artiss.blog

Category: Gaming

All things from my gaming world.

  • BBC iPlayer on Nintendo Wii

    iPlayer on Wii - Channel ScheduleLast night, or rather at midnight, the BBC iPlayer channel was released for the Nintendo Wii.

    The iPlayer has been usable in the past using the Opera-powered browser channel, but has been of limited quality and, well, not very easy to use. Now we have a very specific channel just for iPlayer. And it’s been a long time coming – the BBC have been talking about it for a year and a half.

    However, I can only assume they’ve spent this time time on development and testing because the end result is superb.

    The download is quick and quite compact (I wonder if it’s using components of the browser – e.g. Flash – I didn’t have time to check if this was the case). It’s slick in use (although there is a delay each time you start it) and very polished. Most importantly, programmes are easy to find and, best of all, show in full screen without any obvious problems. Considering the Wii only has 512MB of memory and no hard drive, I thought that buffering would suffer and there would be delays during playback. During the (admittedly limited) time I had to test it this morning, I didn’t see any such problems.iPlayer on Wii

    I headed towards last Saturdays Doctor Who episode – it looks good. A little grainy, but no obvious over-compression during fast moving sequences (such as the opening titles). Hey, it’s not HD quality, but then the Wii isn’t an HD console!

    As I watch more on it, I’ll report back if I do come across any problems with stuttering or compression artefacts.

    Overall, I’m damn impressed. I can see the Wii being used even more now – my wife and I missed a BBC programme at the weekend, and will be watching it on the Wii iPlayer tonight. Now we just need the other channels to do something similar…

    Update: My wife used the Wii iPlayer during the day to watch a half hour show – 20 minutes in it stated “insufficient bandwidth” and wouldn’t proceed. This even we watched another half hour show and it froze 6 times during playback. There were also some sound sync issues as well. So, not so good. My broadband isn’t too bad either – usually about 2-3 meg and the wireless router is about 2 metres away from the Wii.

  • Deleted post – you can't be harsh!

    This morning I was reading a popular UK discussion forum. On it, I came across a query with regard to opening RAR files. However, there were a few lines that lept out at me…

    I have purchased a R4 card for use in my daughters DS.
    I installed the software on it successfully and managed to transfer some .nds files from a friends micro card. These games play fine.
    I also managed to download one game successfully but ever since then I have tried 3 different DS game sites and…

    And then it goes into the RAR file problem.

    So, basically, they are downloading illegal game copies to put onto an R4 card. For the uninitated, this is a hardware device that allows SD cards to be placed into a Nintendo DS. The R4 card is fine by itself, but it’s how it’s used that is the issue. It’s normally used for “home brew” hacking – placing emulators and own software onto the device – or for holding mass collections of pirated games. I know, I work with people who do this regularly.

    I’m sure there are legitimate games that can be downloaded and placed on an R4 card, which is why I decided not to report this post to the forum adminisators. Instead I simply replied…

    Please tell me these aren’t illegal game copies.

    Without wanting to sound preachy, I’m tired of having to pay extra for my games simply because I don’t feel the need to steal them.

    I get my point over, and the poster gets a chance to state that these were legal games. Great.

    Except, my post is pulled. The adminstator said..

    Your comments seem a little harsh, the OP asked a question about RAR file formats – it did not involve any request for help to download something illegally.

    Obviously, I’ve replied back, pointing out much of the above, but I’m guessing nothing will come of it. Why are we so accepting of this? As I said in my response, why should I be paying, probably inflated prices, due to piracy? Why is that acceptable and, say, shop lifting isn’t? We really seem to have our priorities wrong.

  • Nintendo DSi Tips

    No, the DSi hasn’t come out of storage, I’ve simply read  a couple of useful tips elsewhere that I thought I’d share. Maybe these are in the manual but, unlike most other tips I’ve read, I’d not realised these.

    1. The DSi lets you sort and order your menu icons – instead of tapping to select a game or program, simply hold your finger or stylus down on the icon for a second. Moving it while held will change where it is in the line of icons.
    2. Change the screen brightness easily by holding the select button on the right side of the system’s face and use the volume buttons to switch up and down your brightness.

    Finally for those, like me, that don’t have the excellent dBpoweramp for converting MP3s to AAC, I’d recommend the Open Source (and free) MediaCoder Audio Edition, the audio version of my favourite MediaCoder multimedia convert.

  • It's on its way…

    My, sorry, my daughter’s Nintendo DSi has been despatched by Amazon! Looking forward to, erm, testing it.

    Obviously a review will be forthcoming!

  • Dixons.co.uk Customer Service

    The Nintendo DSi comes out in a matter of days and I’m sure that, come Christmas, it’s going to be nigh-on impossible to get hold of. So I thought I’d pre-order one now, in preparation for my daughters Christmas present (or sooner if she’s good!).

    The two cheapest retailers appear to be Amazon and Dixons, at £145. However, I had an affiliate money off code of £5 for Dixons, making that £140.

    So, I sign in to the Dixons website using the details I have stored in my password manager (KeyPass) and add the DSi to my basket. I put in the voucher code and it all works correctly. I now click to checkout and it asks for my password again, for security reasons. I, again, use the password manager to put the password in. It comes up to say the password is invalid. Eh? I try again. The same.

    I now use the option to reset the password and set the password to what I had it noted down as. But, again, it won’t accept it.

    Is it Firefox? I try IE and get the same results.

    That’s fine, I’ll give their customer support a ring and see if I can get it sorted. Except the site has no number for doing such a thing. The nearest I can find is a number to ring for complaints – I try that and find it be a general purpose helpline for the site, which is what I was after. I explain the problem to the chap who answers and he says, “sorry, can’t suggest anything for that”. And that’s it. I explain that unless I can sign in I’m going to have to buy from elsewhere. But he insists there’s nothing he can do, suggesting that maybe I’m typing the password in wrong (yes, I explain how it’s cut & paste from a password manager). “Have you tried setting up your account again?”. At this point I gave up.

    It may be £5 more, but I’m now ordering from Amazon.