I noticed on the weekend that I could have SBS Catch Up TV on our Sony PlayStation 3 (do you call it PS3?). To get the little app just turn your PlayStation on, go to the TV/Video Services section and under the rainbow-coloured My Channels icon you’ll find a small SBS On Demand application ready to download.
Once the app’s been downloaded, you’ll have access to a pretty well sorted version of the SBS On Demand website from the TV/Video Services menu and it looks to have a really good range of videos to watch. Video quality is not bad about the same as the ABC iView one.
So now us Australian PS3 owners have the fantastic ABC iView, the great SBS On Demand and the really, really poor Plus7 catch up TV channels.
Geez, the Seven networks Plus7 is so poor, I don’t bother looking. The range of shows is so small and so old it isn’t worth the effort. Last time I looked , I went to play a Get Smart TV episode – it isn’t even the original ‘60s series but the really bad ‘80s one. They should just shut it down or offer a lot more as it is I am sure no one even looks at it.
This is the last Star Wars documentary that I have watched in this series. This one is about (as if you can’t tell by the title) Star Wars Return Of The Jedi (Episode VI). This whole series has been great. I love the little out-takes and the alternate camera angles so you can see how thing were really put together.
These are so much better than what is in any extras disks that Lucas puts out. Check them all out if you call yourself any type of Star Wars fan. Let me know what you think of these movies please.
By the way did you know this movie was originally going to be called Revenge of the Jedi? And it could have had a much better story – Episode VI was awful. Here’s what Gary Kurtz the producer of Ep. IV and V said about what Ep. VI was meant to be. –
The one story thread that got totally tossed out the window, which was really pretty important I think, was the one of Vader trying to convince Luke to join him to overthrow the Emperor. That together they had enough power that they could do that, and it wasn’t him saying I want to take over the world and be the evil leader, it was that transition. It was Vader saying, “I’m looking again at what I’ve done and where my life has gone and who I’ve served and, very much in the Samurai tradition, and saying if I can join forces with my son, who is just as strong as I am, that maybe we can make some amends.”
So there was all of that going on in Jedi as well, that was supposed to go on. So the story was quite a bit more poignant and the ending was the coronation of Leia as the queen of what was left of her people, to take over the royal symbol. That meant she was then isolated from all of the rest and Luke went off then by himself. It was basically a kind of bittersweet ending. She’s not his sister that dropped in to wrap up everything neatly. His sister was someone else way over on the other side of the galaxy and she wasn’t going to show up until the next episode.
Here is the next in the series. A fantastic fan made documentary about Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back (Episode V). This Episode was my favourite, The first (Ep.IV) was OK but didn’t think much of Ep.VI. And I don’t count Episodes I, II, III , they were rubbish – well maybe not but I didn’t like them.
I have just finished watching this full-length youtube video and it is fantastic. Any Star Wars fan should watch it. This documentary was made by a fan and not by Lucas or one of his lackies and , probably, that is why it is so good.
This is actually the film-makers third feature-length documentary and commentary about Star Wars and it’s called “Star Wars Begins“ so it is actually about the first Star Wars that was made in 1977. This is an unofficial look at the movie and has heaps of original set audio recordings, alternate takes, deleted scenes, bloopers and different angles and an even bigger amount of comments and explainations from cast and crew that he must have pulled out form every documentary, interview and commentary track that has ever been made about Star Wars.
What makes this, for me, probably the best documentary I have seen for Star Wars is that it is played following the original movie itself. So that means when he has a deleted or alternative scene it is added where they would have been, the interviews with cast and crew are placed over the top of the action they’re describing. The overall outcome is much more riveting than any old commentary track you get on a DVD or BluRay and so much better than what is on the new BluRay set that has just been released – if only the Star Wars Company did the extras in this style rather than just re-releasing the same bits over and over.
Anyway, have a look for yourself and see what I mean. I actually watched it in HD streamed to my TV via my Sony PS3, it looked great. I will post the video about Star Wars Episodes V and VI later after I have watched them.
Well today I turn on the PS3 to watch a little ABC on iView and it pops up that there was a system update downloaded and ready to install. I go to install it – weary that an update might not be an actual improvement – and the agreement mentions that the TV tab will be changed to TV/Video Services.
Well, that seemed to be OK to me – maybe we will have a little more than ABC iView (a fantastic TV service – not just catch up TV but some shows are on iView before live TV), Seven Plus (which is really poor so I never use it) and Mubi (arty movies you need to pay for) . I installed the system update and it then auto-rebooted.
Now to check the cool new TV/Video Services. – what!!! nothing is there – iView on the PS3 is gone – iView is missing. Now I am cranky. The item I use most on the PS3 is not there. reboot, still not there. Start a game up and close it down then magically the new TV/Video Services is there!!!
I have just seen a preview of what I would think is the most awesome sci-fi action movie ever made. And I doubt that any movie will ever beat it. It is not a Hollywood movie, it is not a Bollywood movie – it is in fact a Kollywood movie (made in Tamil).
This movie is just so over the top crazy that it will surely be a cult movie. Is is good? No. Is it bad? Yes. but just have a look at this youtube of Enthrian and see for yourself. It is a hyper crazy movie that has a strange mix of Terminator, Matrix, Transformers and any/every known robot gone crazy movie ever made.It’s like a Van Damme Seagal movie on steroids with cyborgs and snakes thrown in.
This ultimate sci-fi movie is about a robot created by a professor in his own image, that falls in love with the professor’s fiancée. Of course it then turns evil. Guns, rockets, robots, bad special effects … it has everything. It is meant to be India’s most expensive movie made, that hasn’t guaranteed that it is good though.
Hey, I can’t really describe it just look at the full length video on youtube. Amazing. Try after the 2 hour mark.
Way, way back when I was a teenager in the seventies the big thing was skateboarding. I loved it. I loved hanging out with friends who boarded as well – I guess it was a bit of a club that the oldies couldn’t understand and maybe that is what we liked even more. Actually the recent song ‘Forever Young’ by Youth Group is exactly how I remember it to be in Australia.
Fast forward to now and I doubt I could ride a skateboard any more, well not without losing my balance but my son has suddenly and I mean suddenly is interested in skateboarding and scooters. A few friends of his have them and I am sure this was a major reason why he is into boarding – back to my ’70’s club I guess. I was thinking that maybe he wants to be in the cool club but watching him with his friends he already seems to be the cool leader type.
He asked, on the weekend, to go to a skateboard park so he can skate around and learn some tricks and hang out with the cool kids. A skateboard park, gee, where is one near our house? I had no idea. A quick internet search showed a few skate parks needing only a little drive to get to and away we went.
Well, not quite away we went… first he had to have the skate shoes that needed to be just the right look. So, of course, me being the sucker took him to a few skate shops to start looking. We went to the Globe store – absolutely chock full of the latest skate and scooter gear, my son was almost drooling as we walked in. Dad, look at this cap, Dad look at this board, Dad look at these skate shoes, Dad look at this Razor Pro scooter.
My reply was pretty much something like , “Wow that’s amazing” but at the same time my brain was saying “Wow that’s expensive!!” 🙂 I guess I am showing my age because years ago I would have loved any of this gear; now when I picked up a pair of Globe thongs (flip flops in some other countries) I can’t see myself paying $60 for them when I know they probably cost $2 to make. Another thing my son loved about the Globe store was that the front was a mini skate park. So before the store opened he could practice doing his thing on his scooter and skateboard.
We ended at a Surf and Skate store looking at more shoes and he ended up finding a pair of Kustoms that he loved. Of course they were not much cheaper than the Globes but he liked them better. The next few hours was him lacing them up over and over until he got it just how he likes. One fussy boy!
Now he has the look, the skater look – the right shoes, the right cap, the right shorts, the right t-shirt – now all he needs to be able to do is ride a skateboard 🙂
(btw, I have copied this post. I wrote it at today.com but they locked my account so I am taking this back)
I have posted plenty of times about FairUse4WM, the tool to take protection off Windows Media files – both video and audio files. Well, I have been slacking off and there seems to be a newer version of this tool – I guess not a new version but a completely different tool .. and it is open source so updates should flow through more often.
The tools name is FreeMe2 and it seems to do the same job as FairUse4WM plus it has the ability to unprotect streaming media as well (I didn’t know there was protected streaming media!).
From the author – After many hours of fighting with WM-DRM protection I decided to create new tool that would allow people to remove it from from files and streams. Of course FairUse4WM is great tool and it works nice but there are few reasons why have decided to create a new one:
1) FairUse4WM is closed source. Everytime MS releases new version of IBX people have to make binary patches or start from scratch.
2) FairUse4WM doesn’t work with video streams since it wasn’t intended to. Of course it is possible to record video stream and then undrm it but this is pointless when we are talking about tv channels.
3) There is no platform independent tool for ms wm-drm. There is no point of running windows every time you want to undrm some file or stream.
Freeme2 is a program based on famous freeme app created by Beale Screamer and based on viodentias (FairUse4WM) findings. It strips wm-drm protection from wmv/asf/wma files as well as video/audio streams.
The Christmas just gone I bought a little gadget called M3DSreal for my son to use with his Nintendo DS..
What a neat little thing this is. I had to wait for the English version to be released, there are other items that do a similar thing but not quite the same or as good, R4DS is one of them.
What it is? It is a little cartridge exactly the same dimensions as a DS game cartridge but this has some smarts inside and a tiny flash card slot for microSD memory. I bought a 2 gigabyte Kingston microSD but you can use the newer SDHC ones which go to 6GB at the moment.
With this cartridge I put all of my sons DS games on it PLUS four movies PLUS a CD of music – now he has all of this on one cartridge rather than having to carry around multiple game cartridges that could be lost easily. It can even have PDA functionality, if you want, to store phone numbers, have a caculator etc. as well as and ebook reader and more.
Leave a comment if you want more details and I will answer or if needed I’ll write a better post. It really is a great product and cheap to buy.
Sounds like Sony is going to release a new model of the failing PS3. I have read around the traps (that refer to JB hifi, a major retailer) that Sony will sell a cut down version of it’s PS3, with a smaller hard-drive, fewer ports but still with the BluRay drive – for around $300 cheaper than the current model – AUD$699!
This makes it within reasonable buying distance from Xbox and Wii and I am sure will take off in sales. AUD$1000 for the PS3 was just too crazy for our market and sales, or lack of, proved that. No mention of it but I wonder if the console will look different? And in reality, with our exchange rate to US dollar, the current 60GB PS3 should only be around the AUD$560 mark anyway, making this cut down version seem expensive. Sony is price gouging again?
Another thought – Would this be the same as the cheaper model the USA had but , of course, with a 40GB drive? Is Sony trying to dump unwanted older models on us?
As I mentioned, the new 40GB PS3 will have fewer features than the current 60GB with two USB 2.0 ports instead of four, no backward compatibility for PS2 games and no multimemory card port. Is lack of backward compatibility a problem? I don’t think so as I never player PS1 games on a PS2 so I would doubt I would play older games on this newer PS3. What do you think?
(I have just read that the Michael Ephraim, Managing Director SCE Aust. and New Zealand has confirmed this as well – looks like 11th October is the date!)
– Update, I have to say I still think it is over priced. With our exchange rate the PS3 should be around $200 cheaper!!
I have posted plenty of times about 
The Christmas just gone I bought a little gadget called M3DSreal for my son to use with his Nintendo DS..
goldcoaster 
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