PS3 PlayTV

When I purchased the PS3 one of the things I thought to use it for was for recording TV. I didn’t have a decent solution for that (except an old VCR) for the digital channels. The PS3 has the PlayTV attachment to allow you to watch and record TV. It even allows you to watch while recording or to play a game while the PlayTV records. 

It’s large for what it does. About the size of three DVD cases piled on each other. It connects to the TV aerial at the rear and to the PS3 USB. This could be a problem on newer PS3 as mine only has 2 USB ports (not sure how many the older ones have) and I was charging the 3D glasses and the controllers on them. 

THe setup is pretty easy and using the free to air channel guides broadcast as part of the digital signal you can get about a week in advance for your programming. Either by the guide or by manually adding times. Recordings can be repeated or extended as required. If a programmed record messes up it will even try to find a repeat to record. Not really successful here, but perhaps in other countries?

I’ve been really happy with it, and with the 500GB PS3 I have been able to hold a fair bit to watch and not worry about space. I did have one movie record with a lot of stuttering but it hasn’t reoccured. It’s hung a couple of times, but mostly its can be slow if you follow up something that uses the HDD with something else that also uses a big chunk off the HDD, for example you delete a movie and immediately try to watch another. The playback or menus might not respond for several seconds as the system finishes one task before commencing the other. It may also be trying to buffer (through??) the PlayTV, up and back on the USB2 port?? not sure of the reasons, but something to watch out for.

I have found a process to copy recordings from the PlayTV to the PS3 and then to an external HDD. However this is limited to sub 4GB files as the PS3 only talks FAT32 to external drives. Even a hour episode at HD quality records at about 5GB. I will need to see if there is a setting to convert HD to SD as it records which may help. The process is fine, as long as your recording is smaller.

If you currently have another PVR solution, I wouldn’t bother. If you have a PS3 with a good size HDD and no PVR, its a good solution. If you have one of the new 12GB PS3, I wouldn’t bother. A HD movie can be 8-9GB. 

Cancelled.

I cancelled my World of Warcraft subscription tonight. Main reason is that when I sit down at the computer, I don’t think… oh WoW, yes, lets see what I can get to tonight! Instead I’m think, Right lets blow up some mechs! Basically I’m just not playing at the moment, and it seems silly to keep my subscription going if I’m not playing.

It’s no surprise the change in attitude. I’ve been a Battletech fanboi since I started playing the table top in about 1988. I’ve since played every PC game since Crescent Hawks Inception. WoW had two things that helped it…. my friends and there hasn’t been a BT release since MW4 Mercs in about 2002. So it filled in the gap.

And I really enjoy MWO.

So to the Frosties – Thanks Everyone, it’s been great… but my love isn’t slaying internet dragons, it’s always been giant bipedal war machines

I will keep up the blog, but you will see it move more to Mechwarrior Online (and hopefully Mechwarrior Tactics as well, if I could just get a Beta invite)

Farewell Everyone! It’s been . . . emotional.

 

*never played Solaris VII online, nor could I ever get Living Legends to run.

Now I feel it.

Got several serious hours of MoP time since Friday. It’s been fascinating and I finally feel like this expac has started.

Carrying on from the other night, Mab cleared out some pesky Alliance and was greeted by one of the strange Pandarians who inhabit this continent.

New continent, new spirits and new races, Mab meets a Pandarian for the first time.

After helping out the local village, Mabaho moves deeper into the continent. Its a very beautiful place.

Serenity Falls.

His fellow Horde have some more silly ideas… no Safety regs here!

Mabaho’s father taught him not to fear anything, except when a Goblin says “Trust Me”!

I spent some time bonding with even more new allies, the Hozen.

A bunch of guys, some fireworks, what could go wrong….

Before learning more about these mysterious Pandarians (and some more about myself too)

Meeting the Lorewalker.

His people overthrew their oppressors. I’m sure we will have to deal with them eventually.

Not nice guys apparently. Though Garrosh might like them.

I’m enjoying the quests so far. Levelling seems super slow, especially after running Dasal and Mabango since I finished Mabaho. My gear is holding up ok, though it won’t be long before some of my purples will be replaced. I’m guessing those with top tier gear would hold it for more, but I have enough that mobs aren’t a threat.

Not sure how her holiness, can’t kill a fly, Dasal will go with levelling. Might have to try Shadow again for her to get through. I also noticed that the Goblin Rivet Clutchpop sells some serious gear if you haven’t gotten yourself kitted up prior. Cheap too.

The expac has breathed life back into guild chat and guild life abounds at all hours. That’s a nice change too, it was getting pretty lonely sometimes!

Onwards!

Report to Bladefist Bay!

My MoP CE box arrived today. Started off making up my Panda Monk. So say hello to Monghe.

Monghe

Did a couple of quests before Miss 5 wanted to play pandas, so she spent some time making aklsjdfuif and aoij;dfnrubcn on another server (not their real names, but close…. people are going to think they’re gold farmers!)

Pandaria!!

The kids are in bed and I think one of them is actually asleep so I started Mab off to Pandaria. So far I’ve followed a couple of Org quests and dropped into a battle in Pandaria. I miss our Call of the Elements, oh I had forgotten how annoying it was in Vanilla and BC to drop totems one at a time.

Green Light… go go go….

Miss 3 is being cranky tonight, so I’ve had to log out until I can get her to stay in bed. Still I have a whole weekend ahead of me

Wait! Oh bother.

Been passing the time with a little bit of Pet Battles when I can. Though actually been mostly working on photos and stuff from my holidays so haven’t played a lot.

Anyway, I decided this morning to get back into levelling Mabango. Logged in to find her still not set up since the v5 patch a month ago. I spent some time reading through the new talents and sorting the spells, both old and new, onto the action bars. I’ve also tried to return her keybinds back to the normal configuration with my Naga (fighting on the keyboard, utility on the Naga).

Finally a reread of the current quests and I started out. Mabango is currently in Zul’drak working through the quest hubs. I spent some time as an undead and with a new quest, looks like I’ll be spending some more. The Ensorcelled Choker which disguises me is proof against Scourge except for Blightlords.

Mabango poses in her disguise with her new demon slave.

I had forgotten how big Mabango’s aggro range is which meant I got pounded a few times. as they detected me. Lost my new demons a couple of times too (I like these new demon models… but they seem a little less tough? Maybe its just our level in this zone?)

NPCScan went off too. Starting moving in for a photo when a scourge jumped us. I attacked but still had Griegan targeted, so he joined in.

Griegan

Snapped some pictures and finished him off. He dropped some useful mats and a blue (leather item).

Last picture is just a neat shot on approach to TB. I think I’ve turned my graphics up since last time I flew this way, but it looked awesome.

Mabaho comes home – Thunder Bluff

MoP Begins … well sorta

I want to write some pun about mops, buckets and cleaning, but can’t think of a good one.   The expac is finally here. I’ve arrived back from my USA trip, with almost a week still of holidays to go.  I’ve updated my add-ons, updated my Mac and downloaded the last patches for WoW. I have my internet back this very afternoon as well. Sounds perfect. I’m good to go for some solid MoP exploration.

Except my copy hasn’t turned up yet. 

Ah hum… it’ll probably be more than a week before it does arrive. So what to do….

Well one of things I wanted to try was the Scenario, Theramore’s Fall.

But Mab doesn’t seem to qualify. I did think it was iLevel, but if it’s 353 as I read somewhere, then Mab has 370 so should be fine. Anyone the LFG tool won’t let him queue. EDIT: Seems they turned the run up to lvl 90 with the MoP official release.

So that’s out.

Can’t level Mab or Dasal, need the expac.

Can’t start a Panda, need the expac.

Could keep working on Mabango… that’s not a bad idea.

Until Tacky suggested Pet Battles.

Wandered over to the trainer (who trains*) and got started. Also bumped into Cymre and must get started on many of her posts that I purposefully ignored, so as not to spoil the expac. But at least I can read about pet battles.

Was a bit lost at first until the first green paw showed up on my minimap. I was well into it soon after. After about 15 mins, I have raised a few pet levels, won a few, caught a few new pets. Been interesting.

I can see you needing to really raise a whole range of pets with their strengths and weaknesses. Then swapping your three slots depending upon the pets in your current zone. For example, near water you are likely to meet aquatic pets, so have 3 slots of flyers probably won’t help, but those same three will devastate cats.

So I guess I will become a pet expert over the coming days.

Mab has a new pet (left side) Rabid Nut something 5000. Also shows the green paws to look for that designate combat pets.

*a reference to the recent Pink Panther movie, Yuri the Trainer who Trains becomes a suspect in the investigation.

USA Holiday Day 5

We didn’t make Disney last night, started raining.

A late start today with the idea to hit the Epcot Centre until dinner, then switch to Disney to catch the parade. And that’s pretty much how it went.

Except that we left it a little late to switch over and didn’t find a good spot, but to be honest the parade at Anaheim 2 years ago was far better. Then the kids got tired and we headed home before the fireworks.

Disney done, at least for this trip.

Epcot was interesting, not many rides, and some “world experiences” that they’d actually put a fair bit of effort into within the bounds that it was a theme park.

Mulan got done over here too! So every country (eleven I think) is staffed by nationals from that country… French in the France one, Germans in the German one and Chinese in the China one, etc. Characters from those countries were there and we finally found Mulan

So to speak.

They had an American playing Mulan. Seriously she had a pointy nose, western eyes, American accent… She might have had some Asian ancestry but it wasn’t obvious. Even my girls, half filipino would have been more authentic! By comparison, Mary Poppins and Alice (from Wonderland, not Resident Evil, lol) had strong English accents. Mulan sounded liike she came from California.

I’ll post some pictures once I edit them somehow.

Shared Topic – What Spell Would You Most Want?

Arvash gives us this new topic,

So my question is, if you could have any spell you want from any other class, current spells or new ones in MoP, what would it be? How would you work it into your rotation, gameplay, etc.?

There are a few spells that I’ve always wanted for Mabaho. Hex was one… I was frustrated that the Troll Shaman we fought had this Hex spell… Hey Mabaho is a shaman too, why don’t I know it. And eventually they did let us have Hex (and for Wrath, we almost never used it as CC was so out of fashion). They also gave us Bind Elementals in Cata and brought CC back. (I’m bringing CC back, yeah – read that to the sound of Timberlake’s song, lol)

Another strange thing I thought was that we couldn’t remove curses, I think Druids had that. We could remove poison. Now if we consider shaman are in a way “Witch Doctors” then curses would seem to be a strong point! And druids, all naturey it makes sense to have them able out sort out poisons. At some point in Wrath I think it was, they reorganised all of the spells to do with curses and poisons and the like. And took away Cure Poisons to replace it with Cleanse Spirit, a curse removal spell.

I have a spell that I’ve always, always wanted. It’s pretty much a vanity spell but since the release of BC I’ve always thought it fits nicely into the Shaman way of things. Ghost Raven or maybe Eagle is better. I don’t care if it is just a travel form, but I never thought it was fair to give us GW and not expand it when BC came out, like the Druids got.

I know it’s silly and completely pointless, but even these days I still use GW occasionally and GEagle would be great.

Ghost Raven sounds better?

Chilling out

Shared Topic – Life Changing

Honestly, I feel humbled at some of the responses to this topic. Folks like The Grown Up and Karegina have found such solace and companionship from this game. I know of others who have met soulmates through the game. I honestly feel my own experiences are petty and small beside such things.

Effy asks us a small question, that has led to some giant responses

“How has WoW changed your life?”

I’ve had life’s ups and downs as well, but none have involved the game. I started to play WoW because my friends were. I often lived remote from my closest friends and it was a way for me to stay in touch with some of them.

Mabaho dressed for Navispam (I realised the only shots in that post have him sitting)

It’s actually a bit of a change from the games I had played until then. And I guess that’s something that has changed. For the past seven years I’ve been playing pretty much just WoW. Now I’m definitely not the type to swap games every week but I usually play a couple of different ones in a year. And they have tended to be mission based FPS or Simulators (either warplanes, spaceships or mechs). An RPG, an online RPG, an MMORPG is really outside my norm. So that’s something different.

So I’m sorry, there isn’t anything deep here. WoW has for a time changed my gaming, but not my life.

Mechwarrior Online (picture belongs to MWO not me)

Shared Topic – MoP Beta

The few people who do follow my blog deserve a post. I’m actually writing a lot of posts at the moment, but due to an Non Disclosure Agreement, I can’t post them yet. So shared topics give me a great chance to keep posting that I can publish. Otherwise it’d be Mabango is still in the inn at Dal, Mabaho and the rest are hanging out in Org. Not really worth reading. Anyway, this week Frinka has suggested a topic for Blog Azeroth.

Are you playing the MoP Beta? Why or why not? How much time are you spending there vs. the “live” servers.

Oh definitely not. I don’t want to spoil the surprise! I’m happy to roll up to the new zones on the opening night (or a night or two later) and view it all for the first time. I still remember the first time I ran up the road from Mulgore into The Barrens to explore. Its on of the strongest memories I have of WoW. That would be in about June 2005. Oh, the Barren explore ended with my level 5 or so getting wasted by the first thing I came across and I scooted back to Mulgore to keep questing.

Similarly I remember when Mabaho finally levelled enough to enter The Dark Portal. I’ve posted screenshots of that before. I can’t remember as well the WotLK and Cata but it was similar. That’s the exploring feeling I like.

So I’m not spending any time in the Beta. I don’t have a key and made no effort to get one.

It’s also hard as some of my favourite blogs post stuff on it occasionally. Bubbles of Mischief I almost avoid entirely (sorry Cymre!) as she puts a massive amount of effort into giving us all great info on the new stuff. I plan to read it as I go along later. If you are interested in it, she’s has an awesome amount of stuff.

As for live server, due to another Beta (with the NDA), I’m not logging in much anyway. But I’ll be back in September.