Uxi

I saw several copies of GoW and CoD3 at Target today. Anyone get theirs from Circuit City? I heard they were giving away a 360 faceplate with it?

I think the PS3 looks much classier than the PS2. I always thought that Sony should ditch their BDP-S1 Blu-ray player and replace it with a 3rd PS3 Sku that looked like ordinary HT equipment. They could include 5.1 or 7.1 analog outs, include the remote and a PS3 controller, have a moving face plate like their JDM model Blu-ray recorder BDZ-V9 (which looks very sharp). I would pay $1000 for THAT! Anyone know when the all the all-silver PS3's will be out? That would much more fit with my HT equipment (which is all silver, from the Denon to the Toshiba HD-XA1, to the 5-disc carousel...). Even my 360 has the silver faceplate on it....

For those without a pre-order, apparently select Circuit City locations are going to have 100 to sell and will be giving away 5 free in a raffle. Party "events" starting at 8:00pm on 11/16 with radio stations, tshirts, etc. For those of you in NY, there will be 100 given away free at the Union Station location along with another 100 available for purchase. http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/categorySpe..._keycode=285615

That's what I heard, too, but that was the report. Noone will be able to know until tomorrow, when we'll find out if this was a "glitch" or not, as at least one site is reporting. Despite my normal inclination to NEVER wait in line/camp out or preorder sight unseen, I was able to get an order in and followed with a confirmation email. Further, my credit card shows a pending transaction online (presumably to check for available funds), so we'll see. I'd actually want to wait for an all silver PS3 anyway since all my HT gear is silver (even got the silver faceplate for my 360), but I am starting to get the fever for this thing.

Preorders came and went on Best Buy's site (supposedly 10,000 units: 5k each of 20GB and 60GB flavors). AVS Forum has purged the threads for some reason, though there is still info on a few other boards. Interesting to see if any go through...

I have 2 of the larger wing TIE fighters, though I got the original Target blue release. They're pretty cool. They're just massive in person. One of these days I mean to hang up them up from the ceiling with fishing wire, each on a wing of the VOTC Darth Vader. I have 2 of the Red Leader TRU X-wing (same as this one just with 1 hash instead of Luke's 5). I intend to get the Dagobah one for all the goodies though. Their wings kinda stink in closed mode. The hinge joint area isn't strong enough to keep the bottom wing from sagging under the weight of the lasers. I've been meaning to mod it but never get around to it. S-foils open though, they're very cool. I kinda wish they had the spiral blue paint job around the laser like the FX version had.

The TRU by me still had 3 unclaimed Wii (of 18). They only had 7 PS3, all sold. I don't preorder or buy sight unseen, but I thought I'd ask (though I'm readily swayed by the PS3 since I know it's just a matter of time before I get one - though most likely early next year). I'm just not that enthusiastic about the Wii.

Nice list, Briareos. Vectoring tail fins are obviously easy. It'd be nice if they could be coordinated but even if they were as in the 1/72 version, it would be fine. With with meditating "spud" Guld. The folding tail fins and wing extensions would be much the same as 1/60, as well, I imagine. BDI with access plates would be cool and relatively easy to implement (the covers just need to be tight enough/lockable, though). This applies to the engines, too. It would be nice to see the mini-missiles ala GBP. with exposable internal storage. Detachable limbs should be easy, too. A decent locking mechanism shouldn't be beyond Yamato, i'm thinking a locking pin or something that could be covered up by the shoulder pad and the conical hip/leg top. The only tooling issue is the added detail, which isn't that much of a detail technically (though possibly cost wise). Collapsible twin gunpods should definitely be included, but I could see leaving these off for a fast pack/fold booster/ Ghost expansion. Along with the VF-22S head/face and canopy. I'd say just make the built in panels for the standard model already shaped/molded with half gun pods so it can be as tight to the chassis as possible. The landing gear would be the trickiest item. Making one set, possibly telescoping that could go through the FP panels would be ideal.

SDF looks great. I'll get one if it's pre-painted/toy, but probably not for a model. I'll never get it built.

What scale is that GBP VF0S? Looks awfully detailed. 1/60 Yamato?

Yup. Speaking of which, I would be quite happy to find a decent YF-23 model kit.

Wish they would put UMK3 on a disc and sell it in a store. I'm not sanguine on buying XBA games The Burger King games sound hilarious.

Have the contents been finalized/confirmed yet? Not that it really matters, though. I already have a 6' HDMI with the PS3's name on it. They're readily obtainable for $20 and less from Frys, if not online from Monoprice. Which of those titles will actually be available at launch? No stand outs. I'll be avoiding Oblvion, at least, but I may get the Fight Night 3 for the PS3 since I've passed on it for the 360 so far (for my own 360 at least, I certainly played it enough with friends) and it does look a bit sharper from the screenshots. My last 360 purchase was Lego SW2, which was quite fun. I'm considering Dead Rising but the rest will be waiting to see the PS3 offerings and if/when I can get one (I still refuse to preorder or stand in line), but it's not really in doubt that I'll get it.

Ouch. I'll definitely wait awhile (if not indefinitely). Why can't they make at least such fragile and stressed pieces out of diecast? It's just like the backpack hinge for the Yamato. :grumble:

I am mixed. The new color is growing on me, but I think I still want to wait for a toon colored one. If I see a deal too good to pass up (say <$90), I'll probably go for it, but until then I can probably wait.

I had most of all of the Star Com toys back in the day, but think my parents gave them all away once I was in HS and hadn't played with them in a few years. They were great, now that I think of it. I had the good guy big white fighter with the little pods that would fold up and go into the cargo pod shaped thing. I had the bad guy big black fighter thing with the 2 little fighters that attached to it. Plenty of troops and assorted smaller vehicles, too. The magnets were a great idea and implemented fairly well, as were many of the mechanisms. I wish a new toy line would come out with figures that size, if not a reimagining of that series. Lets you do modestly sized vehicles in proper scale at least... Exosquad is another good one. I believe I still have many of these toys in the boxes in storage. I started phasing out before the last waves (the fixed fighters IIRC). I would love both series on DVD but I have a feeling StarCom would be in the GIJoe/Thundercats sucky-corny-today but good-in-my-memories nostalgia, unlike classics like Robotech (or more accurately in it's original component series) , G-force/Battle Of the Planets/Gatchaman sort. Exosquad definitely goes in the latter category.

Course, new HDTV's, if not AVR's have multiple inputs. My SXRD has 2 x HDMI, 2 X Component (one of which used by the AVR) and my AVR has 3 more component. I probably have a dozen composite and S-Video between the V and AVR, but I'll roll over dead before I ever use one of em.

I am still running my 3 year old VAIO (3.4 P4 Northwood) and I still play the top games (Battlefield 2, Fear, etc) at 1920 x 1200 on my 24" monitor (Dell 2407) with maxxed settings (usually AA on 1x or 2x depending on the game). I have upgraded RAM (from 1GB to 2GB) of PC3200 and replaced the crapola FX5200 it came with, with an 6800GT OC (370mhz GPU/ 1000mhz GDDR3). I'm definitely eyeballing my next rig, though. I think I probably got a good year in this thing, though, before I'm forced to upgrade. Then will most likely come Core 2 Duo, SLI 7950, etc. I never buy bleeding edge or even cutting edge but good deals are 3rd or 4th tier stuff is usually what I keep my eyes peeled for.

Sounds like you have a crappy TV... maybe one that's native display is less than 1080 (720 or 768?)... My TV displays everything in 1920 x 1080p, upscaling and de-interlacing to get tehre... Even so, I'd prefer 1080i to 720p 9 times out of 10...

Now where's the MP Megatron/Galvatron? I'd like to reiterate that Megatron should hopefully an artillery piece like the M155 and a "primitive" aka "modern" Galvatron. The whole Transformer sized Megatron gun was almost as silly as the human-sized one considering he was Prime-sized in bot mode.

When you bought a Plasma, you have bigger problems to worry about. But seriously, hooked up to my Denon and my SXRD, the PS3 will be one of the least expensive AV components I have.

There are at least 2 launch titles that have already reputedly topped 20GB, which would not be possible without Blu-ray. Memory capacity is like horsepower, RAM, and resolution in that there can NEVER be too much and it's instead just a question of diminishing returns, though there are ALWAYS returns. $100 for Blu-ray is alot cheaper than the 360's option for HD-DVD (which will be double). Anyone not wanting Blu-ray is, of course, not required to buy any BD movies, if even a PS3. Sony adding HDMI to their cheaper model should stifle most of these claims since this is not available at all for the 360 and won't be until they get a digital video board in there. Now that HDMI, a far higher percentile of people can now live without the higher end PS3 excepting only the niche needs of wifi/memory sticks/larger HD, etc. Now let's talk the play/charge kit (included in the PS3 ala USB cable), wifi ($100 for the 360). Comparing 'tard pack' to 'tard pack' the 360 guys save another hundred bucks but get stuck with a wired controller, no HD, no component cable, etc. Many Sony should come up with a true 'tard pack' that's $399 and includes a composite/stereo only?

Most stores have theirs set to "Vivid" which is the torch mode Sony has and I believe this is the default mode out of the box (though it's also possible it's set to "Standard"). I set mine to "Pro" which opens up the User Menu to full configuration (which is scary complex, since Sony included many features as part of their XBR suite that many manufactuers leave in the Service Menu, like RGB, white balance, etc). This was for the XBR1, which I have. The A2000 is a "lower end" SXRD that Sony came out with Spring/Summer 2006. Not being an XBR, it lacks features like TwinView/Picture-in-Picture, the 2nd tuner, Memory Stick reader, CableCARD, the more extreme User Menu tweakability, etc. The XBR2, which are now coming out now have a slightly different nomenclature. Instead of "Pro" it's "Custom." Many of the details of de-interlacing are different, as well. Then, I'd advise you hit up avsforum.com and go to the appropriate Owners and/or Tweaks thread. There are very large ones for the XBR1 and there are also individual ones for the A2000 and now XBR2, which has just recently (as in the last week) hit the streets. I used the THX setup in the Star Wars III disc to initially set mine up (matched near perfect out of the box in Pro mode, though I had very slight tweaks to contrast and brightness). The XBR1 has a very good de-interlacing system and processing, but is capable of doing the de-interlacing in one of four ways (bob, weave, and advanced motion-adaptive 8-bit or direct 10-bit), some of which are more appropriate to particular media (standard definition 480i TV versus 720p and/or 1080i HDTV versus sports versus 24fps DVD versus still pictures, etc). I have since moved on to Digital Video Essentials (DVE) and have been tweaking it when I don't get distracted by actually playing games or watching DVD's or HD-channels on it. Basically if and until you turn into a complete Home Theater geek like I've been, you'll be mostly happy with THX optimizer found on any of the DVD's featuring it and Pro/Custom mode.

Yeah, but the Ark made him imitate a real F-15...

That is a good paintjob. I would prefer flats instead of glosses, grey instead of silver, and a gold tint to the canopy, though.