Nathan Johns Rotating Header Image

television

PS3 video downloads

Jul 18th, 2008
by admin.
No comments yet

Just tried out the video downloads on the PS3 network last night. I downloaded a couple episodes of Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Since it’s just a cartoon, and a rather short one at that (around 12 minutes an episode I think), the download didn’t take very long at all, and only took up about 170 mb or so. They were $1.99 each.

The selection isn’t the biggest yet, but I have to say what is available is a decent selection. Poking around, I noticed among the HD movies available for download, the largest I spotted seemed to be just over 6 gb. I’ll be curious to see how long that takes to download and if it gets throttled by Comcast. I think I’ll need to look into upgrading the storage for the PS3 as well. Is this easy to do on the PS3? I haven’t looked into it yet.

Oh, and the episodes I watched were the first two episodes from season six. Wacky and weird as usual, but still hilarious. And Frylock, Master Shake and Meatwad don’t even show up yet.

My beautiful HDTV is busted

Jan 28th, 2008
by admin.
1 comment

I was elated when I purchased a 42″ plasma HDTV just under two years ago. We had just moved into our first house(condo), and Melissa agreed to let me get the tv when we moved in. So after a fair amount of research on options in the HDTV arena at the time, I’d narrowed it down to the Panasonic plasma and the Samsung plasma. Unfortunately the Panasonic was sold out and on backorder everywhere, so I went with the Samsung; specifically, the model was the Samsung HP-R4252, the 42″ 720p plasma.

Next, I stopped by the local Comcast office and picked up the digital HD receiver with DVR. After an activation call to Comcast and a few tweaks to the settings, I was in HD heaven. And we’ve been very happy with the picture – until it broke a few weeks ago.


I was watching football(one of the college bowl games I think) a couple days before the new year, when all of the sudden a 3 to 4 inch wide rectangle, which I highlighted with red border in the above picture, just went black. I tried changing the source of the picture, tried turning the tv off and on, but nothing was working. After some searching around on the web, I’ve concluded that a plasma cell went out – I think. At any rate, it’s going to cost more to fix the tv than it would to buy a new one. So that’s a bummer.

The tv is out of warranty – I didn’t purchase an extended warranty or service protection plan. I’ll be sure to get one of those next time. I called Samsung for support; they referred me to a local authorized Samsung repair center, TV unlimited in Sunnyvale. I’d need to bring the tv in to them, and it would be $150 upfront just to diagnose the problem. No thanks.

So now we’re stuck with a tv that shows all of a standard definition picture, but only about 85% of a high definition picture. If you’re interested, it’s officially for sale. :) I’ll make you a really good offer. We have begun to look around for a replacement, but haven’t quite decided on which one yet. I’d like to get it before the super bowl; there are some very good sales going on for tv’s right now before the big game.

My takeaway: get an extended warranty, especially for relatively new technology.

No more TV

May 22nd, 2007
by admin.
No comments yet

Well, at least for a while. Now that most of my favorite TV shows are coming to this season’s end, I will have less excuses for doing other, more productive things besides sitting in front of my TV all night. Here are a few things:

  • Re-read some poker books before my trip to Vegas for the WSOP
  • Start planning a trip to Italy with my wife
  • Weekly basketball and softball games to play in(perhaps some soccer too)
  • Fix my computer (I’ll get into that mess in a future post)
  • Go to more San Francisco Giants baseball games
  • More blog posts :)

Sounds pretty good to me.

Boston Legal

May 11th, 2007
by admin.
No comments yet

One of my favorite t.v. shows is Boston Legal. If you know me well(the few people who read this blog do) and you’re familiar with the show, this may surprise you. I’m not particularly interested in legal cases, or the law in general for that matter, and most of the angles the show takes I certainly don’t agree with. What I do like, however, are the writers and the actors.

I’d have to say Boston Legal is the most well written show on television. Of course I’m basing this on the small number of shows I watch on a somewhat regular basis, but I still think it’s true. More specifically, both the content and delivery from James Spader and William Shatner(Alan Shore and Denny Crane on the show, respectively) are just brilliant.

My favorite part of each show is at the end. Usually, Spader and Shatner, who are both lawyers for the big-time firm Crane, Poole and Schmidt, will rendezvous at the end of a long work day for a drink and a cigar on the balcony. They’ll generally chit-chat about the day’s happenings, but usually tie in some real-life issues into the conversation. Here’s a clip of one such recent interaction. I think it’d be fun to see a compilation of all the end-of-show meetings between Spader and Shatner.