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So I’m sat on a beanbag in my lounge taking a break from rockband to post (a long over due) blog entry, from my shiny new iPhone, using the shinier Wordpress iPhone app. Awesome sauce
How young, hip & trendy do I feel?

Having moved my Xbox from the lounge so I don’t have to fight for the remote I’ve not got it plugged into my computer TFT monitor via an HDMI to DVI cable. Everything stills looks fine, but of course I no longer have any audio as it is designed as a monitor - not a TV!

I thought perhaps I could plug the HDMI and normal Xbox AV cable in (which has an optical out, or traditional RCA/phono), alas the Xbox cable is too chunky and covers part of the HDMI port when plugged in (I’m not even sure if this would have worked, or if the HDMI overrides the normal AV out).

Unfortunately as HDMI transports digital audio steams (so it can support 5.1 surround like Dolby/DTS) there’s no easy adapter/cable style fix that means I can just split the video signal bound for my TFT from the audio which I want to plug into my 5.1 system. Blast!

A bit more searching though turned up a couple of HDMI switch boxes, some of which offered separate video and audio outputs. I can’t, however, afford to go out and splash the four-figure sums of cash a lot of these devices cost! A bit more digging lead me to the ‘CP-267′ from Keene Electronics, a box which takes HDMI in and gives DVI + SPDIF out. Perfect, apart from the £165.00 price tag - and that’s for B grade stock!

Some further Googling has lead me to a couple of HDMI switches though which look equally as promising, without causing the wallet too much agony.

The first supports upto 5 inputs (4x HDMI, 1x DVI), each with stereo phono input, leading to 1 HDMI output (which can subsequently be converted to DVI) also featuring a stereo phono connection. It supports upto 1080p, however only provides stereo sound and comes in just under the £40.00 mark from thegametrain.com.

The second solution is just a two port switch, with 1x HDMI and 1x DVI + SPDIF/stereo phono inputs, providing 1x HDMI and a SPDIF or stereo phono output. It only supports up to 1080i, but does give the benefit of keeping your surround sound. It’s also almost half the price of the 5-port switch above, coming in at £22.50 from cableuniverse.co.uk.

Not sure which one I’ll go for, or if I’ll search a bit further first, but at least there is hope on the horizon

Update (03/06/08): Of course there is always the possibility of over-complicating things. Perhaps a good ol’ Xbox 360 VGA HD cable will suffice

Despite my Xbox, Microsoft and my ISP’s best efforts to stop me getting an Xbox Live account I battled through the huge amount of (I thought pretty damn original) GamerTags already in use, filled out all my details via a system that’s much better for controlling characters in-game than entering text… Rummaged through my box looking for the one month free Gold membership trial, could find it, opted for Silver, was asked if I really wanted Silver or if I meant to click Gold, was rewarded with a free one month Gold trial anyway. Overcame mysterious ‘MTU issues’, eventually managed to pick up my failed session and get over my mild disappointment it doesn’t transfer any of the achievments from your offline profile and I’m not up and running as ‘Arty0′. *phew*

They were awesome. Had such a fantastic night, from the back during Soulwax to dancing my little socks off at the front throughout the 2manydjs set. Walking down the road this morning the birds were singing and the sun was just coming up I just had a massive grin on my face I can’t wait to see them again at Rockness in a couple of weeks.

You can see the rest of the photos are up on Facebook if you want to take a look.

Yesterday I was wandering through town when I noticed Woolies (of all people) doing a great deal on GTA IV for Xbox 360. They were matching play.com’s bundle of Premium console and the game for £199. Bargain. I’ve been meaning to get myself a 360 for a while now. Xbox Live in particular seems like an excellent system and might mean I end up playing some more games online, which would be nice

Unsurprisingly they had sold out of the game, but could put me on a waiting list. To my surprise I received a phone call this afternoon, saying they had got new stock in! So I am now the proud owner of an Xbox 360 and Grand Theft Auto IV.

First impressions of the game are great. Rockstar have really approached this game, even more so than the previous titles in the same line, more like a movie. The cinematics are excellent, especially as they are rendered using the games engine, not some video which has been cut in. The graphics are gorgeous at 720p HD and the first couple of missions are good at getting you into the swing of things. The cars still handle like shopping trolleys, although this is, perhaps, more realistic - I can’t imagine that you really would be able to take that right-angle-city-block corner doing 70mph in real life

A nice victory for high street retailers I feel.

You don’t often hear about The Chris Moyles Show on Radio 1 being an outlet for new music, however I was pleasantly surprised by the little gem he played on this morning’s show. Rhythms del Mundo (Cuba) is a concoction of various mainstream/alternative artists with a latin vibe. Their cover of Coldplay’s Clocks is excellent, as is Dancing Shoe’s by Artic Monkeys, which you can watch a pretty fun video of right here:

Whilst it’s not strictly ‘new’ as it was released a year-and-a-half ago, it is a very contagious album. All of the western covers are very well done and there are a couple of catchy Cuban numbers too. No doubt you’ll see them cropping up on my last.fm. You can buy it at play.com and amazon.co.uk.

Just a quick mention of the fact that i34 has sold out all 2000 BYOC tickets in just under a month!

I suppose we’d best get on and organise it all now!

Last night amida frantic coding fury for some of us as we put the fininshing touches to the i34 web site in the server area at i33, the largest announcement in the history of the i-Series was being made. Craig ‘Wizzo’ Fletcher (aka Mr Multiplay) and Paul ‘Redeye’ Challenor were up on stage in the marquee in front of… many people (too many to fit in the marquee infact!).

All weekend we’d been running a marketing campagin under the simple guies of ‘respawn’ in white text on a black background. A bizzarre countdown (ok, not that bizarre, I just displayed the number of seconds to make it look like it was counting faster and try and obscufate the end date of the countdown a bit more :)) had been running on a page on the Multiplay website simply entitled ‘i34′.

The hundred’s of gamers had gathered to hear all about the launch of i34 & new home for the i-Series, direct from the horses mouth. Their has been a massive amount of speculation on the forums about the location for i34, and finally they were going to be put out of their misery. i34 is to be held at Stoneleigh Park in Warwickshire.

Iain of quadv.com also deserves a mention for his sterling work on the i34 promo video. Check it out:

I do enjoy a good trip to the cinema. Tonight’s was excellent.

 As well as finally getting to see Cloverfield, there were a whole host of goodies before the film, both in the form of adverts:

• A Coke advert based on Rockstar’s GTA (also mentioned over at The Guardian)
• Snoop D-Oh-Double-Gee getting the Orange treatment

and three “ohhh, I must see that” trailers:

• Ironman
• Jumper
• Star Trek

“          ”

I, like the rest of the cinema, was speechless at the end of Cloverfield tonight having been, as Jay put it, thrashed to within an inch of my life for the passed 90 minutes. The only thing I think I’m safe to say it’s missing is the word ‘monster’, which I’m pretty sure despite the nature of the film, wasn’t uttered at all in the dialogue.

I was skeptical at first about the ’shaky camera’ angle to filming, but they’ve pulled it off with fantastic style. Whilst some may say it was a bit slow to start I think it was about right to building up background on the characters and the relationships between them, but the first 15 mins can be summed up by the trailer. From that point on though it’s a roller-coaster ride of “:o”. (I’m not sure I’m fully comfortable with using a smiley as an adjective).

 The ‘night mode’ scene I could see coming from a mile off, but I thought the camera auto-focus in Central Park towards the end of the film was a nice touch. According to wikipedia there is an object crashing into the sea in the last scene (from the original tape), which presumably forms part of the back story.

There are so many angles left open for sequel(s). The same events from a different view point? The back-story? The next chapter? I’m not even going to try and guess which direction they will (inevitably) take the story in.

The first film in ages that has had me literally on the edge of my seat! What’s more Lost is back as of today, JJ Abrams overload