WTF - XBox360 Hard Drive Upgrade

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In a time where hard drives are a commodity and storage space on the next generation consoles is limited, Microsoft has figured out how to cash in. Let's say you have a cheaper 20 GB Xbox 360 and you want 120 GB, be prepared to shell out $149.99. To put that in perspective, as of today for your desktop computer that would be 1.5 Terabytes (Seagate Barracuda ST315005N1A1AS-RK 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Retail, 3 year warranty) or for your laptop/PS3 you get 500 Gigabytes (Seagate Momentus ST905003N3A1AS-RK 7200 RPM 16MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive -Retail, 5 year warranty) with 20 bucks to spare for dinner.

Why is Microsoft's hard drive less than half the size for the same price? Because they can. And god help any gamer who doesn't want to pay.

If they catch you using a non-Microsoft approved hard drive, well you're banned from XBox Live, Microsoft's online gaming network. They do this because to even support a bigger hard drive you have to mod your XBox360. Since it is modded, according to Microsoft you're obviously trying to pirate games. Rather than making it easy for gamers to upgrade the storage space, like on the PS3, the XBox360 isn't upgrade friendly. WTF!

Yellow Light Of Doom vs Red Ring Of Death

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So, when the PS3 has a problem, you'll see the Yellow Light Of Doom. Similarly when the XBox360 has a problem you'll see the Red Ring Of Death. As for the Wii, I haven't heard what it does when it fails.

Both Microsoft and Sony have had problems with their next generation consoles. I keep seeing posts saying that every 60 GB PS3 has been put in for repair. The XBox360 isn't much better as I've had a co-worker go through 3 XBox360's due to the Red Ring Of Death.

So here's my anecdotal evidence. I have a 60 GB backwards compatible 1st generation PS3. I have 2 co-workers with the same model. None of them have shown the YLOD. I also have a 2nd gen 40 gig PS3, which performs like a champ. I've personally logged hundreds if not thousands of hours running my 60 GB PS3. While I've had online friends experience the YLOD, no reports from my co-workers.

On the other hand, the XBox360 hasn't been so lucky. Multiple co-workers have reported the RROD. As I said earlier, one co-worker has experienced this multiple times.

Furthermore, it is obvious that Sony has done something about the failing PS3s. While not 100% effective, the redesign seems to have quelled the uprising caused by failures.

The XBox360 on the other hand, shows no redesign. It may have happened and I'm not aware of it, but it seems like they would want to change the form factor as well to better address heat issues.

I don't know, it seems to me, while Microsoft has made strides to correct their design flaws externally (offering a repair program), Sony went and addressed the root cause (re-designing the hardware to prevent issues in the first place).

As for those with a broken disc reader on their PS3, it does suck that Sony isn't offering a repair program like Microsoft. And for anyone in that situation, I really feel for ya.

Media Review - PS3 PlayOn

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Today I'm going to review one of my favorite pieces of software PlayOn. It's a piece of software that runs on a computer which gives you access to Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, YouTube and other online video sites on your XBox360, PS3 or Wii. While it works with DLNA-compatible devices, the focus has been on consoles. In this review I'm going to focus on the PS3 version, and leave the Wii for another time.

If anyone wants to donate their XBox360 to me so I can review on that platform as well, I'd be more than happy to take it.

Getting back to the review, there are a few sites PlayOn does out of the box, including Amazon VOD, Hulu, Netflix, YouTube, ESPN, CBS and now "My Media". "My Media" allows you to add local files, music and pictures to stream to those other devices, so you can have one version of the truth (rather than copies of every picture on every machine).

But let's suppose you wanted to watch video from the ridiculously named "SyFy" website? While the program doesn't support every site out of the box, there's a site with third party plug-ins, including Crackle, SyFy, Cartoon Network and so on.

PlayOn is written in .Net and MediaMall has opened up their APIs to developers so they can make plug ins for any site that's not supported by default.

Great so now we have an idea as to what PlayOn does, how does it work?

Well, like I said, PlayOn runs on your computer. It is important that this computer is hard wired to your internet connection and your console to get proper performance. Additionally the computer has to be reasonably beefy, as here's what happens. The computer plays the video, and in real time re-encodes it into a mpeg stream. It streams that to the PS3, allowing you to watch just like any other video (using the same controls I might add). Since this is a stream FF/Rev don't always work properly and you can have issues where the computer hasn't streamed enough (or the connection to the website is dropped) leading to playback issues. Also, since everything is done on the computer, you don't have to worry about DRM issues on your console.

So on the PS3, PlayOn integrates into the video list. It acts like a folder, letting you browse which service and then the different ways a site has organized their video. While for Netflix I'll stick with the PS3 Disc, it does fairly well on sites such as Hulu and YouTube.

The problem comes in when Hulu or YouTube changes their site. Every time the site changes, there needs to be a new update to your PlayOn software and it may not always work properly. That said, when it does work, you could almost leave cable and other TV services behind for this.

Oh and did I mention, because it is a stream you can at least fly through the Hulu commercials at 1.5x speed? As for picture quality, the HD video is indistinguishable from over the air HD to me. And the audio for HD on Hulu? For now it seems to be stereo, but that could change in the future easily enough.

PlayOn is not free, but you do get a 14 day trial.

Oh and the next review of PlayOn will be through the Wii. It accomplishes this through the web browser.

Ratings:

• Video Quality - Superb
• Audio Quality - OK (Stereo)
• Controls - Great (Just as expected)
  
• Selection - Wonderful (Almost enough for me to give up cable)
• Streaming Issues - Yes (Streams break, SW Updates)
  

Overall Rating 7/10

Heavy's Thought on Gaming

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As a Full time Automotive technician, Father and husband I don't have a
great deal of time to play games. My time at home is very precious to me
(Que: Golim saying that word). I run a Warhawk Server every week
(MAXIMUMSOAP -9pm ET Monday's) because I know that is a game that
I enjoy very much.

I may be jumping the gun a little here .. let's back up and go with a bit of history

I have been playing video games for as long as I can remember,
Atari 2600 .. to Coleco Vision ... a Nintendo or two ... Sega's systems
(genesis w/32x and CD) ... Orig. Playstation, Xbox, Playstation 2,
playstation 3, Xbox 360 and lets not forget the Wii .... Had a bunch
of systems and hundreds upon hundreds if not thousands
of games. Playing games was a Big part of my childhood and is
still a part of my life as an adult. I have two wonderful children
(13yr & 9yr) a very awesome wife , couple dogs snake and they
are the bulk of my existence. So when it comes to playing a game
I can't afford to put in hours upon hours just to be disappointed
or dislike games.

I have a luxury at work that my shop has WiFi and I own a computer
that I can surf on at my toolbox. In the past year or more I have had
moments when work has been very slow and I can watch gaming
vids, or talk to stalkers on twitter, troll through forums... but these
times are not a given. I have made purchasing mistakes in gaming
as I'm sure everyone has. Years ago I would have looked at a Sucky
Game purchase as a possible trade to a friend or maybe someday
I'll play it again. ... Now this same Sucky game purchase is lost Money
the same feeling I get with Bad service and food at a restaurant, or a
broken new in Box item from a Store... the restaurant can sometime
be salvaged with a discount, or the fact that you don't tip as well ..
Haha Mr. Sucky waiter - Take that. The broken item can sometimes
be exchanged or maybe returned to buy something else. the Game
on the other hand, retuning it is like a cop out... it's feels like saying
this Game beat me ..it feels Dirty .. it feels kinda wrong ...

Basically what I'm sorta Saying is as i get Older and the Games get
better at looking good in trailers and game play vids. It becomes
harder for me to go out and purchase a Game brand new on release day.

Sometimes I think .. why not just rent it first, or wait a Month or two
and read some reviews maybe buy it used for half price ???

Gaming in these times becomes, for me, a lot less about the New
and improved and A lot more about -

My time is worth a lot -
Can this "Game" meet my GOML


Anyone that has a different view should feel free to tell me how "Wrong" I am

Why You Need to Be Wired Part 2

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This is the conclusion of yesterday's "Why You Need to Be Wired Part 1". Read that first for context.

These posts relate to all of the current generation consoles, PS3, Wii and XBox360.

So now that we've talked about interference, we need to talk about overhead and latency. Latency or "ping" refers to the amount of time it takes to get from your computer or console to another computer or console. Overhead and latency go hand in hand, and the biggest portion is encryption. Encryption is very useful to keep people from spoofing your bank's web site as well as protecting your own passwords. That said this protection comes at a cost. First let's look at a low bandwidth ping test.

Using wired Ethernet:


Using wireless:


Looks almost the same, and some may say, wireless is faster, which is true in this case. My wired connection uses Computer -> USB -> Ethernet -> Switch -> Router -> The Internet, where as my wireless connection is Computer -> Wireless -> Router -> The Internet. Yes the extra switch is introducing a 1 ms delay. But remember this is a low bandwidth test, where the router has to do very little to decode the packets and the computer has to do very little to encode them.

A speed test tells the real story.
Using wired Ethernet:


Using wireless:


You'll notice that when I went to a wireless connection, my ping doubled and my bandwidth dropped. This mostly due to the encryption. Additionally, there's what's called overhead with wireless. Overhead is extra control signals from your device to the router (and back again) which is not part of the data you intended to send/receive. It is meant to manage the data being sent and to check for data errors. This overhead reduces your overall bandwidth and processing it introduces some more delay. When the overall bandwidth usage is low, this delay is insignificant, but up the amount of data to transfer and look out.

You'll note in all 4 cases I used exactly the same server, and in all 4 cases I used the same computer and internet connection. I also ran each test more than once to obtain consistent results, and while Comcast may have shaped the packet, they would have done the same in all the tests, thus giving us reliable results regardless.

After seeing all this, some may say "Well, I'm going to turn encryption off!" Please, for the love of all that's holy in this world, do not open up your personal wireless router to everyone. First, this really doesn't solve all your issues, remember the other wireless overhead? Second, removing encryption not only opens up your traffic to everyone else around you but it makes it easy for someone else to connect to your router. Even if you have MAC address filtering, that won't stop someone from connecting to your network and potentially doing malicious things such as downloading child pornography. Guess who the feds blame when they trace the download to your IP? Encryption gives you some protection against this, and in most cases the malicious person will continue on down the street looking for another sucker rather than attempting to crack your connection.

WPA/WPA2 with a pre-shared key is enough for most people.

A final note, yes I live on the west coast, and that does seem to help. I tend to get very good pings on my PS3, typically sub 65 ms when playing in the US official Warhawk servers. And for those who are not math inclined, 1000 ms = 1 second, so 65 ms = .065 s.

Using the numbers from the speed test as an example, a ping of 126 means that I would get 7.9 updates per second. Heck if I removed the extra switch and got that 1 ms back, I'd get 8. Compare that with a ping of 249 (wireless speed test) where I'd be getting 4 updates a second and you can see why this is important.

Effectively, with a ping of sub 65 I'm getting an update from the server 15 times per second or more. Not only does this improve my game play it means the server has better data for the other players to use as well improving their game play. If someone joins with a ping of 333 or more they are getting less than 3 updates a second, 1/5th of my speed and incremental updates are 5 times bigger. And anyone who's crazy enough to join with over 1000 ms ping, they end up bogging a server down (lots more data to send at a time.)

So now that you know why it is important to use your Ethernet connection get a cable. If it is from Dollar Tree or MonoPrice makes no difference, just get one and use it. Your fellow games will thank you (or at least not curse your name due to your horrible ping, no promises on other cursing).