. Either way it would have been nice to see some updated information on one of these blogs or videos.

 

Nokia Morph Concept

Nokia

I love this concept video.

3D Wii Gaming

3D Wii Gaming

I can't wait for gaming to catchup with this concept. I want to play a First Person Shooter using this, I'm not that young anymore but I have a feeling I would be bouncing off the walls.