PlayStation 3

After months of agonizing over the decision to buy a PS3 I finally made the leap.   This is a decision that I’ve been mulling over since I purchased the Epson 1080UB back in January.  Once Blu-ray had “won” the format battle, the PS3 was nearly certainly on my wish list.  However, early in the year I chose to go with the Oppo 980 DVD player instead of making the leap to the PS3.

There are some stand alone players that are worth considering now.  While you can purchase one in around the $200 mark now, you may end up slightly disappointed with the quality.  Yes – a cheap player will enable you to watch and build a Blu-ray collection, but you are making trade offs on quality.  Looking more at the mid-range offerings, the Sony S550 is very recently available in Canada and offers some features that the PS3 does not.  It benefits from being a stand alone, single function device with IR control.  The S550 also provides internal decoding of the HD audio streams and discreet analog outs.  The PS3 edges it out slightly for performance, but the S550 will run cooler (quieter).  It was a tough choice – but the PS3 also serves as a media center and is more flexible appealing to the geek in me.

I’ve been watching the slow progression the PS3 has made recently, hoping that there would be an additional price break or introduction of new lower power chips.  Neither has really happened over the course of the year.  While 45nm cell processors are a possibility, the PS3 still uses a 65nm cell.  The RSX (graphics chip) is still the original 90nm version.  As a result the unit still pulls around 135Watts of power when in use.

The new 80Gig low end unit is effectively the same as the 40Gig that has been available since late 2007.  It does not have backwards compatibility, and features a reduced number of USB ports and connectivity options.  For folks like myself interested in Blu-ray playback or the PS3 games then it has what it needs.  Earlier units which supported backwards compatibility had the larger cell processors and more chips to support the old games, this meant running hotter with more fan noise.  I haven’t used the PS3 extensively yet, but so far it is quieter than the fan in my projector – which is very quiet (siimlar to the low fan noise of my laptop).

There are no deals on the PS3 happening in Canada.  I was able to score a minor deal from BestBuy.ca which lately has had the best prices on a number of the things I’ve been looking for.  Normally when they have customer appreciation sales with discounts in the 10% range video game hardware is excluded.  As chance would have it a sale cropped up that offered discounts that did include video game hardware.  I was amused to find that the next day a very similar online sale started and ran for a week duration, but specifically excluded video game hardware.

Only $25 off a PS3 isn’t much to boast about.  Considering that in the US people have access to a SonyStyle visa which gives them $100 credit on their first qualifying purchase over $299.

Previously FutureShop.ca had free shipping on many items and BestBuy.ca did not.  Now that both stores off an in store pick up (ISPU) that has no shipping cost, FutureShop now charges for shipping.  Just last night I ordered a copy of Wall E from BestBuy.ca for $27.99 + $1.99 shipping + tax, beating out FutureShop.ca’s price of $28.99.  Of course, both of these prices at the two stores are not available for in store pick up so you have to pay shipping – and they are not filed under the Blu-ray category making it harder to find (they are under DVD, but are clearly Blu-ray media).  This might not seem like a deal with Amazon.com selling it at $24.95, but with the exchange rate the story is quite different.

Of course, to cable it into my system I needed to buy some cables.  The PS3 supports audio over HDMI or digital optical out.  Since I don’t have an HDMI capable audio setup, I went with a digital optical cable.  My projector only has 2 HDMI inputs, and I wanted to continue to run DVD via HDMI so the Satellite box lost out and has moved to component.  I used Tartan Cables for the component and digital cables, and its parent company Blue Jeans Cable for the HDMI as they had a sale on their old BJC-Series2.  All of the cables came in a single shipment, since Tartan and BlueJean are really the same business.

The PS3 only comes with a single controller, which can be used to control Blu-ray playback but there is an additional Sony Bluetooth remote you can purchase.  I was able to find one used in mint condition for $15 from someone who had upgraded to an integrated automation solution.  The PS3 has been criticized for not having a standard IR control story, and there is merit to this argument.  A number of 3rd party solutions exist such as IR2BT, ps3toothfairy, Schmart and IR4PS3.  I’ve chosen to go with the latter, it is built in Canada and uses the guts from the official Sony Bluetooth based remote meaning it has 100% compatibility.

There are still lots of things for me to do to get the PS3 setup to my satisfaction.  I haven’t yet ordered the rack shelf, but it will be another 2U unit from MiddleAtlantic.  There is a very long thread on AVSForum on setting up the PS3 for Blu-ray playback.  I will also want to get the AVS HD 709 calibration disc and see where things sit (this opens up the whole calibration can of worms again and I really need to find time to do more on this front).  And of course there will be actually getting the IR4PS3 and integrating that into my remote control setup.

Initial impressions can be summarized in one word: Wow.  The ability to deliver 1080p content to my projector (not upscaled) is awesome.  I haven’t yet watched a Blu-ray disc, but just the intro/menu of the Indiana Jones Crystal Skull looks great.  Another thing that impressed me was that my MythTV box was discovered on the network, recognized as a media server – and the PS3 was able to play back recorded content without any complicated setup.   This alone justifies the choice of the PS3 over a stand-alone player for my needs.

Roo in Japan

I was in Japan last week for business.  While we had been talking about the possibility of going for a while, I found out less than 24hrs before getting on a plane (Jenn was very understanding).  This was my first time across the Pacific Ocean, and with a 14hr leg (single flight) in my trip, I set a new personal record for being stuck on a plance (in economy no less).  The time delta was 14hrs meaning that at 7am in Japan, it was 5pm the previous day at home.

I was staying in Tokyo, near Shinjuku at the Hyatt Regency.  It turns out this was very close to the Park Hyatt that was featured in the movie Lost in Translation (which if you haven’t seen, is a good movie).  The Hyatt was a nice hotel, certainly meeting western standards for space.

Since I was there for business, I was a little concerned about making the right first impression.  I found a few links that helped me not feel like a total idiot.  Generally the Japanese people feel very polite, the bowing really struck me.  The general care they take presenting you with a bill is quite nice, it is done similar to the business card exchange which is very ritualized.

Thankfully, the company we were visiting is a little less traditional and tends to style itself after a Silicon Valley business.  One thing that I would try to do for another trip is make sure I have a few small token gifts from Canada to share with my hosts.

Since the employees of the company were Japanese, we were using a translator.  While some of them did speak English, there was a varying level of abilty with the language.  Since I don’t speak any Japanese the translator was a huge help.  Anyone who has head me speak knows how quickly I can go – this won’t work with a translator.  It took some getting used to, breaking ideas down into short snippets that could be translated without losing any of the technical content (just because they don’t speak the same language, doesn’t make them simpletons).

On day 3 I noticed that the translator was fixing my errors in naming folk by adding -san,  and I was honoured to hear Andrew-san a number of times.  I’ll go out on a limb a little here as I don’t know, but it also seemed to take a little time to break down some of the trust barriers – this may be a cultural issue, or just the standard technical problem of everyone is an idiot until proven otherwise.  By the afternoon of the 3rd day we were all jamming at the whiteboard discussing issues, and it was clear that there was understanding (both ways) even without translation.

We had dinners out as a group (without the translator) and there were enough folks with both English and Japanese on both the customer and IBM side to help things go smoothly enough, they were also especially helpful in instructing us how to eat dinner as many of the dishes were unfamiliar.  We ate in restaurants with low tables but with a cut-out below for your legs, we also removed our shoes before entering the eating area.  While the food was unfamiliar, it was all good. My best guess after the fact is that the meal was ichijū-sansai style.  The soup was cooked at the table and I couldn’t help but compare it to a DIY meal such as fajitas (which I always want a discount on as I’m doing part of the worK).

It was cool to see that Bunnie was in Japan at the same time, and blogging about both food and some of the neat things to see in Japan.  Unfortunately I didn’t have time to explore some of the things he talked about, but it did help me get my head around the culture a little more.  In the little time I did have free, I did a little souvenier shopping – while I could navigate the subway and the stores, the language barrier was significant. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to find a 100 yen shop (dollar store), but did explore a few of the 10+ story department stores.  I ended up buying a few things at a shop on the 45th floor of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Offices  which gives an amazing view of the city.  In the elevator ride down it was a pretty tight right with about 8 other people, but none of them were above the level of my shoulder – Japan isn’t built for people who are 6 feet tall.

I had been told that McDonald’s was “the same, but not the same – you have to try it”.  The menu certainly had some unfamiliar selections on it such as Ebi Filet-O (shrimp burgers).  When I got to the airport the food selection was pretty limited but there was a McDonald’s so I figured why not?  The double Big-Mac and fries, tasted the same (or possibly better) than the ones I’m used to.  I did also eat out of one of the ubiquitous vending machines, the ice cream was very good.

While I was there the weather was mostly overcast, but around 10C to 15C.  During the day I’d forego having a jacket which made me stand out in crowds.  Generally the Japanese were bundled up in jackets as it was considered “cold”, but as I was primarily in the office (24C), subways and stores I found it hot if I had a jacket on.  It did cool off in the evenings, and many of the commuters had very long trips (1hr+) which might have required more variation in clothing.  In the evenings I did wear a jacket, I’m Canadian – not crazy.

It was a good trip, but I’m really glad to not be on a plane and staying close to home for a while.

Burned by Chrome

Last night I was adding a new wifi device to my home network.  One of the security features I make use of is MAC address filtering (and yes, I know a motivated attacker can spoof a MAC address easily enough, but there are many easier targets in my neighbourhood).  My primary router is a Linksys WRT54GL running DD-WRT.  If you have one of the Linksys WRT54G* routers, my experience is the stock firmware is terrible – you should either run DD-WRT or Tomato and if you insist on staying stock, at least get the latest version from Linksys.

I’ve been playing with Google Chrome a little bit.  The various “run it under Linux” solutions simply don’t work well enough to bother with.  So until Google gets a Linux version going – I’ve been playing with it under Windows.  There are some things I like about Chrome: the ability to tear off a tab and get a new window; the omnibar; and their process per tab is pretty nifty.  On the downside is plug-in stability (Adobe Reader really sucked in the 1st release, better in the update), general stability (I’ve crashed it a few times) and compatibility (some websites don’t recognize it).  I’m not ready to make it my primary browser, but I do use it regularly.

In order to edit the MAC filter list, I need to navigate some of the DD-WRT administration pages to make some changes.  I was surprised to get an error message from Chrome when trying to save my changes, it turns out I was hitting a bug that was only very recently fixed.  So, no worries – I just switched to Firefox and redid the change.  However, to my dismay – it seems that the partial commit from Chrome caused my router to completely clear my nvram (in all honesty I can’t prove this, but the sequence of events makes sense).

DD-WRT has been very stable for me for quite some time.  I was running v23 SP2 and had looked at the newer v24 version since it had some neat bandwidth monitoring features, but had decided to stall as migrating my configuration would be a bunch of work (and risk if I got it wrong).  Lucky for me I had gotten a dump of the nvram by logging into the router via telnet and issuing a “nvram show” command, having this dump gave me a reference to help move my config over.

Faced with the complete loss of my configuration, I figured it was as good a time as any to upgrade to the latest version (v24 SP1).  The upgrade went smoothly, and the new firmware looks really slick.  In a way I’m sort of glad that I finally got around to doing it.