Month: April 2009

After having solved issues with the surround sound support via optical digital sound output I still had the problem in PowerDVD 7.3 (that is supposed to support everything in its blu-ray edition that came as OEM with the LG HD-DVD/BluRay drive) that it wouldn’t play DTS as surround but as 2CH sound mirrored to the 6 speakers (so sound was identical on front and rear speakers). I found on the English CyberLink site that there is some DTS plugin required for PowerDVD 7 OEM which I purchased and it didn’t work, as it would say the key is invalid.

The nightmare continued with PowerDVD support keeping sending me keys and a download for versions that have no HD support (quite useless then…). Meanwhile they released a new version (Yes, everytime they add support for newest BluRays you have to download THE WHOLE program again!) that obviously has a bug and makes it crash. It’s known since years (example here!!) and a really working solution is not in sight. I updated my problem to PowerDVD support with this detail, their reply was an email with another serial number.

I asked Elements5 (the seller of the DTS plugin for PowerDVD7 OEM) to give me my money back. The process is pending verification now.

Frustrated by this and the fact that later vesions do no longer HD-DVD supported (hey the HD-DVDs are cheap and their quality is awesome just like bluray!) made me looking for an alternative. I came to try WinDVD that works awesome! It automagically detected the special features for video playing of my graphics card and the optical sound output of my sound card and for the first time I had real surround sound with no hassles anymore!

Thank you Corel for continueing this awesome product and make it full featured in the “WinDVD9 with BluRay” version!

Extra surprise: The new CyberLink PowerDVD remote control can control WinDVD9, too (pretty much even! Amazing!!!).

THANK YOU!

Technorati Tags: PowerDVD, WinDVD
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Recently I saw in a shop Need For Speed Carbon for 10 bucks, I thought ok go and get it. Well, unfortunately after getting it to run with the commpatibility mode for Windows 98 (strange as it is supposed to be a Windows XP game) I had to realize, the break pedal is always active in the game so I cannot use it as within the game it will always break and within the game menu it will always push down. Letting the foot rest on the pedal at a certain place will make it stop but you cannot play this way of course. In such moments I adore people who own a console, you just plug it in and it works 🙂

Well, regarding this I am now working on the solution together with Thrustmaster support.

Technorati Tags: old+computer+games, need for speed carbon
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The iPhone has a big problem; It doesn’t allow applications to run in the background (with exception of the iPod application) . Now there is a fix!

fring comes up with the solution!

Quoting their blog:

“Several people have asked us about their always-on presence option even when fring is turned off, so here is a communal explanation for y’all:

The new Always-On feature keeps you logged into fring even when the fring application is closed on your iPhone/iPod touch.

It works like this:

To activate the Always-On add-on, click on ‘More‘ –> Add-ons –> Always on.

How do I get the notifications?

To get the notifications in real time you should have your email address configured to be “pushed” to your iPhone/iPod. Once you got that done, you’ll get an email whenever someone’s trying to call/chat you. Just open the mail and click the link –> fring will open up on your phone and display the message.

If you don’t click the link within 5 minutes – we will log you off from the Always-on service and won’t send you more notifications until you log in again to fring (we don’t like spam…)

Currently this feature is available for UK and US users only but no worries… we will gradually make it available to all countries.

Technorati Tags: Skype, fring
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I have been using PC to watch DVD from the PC connected to a TV and now I moved to BluRay and HD-DVD (cheaper than blueray thanks to the death of the format but with equal quality!).

In past I used ordinary wireless keyboard (until I switched to bluetooth).

But recently I got my hands on the new CyberLink Infrared Remote Control now with Interactive Navigation of Blu-ray Discs. Unfortunately they have no good product description on their site but I found a better one here. (CyberLink only has a Version Comparison table for the old remote control comared to the new one).

I have to admit its really worth the money! At first I thought it’s a bit cheesy to spend money for it but it’s really be controlled well with the remote ccontrol so it is very much worth the money! I can only recommend it, especially that you no longer have to stand infront te tv so you click on the right buttons in the software using your mouse! Also for BDLive content it is superb!

Technorati Tags: PowerDVD, remote control
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Skype has been recently released on the iPhone. After T-Mobile Germany’s statement that they will blog Skype within their network,Skype now urges the European Union to help them allowing VoiP on the iPhone.

A bit about the reasons (from the Share Skype Blog written by Robert Miller who is Skype’s General Counsel.):

“I find it quite telling that Deutsche Telekom would be so bold as to announce this arbitrary blocking of Skype. They pretend that their action has to do with technical concerns: this is baseless. Skype works perfectly well on iPhone, as hundreds of thousands of people globally can already readily attest. But their announcement also demonstrates that some operators do not fear the customer or regulatory consequences of their bad behaviour. It’s worth noting that even if German consumers wanted to change mobile providers, they could not: like Deutsche Telekom, every other German mobile operator contractually forbids consumers from using VoIP applications. (this is the same in France, actually).”

Sure, he also says that we have got internet on the iPhone because we wanna use it without limitation on the iPhone. This is true on one side, but it’s also understandable if you can do calls on a flatrate base over Skype from anywhere, why would you call using the phone’s native call function which will bill you consideraly more?

for sure I hope Skype’s plan will be successful but I fear it might make the internet flatrate price on mobiles even higher!

Technorati Tags: Skype, iPhone
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There are a few things probably many European C64 game fans do not know. One of those things is, that there are 2 versions of the game “Arkanoid”. One made for PAL and one made for NTSC. Obviously the PAL version is the original here since the musics play too fast on NTSC and has been cut some levels from.

Thanks to Pete Rittwage for supplying most of the information, the NTSC version playing on NTSC video and for his permission to upload it and use it in this blog post.

As you can see, the NTSC vesion of the game has been sold at many places in German C64 shops probably because apart from the flicker in the intro pictures scroller it plays well:

And here is how the NTSC version plays on NTSC:

As you can see no flicker at the intro pic scroller! Unfortuantely however they didn’t NTSC fix the tunes playing routine means all sound effects and musics play way too fast 🙁

Conclusion: The NTSC versions looks better on PAL than on NTSC 🙁 Best of course is to get the PAL version!

Technorati Tags: Arkanoid, old computer games
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