Xbox 360 Games I Look Forward To

Thought I should make a list of all the games coming out soon that I probably won't get to play till next year, what with the baby coming and all.

Soon-to-be-released:
Metal Gear Solid: Rising

Have yet to buy:
Alan Wake
Army of Two: The 40th Day
Bayonetta
Bioshock 2
Dante's Inferno
Fable II (Game of the Year Edition released, but only in Europe?)
Final Fantasy XIII
Halo 3

Halo: Reach
Mass Effect 2
Modern Warfare 2
Resident Evil 5 Gold Edition
Splinter Cell: Conviction

Have yet to play:
Assassin's Creed II
The Beatles: Rock Band
Batman: Arkham Asylum ($38.83+gst)
Bioshock ($19.99+gst)
Dead Space ($9.99+gst)
Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition (PC: $25 USD on Steam)
Gears of War 2 ($19.99+gst)
Halo 3: ODST
Left 4 Dead (PC: $5.10 USD on Steam)
Left 4 Dead 2 (PC: $5.10 USD on Steam)
Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 ($19.99+gst)

Have yet to finish:
Assassin's Creed ($6.90+gst)
Burnout Paradise
Devil May Cry 4
Dynasty Warriors 6 (bought used)
Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires ($29.99+gst)
Forza Motorsport 3
GRAW (bought used)
GRAW 2
Guitar Hero World Tour (complete band kit w/ 2-yr extended warranty for $59 + gift cards)
Lego Batman
Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga
Lost Odyssey ($9.99+gst)
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 (rented once)
Mass Effect ($9.99+gst)
Need For Speed: Shift (bought used)
Rainbow Six: Vegas (bought used)

Finished but achievements left to farm:
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Call of Duty: World at War (bought Collector's Edition for $24.99+gst)
Gears of War
Marvel Ultimate Alliance
X-Men Origins: Wolverine - Uncaged Edition

Not gonna bother:
Bully: Scholarship Edition (boring)
Dead Rising (boring)
Forza Motorsport 2 (once I get Forza 3)

The sheer number of RPG's in the lists above means I'm doomed to never actually clear the lists completely.

Not to mention... X-Men Legends II on PC... and maybe even Fable and Jade Empire.

Gosh.

Whoever said video-gaming didn't require discipline?

Converting KDVD into KSongLover-compatible Media Files

Since KSongLover doesn't seem to support VOB files (and even if it did, it would not support switching between language tracks, which is how most KDVDs implement voice/accompaniment-only channels), I've been exploring ways to convert VOB files into KSL-compatible formats, namely MPEG-1/2. MPEG-1 definitely works with KSL, since that's really just KVCD format. I have yet to test MPEG-2 files with KSL, but I've gone ahead and tried to convert VOB files into MPEG-2 anyway.

I tried a bunch of tools, including (but may not be limited to... it was late at night and my memory might be lossy):

• DVD Decrypter
• VOB2MPG
• TMPGEnc
• PX3's AC3 to WAV
• Audacity
• ImagoMPG-Muxer
• EncWAVtoAC3 (essentially Aften)

At the point, it seems easiest to do the following:

1. Using DVD Decrypter, extract the video (choosing the angle with karaoke lyrics) and the audio streams (both voice and accompaniment AC3 stereo tracks) into demux'ed M2V and AC3 files.
2. The M2V file is good, we don't want to re-encode it or touch it in anyway; the AC3 files, on the other hand, need to be combined into a single wave file, with the accompaniment on the left channel and the voice on the right channel.
3. To do that, first convert the two AC3 files (for the two language tracks) to WAV's, using PX3. This will yield two stereo WAV files.
4. Using Audacity, import both WAV files. Pan one track (most likely the accompaniment) all the way to the left, and the other all the way to the right. Export as a single WAV file.
5. Now we need to convert the WAV file back into AC3 so it can be combined with the video into an MPEG-2 file. Use EncWAVtoAC3 (or Aften in command-line) to do this. Note: I tried mucking about with the options at first, especially the channel settings, but I had trouble getting it to encode. I found that the default options actually worked best.
6. At this point, the AC3 file should play properly in a DVD-player software such as Cyberlink's PowerDVD, with voice only on one channel (in my case, the right side).
7. Using ImagoMPG-Muxer, select the M2V file as the video source and the new AC3 file as the audio source. Make sure the output format is selected as MPG, then just Multiplex!
8. Et voila! Try playing the MPG file in a DVD-Player software (again, like PowerDVD) and you should have it all: video with lyrics, accompaniment on the left speaker, and voice on the right.

So there you have it, eight simple steps. Of course, like I said, I still have to test it on KSL.

You'll notice that two of the tools I tried weren't used in the final procedure: VOB2MPG and TMPGEnc. The reason being that both involved re-encoding the video stream, which I felt was unnecessary for our purposes - we really just want to move some audio channels around. Demuxing and muxing, I felt, kept the highest possible fidelity with regards to video.

Oh, and the other reason neither VOB2MPG and TMPGEnc were used was because both cost money to get the full feature-set. :-P

P.s. (2:29PM) I found out why Media Player played the MPG file with the left and right channels blending into each other - I had misconfigured ffdshow. My bad. All is well.

KSongLover

Tried to install HomeKara2, ran into all kinds of problems, not worth my time.

Went on to try KSongLover, looks really good so far. We loaded in a Chilam Cheung KTV VCD, everything worked great. Gonna order their remote+receiver now.

Old PC Outputs to Monitor + TV

So, after a little Googling, successfully configured my old PC for output to both the 19" monitor (DVI-D) and the 47" HD TV (VGA). The GeForce 6200 AGP is actually capable of driving both the 1680 x 1050 over DVI-D and the 1920 x 1080 over VGA. I'm impressed.

Next up, testing out some Karaoke software. Right now I'm looking at KSongLover and HomeKara2. Once I figure out which one we want, we'll order a remote/receiver set to go with it.

PC HDMI Audio w/ Radeon HD 4870

Downloaded Realtek's ATI HDMI Audio drivers and HDMI works silky smooth. PowerDVD is able to bitstream Dolby Digital and DTS to the Denon receiver.

Now the question is whether Windows Media Player is able to do the same, so I don't have to buy PowerDVD. But I do like the picture output by PowerDVD and the enhancement options it provides. I could go with the Standard edition for $50 and get all the functionalities I need.

Of course, I should look at other options as well. One of which is DVD X Player, which claims to be an all-region player. Worth a look.

To-Do List for Tonight

• Hook up Acer PC to receiver.
• Try HDMI connection for audio.
• Remove Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS PCI card from old PC and test on Acer PC.

Update; Home Theatre work to be done

It's been soooo long since I last posted on here I feel ashamed of myself.

Joyce and I are trying to get our house in some kind of order... our big project right now (aside from raising that little bugger named Mr. Bean) is the Home Theatre in our basement.

The basement itself is almost finished, with only carpeting left (we're waiting on this guy to come back from vacation). What we've got downstairs right now is this:

LG 47" LCD TV
Denon AVR-790 630W 7.1 receiver
Klipsch F1 Synergy 5.1 speakers+subwoofer
Xbox 360
Sony BDP-S550 Bluray player
VSonic all-region DVD player
Telus internet wireless router
Telus TV box
Acer Athlon 64 x2 desktop PC w/ Radeon HD 4870
Old Athlon desktop PC (for karaoke)
LG 19" LCD monitor (for karaoke)
Pair of Yorkville powered studio monitors (for karaoke)
Mackie ProFX8 mixer (ordered, on the way - for karaoke)

The plan is to hook everything (except karaoke components) up through the Denon receiver, which is of course outputting to the Klipsch speakers.

Xbox 360 -> Denon = HDMI
Bluray -> Denon = HDMI
Telus TV -> Denon = HDMI
Acer PC -> Denon = HDMI + 5.1 analog or Toslink
DVD -> Denon = Component
Denon -> TV = HDMI

For karaoke, we'll hook up the following:

Old PC -> TV = VGA
Old PC -> 19" monitor = DVI
Old PC -> ProFX8 = Mini stereo to L/R RCA
ProFX8 -> Studio monitors = 1/4"

That's about the gist.

The 47" TV will be wall-mounted (tiltable), with the center speaker sitting on a wall-shelf under the TV, and the subwoofer below that. The Yorkville studio monitors will sit on either side of the center speaker on the wall-shelf.

The 19" monitor will be wall-mounted (full-motion) around the top-right corner of the room and be tilted down and in. It's basically for picking songs for karaoke.

All other components will sit on a custom-made 48"x20"x18" shelf in the corner, with 5 compartments plus the top of the shelf.

I'm still undecided over the audio output from the Acer PC to the Denon receiver. I can choose between 5.1 analog out from the SoundBlaster card I rip out of the Old PC, or the Toslink from the onboard audio. I'm not sure if I can do both simultaneously. Toslink would allow me to play DVD's and such on the Acer PC, ensuring that the audio is decoded by the receiver.

But games won't output audio by Toslink. In which case, I could either use the 5.1 out from the onboard sound, or stick the SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS into the Acer PC. I'm still under the impression that the Audigy 2 ZS has internal Dolby Digital and DTS decoders... so I'm hoping for the best.