Category: video

Hulu Plus

I blogged about Hulu Plus a few days ago, and the issues I had getting it run smoothly on my PS3. I e-mailed support about it, and they gave me a few things to double-check, so I did all that and the audio/video sync is still off by a bit, but it’s mostly tolerable.
Meanwhile, after not using my Wii for about six months, I decided to turn it on last weekend, and it wouldn’t work. I tried a few things, couldn’t get it working, and gave up on it. I even offered to give away all my games and peripherals on Facebook. I was going to pack them all up today, and get the main Wii box ready for recycling, but I decided to give it one more try.  Long story short, it’s working again.
So I decided to try out Hulu Plus on the Wii. It only became available for the Wii recently. It works pretty well though. The video quality is a bit lower than on the PS3, of course, but it’s watchable, the audio/video sync is good, and it’s pretty consistent (no jaggies). So I may decide to keep the Wii largely for the sake of Hulu Plus.

Hulu Plus

I signed up for a Hulu Plus account yesterday. The idea was that I’d use it on my PS3 to catch up on a few shows, and maybe watch a few of the Criterion Collection movies that they’ve got on there now. I’ve been pretty disappointed with it though. The biggest problem is that the audio isn’t quite in sync with the video. It’s not too far off, but it’s off enough to be a bit of a distraction. And the video gets a bit jaggy sometimes. I’ve run some speed tests on my internet connection, and it really ought to be good enough to do streaming video. I may cancel the account before my one-week trial is up. Or I might keep it long enough to catch up on Misfits and the last season of Battlestar Galactica, then cancel it.

TV fix

The remote for my TV stopped working today. Neither my cable remote nor the remote that came with my TV would work on the TV, so I knew it was a problem with the IR receiver, rather than the remote. I figured I’d probably have to get LG to replace the IR receiver, but I went ahead and Googled for problems with LG remotes, and found this. AVS Forum rules! I just sprayed some CRC 2-26 on a headphone jack, popped it in and out of the remote port in the back of the TV a few times, and everything works fine now. Sometimes, the internet is exceedingly helpful.

Tales of HDMI joy and woe

I’ve been slowly getting all the pieces together to get my new TV working well. I went out to my local Cablevision office today and traded my old cable box in for an HD box. My plan for the new box was going to be to hook it up directly to the TV via HDMI, then hook up the S-Video output on the box to my Tivo, so I could continue to record standard def stuff on the old Tivo. (I’m not quite ready to pop for a Series 3 Tivo yet.)
I wound up having a problem with this setup, that’s reasonably well-described here. I had to switch from HDMI to component. The picture’s still really good. And, surprisingly, the S-Video output to the Tivo seems to be way better than the S-Video output from the old box.
So now I’m set up to watch football next season in HD, though I won’t be able to use the Tivo functionality on it, unless I switch back to the standard def output. I guess that’s a good compromise until I’m ready to pop for the Series 3 Tivo.
I also hooked my HD-DVD player up via HDMI yesterday. I watched a couple of movies on that yesterday & today, and they look great.
So, now I’ve got the PS3 and HD-DVD player on HDMI, the Wii and cable box on component, the Tivo on S-Video, and the old PS2 on composite. I’ll probably retire the PS2 soon, since I also just got the little box I need to transfer my PS1 and PS2 game saves over to the PS3. Assuming Final Fantasy VIII, IX, and X work OK on the PS3, I think I can get rid of the PS2. That’ll be something else to sell on eBay, I guess.

random TV-related stuff

I picked up this antenna at Radio Shack today, in the hopes of picking up some over-the-aid HDTV. It didn’t work out; it only allowed me to pick up one station, NJN. I guess I’ll be taking it back to Radio Shack tomorrow.

I also started playing around today with the idea of streaming audio & video from my PC to my PS3, using Nero MediaHome. It, surprisingly, works pretty well. There’s a how-to here. You need Nero Ultra Edition 7, which I conveniently already have.

new TV

I bought a new TV yesterday. It was kind of inevitable that I’d trade in the old CRT for an HDTV of some sort at some point, but I guess the PS3 was the tipping point. It just didn’t make sense to have both a Blu-Ray and HD-DVD player in the apartment, and not have a decent HDTV. I got a 32″ LG from Best Buy. It’s this model. It works great with the PS3, but that’s the only device I have hooked up via HDMI at this point. I only had one HDMI cable in the apartment, and I didn’t want to pay Best Buy’s price for HDMI cables. Instead, I ordered some from MonoPrice. When they arrive, I’ll be able to hook up the HD-DVD also.
Alas, there’s not much I can do with the cable box / Tivo combination. That’s composite at best. I can get a new HD cable box from Cablevision, but that’s probably not going to do me much good unless I trade up to an HD DVR, which I’m really not ready to do yet.
The Wii can’t do HDMI, but I can trade up from composite to component, which my friend tells me is worthwhile. I should have ordered a Wii component cable set from Monoprice when I ordered the HDMI cables from them, but I didn’t think of it until after I’d placed the order. Looking around, it does seem that Wii component cables are nearly as overpriced as HDMI cables — $6 from Monoprice, $30 elsewhere.
I’m also thinking about getting an antenna, so I can pick up over-the-air HDTV. Antennas are cheap enough, though I’m not sure how well they’ll work here in Somerville. We’re basically too far from both New York and Philly to pick up regular TV or radio stations from either market without some grief, but I’m hoping I’ll be able to pick up a few stations with a good antenna.