If you are anything like me (and god help you if you are ), and use the internet as a PVR, then this software will be a god send to you.
I’ve just recently ordered a Mac Mini to replace my last remaining Windows machine, and thought I’d better check if I could still do what I do now.
Currently my Dell machine, sits in the corner, and is used as my media server, my iTunes server and my torrent machine. Currently I have uTorrent installed, which downloads each episode using the RSS Feed option. Each of the RSS feeds points to a particular RSS feed for my favourite TV program from eztv, and once a new episode is detected, it’s downloaded.
Once the episodes are downloaded, these get copied to a shared location on my NAS Box, which I can then stream to my PS3′s or Xbox using PS3 Media Server.
I did a little googling last night, and even though there is a Mac version of uTorrent, it’s still in beta, and missing a lot of the functions that the Windows version has, eg the RSS downloader.
After a little more googling, I found a tidy little piece of freeware software called ted (Television Episode Downloader). Essentially it has a list of all the TV episodes that you can select from, and when a new episode appears, it will download the torrent file, and open this with your default torrent client.
Ok, this that fixes the missing functionality of uTorrent, however the software is a lot smarter that the RSS Downloader function in uTorrent, as once you’ve added your favourite shows, you can choose to start from the next available episode, the previous episode, or even download every episode. You then have the option to select “HD Only”, which will only download episodes with the tag of HD or 720.
The interface will also show you the name of the next episode, and when it’s going to be aired.
The good thing about this software is that is available free of charge on Mac, Windows and Linux, and only requires that you have a torrent client installed (I highly recommend uTorrent, Mac and Windows clients available).
Now some people may have a problem with downloading episodes from the internet, I however don’t mind, as I tend to buy the boxsets once they are available. Also this is little different to using BBC iPlayer, or Sky Anytime.
Well, if you’ve got a PS3, and turned it on in the last 24 hours you will be greeted by the happy “Dude…there’s a software update, you know what to do…”..message.
What do you get I hear you say, well let me tell you.
The first thing I noticed was the new startup screen with the PS3 logo…looks kinda cool, and then was met by the “sparkly” new theme…looks kinda cool.
In the top right hand corner of the desktop you get your icon, number of friends online, date and time (digital and analogue ?)
Each time you start up the PS3, the it defaults to the What’s new icon (which has replaced the Information board), however instead of the feed ticker, you now get 9 rotating images of “What’s new” in the Playstation store.
Being an Xbox live user, I do really like the way your friends list is treated, clear, you know who’s online, and can quickly see which game they were playing last…..so what have Sony done…..well, they’ve but a HUGE border around each one of your friend, which is twice the width of everything else in the column !…not nice ! I wouldn’t mind if it provided you with more information, but it doesn’t it just looks ugly !
For some reason there are now 2 icons for the Playstation Store, one in the games section, and one in the usual Playstation Network “channel”….really? is there any need ? I could understand if there were more than 1% on the PSN Store that wasn’t a game that would be fine, but apart from the sat nav, the Eye Create, and the VidZone everything else in there are games….
1 Addition I did like was the integration of the BBC iPlayer, granted you could goto the website through the browser before and it worked, but now you can do this straight from the XMB. I don’t however like where they’ve positioned it, they’ve given it a channel of it’s own called TV (I’m assuming this is also used for the play TV, but……), I would have personally added it to the Video channel to reduce the size of the bar.
Another addition I do like, is the right thumbstick controller during video playback. If you rotate clockwise or anticlockwise, it will step backwards and forwards with very hight precision.
A “Save Screenshot” option has been added to the web browser, which is pretty cool, but not sure I’d ever use it..
Apart from that, it’s all I’ve noticed, I have read people complaining about the larger fonts…but I’m cool with this, my vision was starting to go anyway
The Eye of Judgement, well what can I say…. I saw what I thought was a bargain, which has turn out to be quite an expensive hobby.
I was in the High Cross in Leicester the other Sunday morning, and popped into PowerPlay while waiting for the Apple store to open. I notice sat on a shelf on it’s own a game called “The Eye of Judgement”. The box didn’t have a price on it, however it came with the Playstation eye in the box too, me and C agreed that we wouldn’t pay anymore than £40 for the game, as the camera was £23 on it’s own. We took it to the counter, and the guy said “it’s not on the system”, let me find a price for you, then I can add it, then you can buy it. We agreed to let him do all this while we popped to the apple store.
Upon our return the poor lad seemed to be having the worse day of his life, apparently he’d been on holiday for a week, and this was his first day back, however while he’d been away, they’d upgraded the EPOS system, and it was running dog slow, and half the products were missing. He asked us kindly if we’d give him another 10 mins to sort the system out and he could finally give us the price.
We wondered of, (can’t remember where as I had a small 6 day hangover from the Tallinn stag do) and returned around 10 mins later, they guy had finally got the game on the system, and it was £30, bargain !, While I was there I picked up a copy of Ghostbusters for the PS3 (blog to come)
The thinking behind the game was as follows…..if the game is crap, it’s only cost us £7, as the camera is £23…however we didn’t really need a camera, as the one we got in “Your In the Movies” on the Xbox360, and this worked just fine of the PS3.
Anyway, we finally got home and unboxed. You get the Playstation Eye, a stand for holding it on, the mat, a pack of the 30 starter cards, and a bonus 8 pack of card.
The game itself rocks !, The best way I can describe it, is the 3D Chess type game you see R2D2 and Chewbacca playing in Star Wars, but using your TV to project the creatures.
Now personally I’ve never used trading cards or got involved in the whole trading card world, and to be honest didn’t think this was one of those types of games (I know, I should have done my research…but it did seem like a bargain)
The game basically plays, but you get 2 mana each turn, each card has a specific mana value, as well as health, and damage points. Each card is either Earth, Water, Wood , Fire or Biolith, you place each card on the map, and get positive and negative reactions based on the placement.
Quick YouTube Vid
Now the game is fun, and defiantly worth the £30 we spent on it, but to be honest, after a couple of hours of playing, we started to get used to the cards, and quite frankly a little board of the same cards. I had a quick google for somewhere to buy them from, and everywhere was sold out…so ebay it was !
Found a guy selling a full set 1×3,2 and 3…so the bidding war started, and ended on Friday night….£46 later, I had all 3 sets ! Woot !…this did however drive the price of the game up a little…well to £76 !
Luckily for me, they ebay guy was lightening fast with the delivery and I had all the cards on Monday. Got home, downloaded the update for the cards….which took over 3 hours, and we were finally ready to play with the new decks…..wrong !…to use the set 2 and 3, I had to buy the DLC (Downloadable Content) to unlock these…Grrrr !…and that was another £11.99 from the Playstation store.
Finally after downloading we were able to play, and it was fun fun fun….well until it started to get dark outside…..wtf you may be asking, what the hell as the light outside got to do with a game your playing inside….well I’ll tell you. As I guess it is with most people, my lighting in my front room is pretty dim, as this is the room I watch all my movie, and play most of my games. Even with the main light on, it’s light enough, but obviously not light enough for the Playstation Eye to pick the details on the cards. So there we were, £88 down, a handful of brand new shiny cards, but not enough light in the room for the eye to recognize them…Booo !
All in all, it is a very fun game, and if you buy it for nothing else but the playstation eye, it’s defiantly worth the £7 for the game..and if you live anywhere near me, I’ve got loads of duplicate cards you can have
If you are anything like me (and god help you if you are 
), and use the internet as a PVR, then this software will be a god send to you.
..message.
out to be quite an expensive hobby.