Yeah I know, sounds corny, but actually awesome!

Thanks to Dan for the heads up.

Right so all of the E3 presentations have been done, well at least all the important ones (MS, Sony, Nintendo)

So lets take a look at who ‘won’

Nintendo – Oh dear, WTF happened there? They announced nothing as far as I can see, oh sorry they pranced on about some animals or something. Score 1/10 (and that was just for Reggie)

Sony – OK, so Sony have announced a bunch of stuff for next year, come on Sony we want games THIS YEAR! Besides that, there is the Home beta coming, whoopee, that will last as long as Second Life then. Video service announced, yay, so Sony have caught up with Microsoft on something else (XMB in game came before E3), well they did right up until Microsoft’s announcement (see later). What else? oh yeah DC universe DOES look quite good, and Resistance 2 looks pretty (let’s hope it plays better than 1), oh yeah and a price drop for the 80Gb console in the states (to $399). Score 6/10 (They showed some pretty stuff at least)

Microsoft – OK, so Microsoft pulled this E3 out of the bag, there was no waggle controller announced, but they have announced a complete overhaul of the 360 interface, and it looks decent. Avatars (think Mii’s) go with that, and look OK, most importantly though is install to HDD, it will increase load speed, be optional and not spin the DVD drive (Thank Feck!). GOW2 looks ace, Halo Wars looks good, as does Banjo. Fable 2 looks pretty, and fun as does Fallout 3. Plus we get Portal 2 on XBLA!. Some of the social gaming stuff could be interesting depending on what prizes you can win (and if it comes to UK). The Netflix announcement pours water onto the Sony video store announcement at least in the USA (do lovefilm in the UK please). Oh and just to piss on Sony’s parade they go and announce that the 360 is getting Final Fantasy 13. Score 8/10

So that’s a win for MS, one reason was because we found out that the spring update was not released for a reason, and most of the games are coming out this year, not next.

However there is a worrying trend showing in all 3 presentations. Games developers are targeting non gamers at the moment, with few releases being shown for real gamers. Sony, MS and Nintendo all dedicated the majority of their presentations to showing off their family games. I’ve discussed this with Dan and he agrees, we need a movement to bring gaming back to gamers!

I’ve had a few questions on what sort of setup I have for my VMC box, and as it’s changed recently (from 2 recorder machines to just one) I thought I would share.

First the Network :

I have quite a complex ‘home’ network going on, and it’s not really something that I expect other home users to replicate, although if you want to do something similar, just shout, I would be glad to help. But anyhow here is what it is.

I have a multi site setup running Windows Server 2008/2003, my house is site one, with a Server 2008 x64 in core mode handling DNS/DHCP/LDAP/Active Directory/Storage. I then have an Exchange 2007 Server handling email/webmail/syncro to WinMo devices for my family, and then a server 2003 x86 server running ISA 2006 for internet access in and out (as well as VPN for site 2). Site 2 is my Parents where they have a Server 2003 x86 server running AD/DHCP/DNS for that site, they connect to exchange through the VPN tunnel (L2TP+IPSEC) and that tunnel also handles the AD/DNS sync.

The 2008 server also has over 5Tb of storage assigned to it, and handles the network shares that I store video and DVD Rips on.

Second the TV:

I’ve recently switched from having a second box running VMC with two tuners as I can now have 8 in the main VMC PC (4xDVB-T and 4xDVB-S). This box is a 2.6Ghz Core2Duo with 3Gb ram (would have more, but a bug in VMC stops DVB-S from working with 4+GB). This then has 2x250GB drives in a raid 1 setup for the OS and 4x500GB drives in a raid 5 configuration for the Recorded TV. I keep the Recorded TV on the local PC and not on a network share for IO reasons, as even at 1Gb/s the performance is nothing like good enough to record from 4xHD DVB-S and 4xDVB-T SD broadcasts. The raid 5 configuration though happily handles 1xHD and 5xSD records as I have done that on more than one occasion without issue.

The machine also has an LG combo HD DVD / Blu ray recorder in it for watching HD movies.

The downstairs machine and 360/PS3/Wii all are hooked upto a Panasonic 32” LCD, yes I would like a bigger one, but really for where we sit in the room anything bigger than 37” would be OTT to be honest. They all go through a Denon AVR2307 amp for audio.

The iMate picture frame also uses the WiFi to get to the VMC box for pictures, and sideshow information.

I then have an XBox 360 running as an extender in the bedroom hooked into a Dell 19” Widescreen PC Monitor, and one of my old 5.1 receivers. This gives us the ability to watch telly in bed if we want.

All of the network is connected via Cat5E and runs at 1Gb/s (although the 360 and PS3 both have to have the ports at 100/full)

So as you see, you can setup a really good home system with VMC, testimony to the fact that Microsoft’s product, although not perfect, and perhaps missing a few features, can be extended to the nth degree.