Weird-ass dream (2014-12-05)

So I was playing a version of Street Fighter where there was also a game of Tetris going on in the background, and the inputs were shared. Move your character left and your Tetromino moves left as well.

Also, a Hatsune Miku RPG not unlike the first Persona game, isometric perspective and all...

(Up next: my thoughts on arcade parts! Probably.)

Cheers to Cooking Channel; jeers to TBS

I've got the urge to capture every single episode of Good Eats again, for the third time.

The first was in the early 2000s with an SD capture card. Back then they didn't have HD anything. The second was when Food Network started airing their programs in HD. And now with Cooking Channel showing Good Eats in HD, I'm inclined to start capturing the hundreds of episodes again, but I can do it right this time. I know about making sure there's no bits of audio after an edited out commercial break. I know how to add chapters to a video file. And the quality is better thanks to my HD capture card.

To Cooking Channel's credit, they aren't showing the old SD episodes with that annoying panorama/stretch-o-vision aspect ratio that Food Network does. Sure, it's stretched, but I can easily shrink it back to 4:3. It's impossible to "un-stretch-o-vision" a picture.

And it's also impossible to uncrop cropped video. TBS apparently doesn't think much of their viewers because they're still showing Seinfeld in "HD" by cropping off the top and bottom of the picture and zooming in. When Funimation released the first Dragon Ball Z DVD sets, they thought they could get away with doing the same thing, but no one liked missing 20% of the picture and eventually Funimation released another DVD set to address the complaints. (And then once more for Dragon Ball Z Kai... and then once more again for the music-fixed DVD release...)

I think I'll try to make my Good Eats encodes a consistent 233 MB, up from the 170 MB my SD encodes were. It'll be down from my usual 440 MB for a 30-minute show without commercials, but I don't think the show requires a high bit rate to begin with, and honestly, there are a lot of episodes. At 233 MB per episode, 18 episodes will fit on a DVD-R. At 440 MB per episode, it would only be 10 episodes per DVD-R.

Dreamcast: flickering s-video cable issue solved

I bought another Dreamcast s-video cable from Retro-Bit since the s-video output from my Madness Gameware VGA box wouldn't work for some reason. Maybe I broke it trying to trick non-VGA games to work by flicking the switch at exactly the wrong time. Well, whatever.

My other Dreamcast VGA box by Naki had working s-video output in addition to composite, but when I tried it, the picture would flicker, which is why I bought another s-video cable.

This Retro-Bit cable had the same flickering problem at first, but once I plugged in both s-video and composite (the cable has both) into my DVDO Edge, the problem went away.

No video while playing purchased videos in iTunes?

Problem: iTunes wouldn't play my purchased videos. Just a black screen with no audio or video.

Solution: Close other programs. In my case, I had MAME with Tekken Tag Tournament running, as well as Blackmagic Media Express in playback mode.

Also, if you ever wanted to skip a few seconds back or forward when playing video in iTunes, hit Ctrl+Alt plus left or right.

Mumon's pearls of wisdom (Persona 4 Golden)

I'm doing New Game Plus on Persona 4 Golden and right now I'm trying to (1) get the Hardcore Risette Fan trophy, (2) get as many skill cards from Chagall Cafe as I can, and (3) get the new "accomplice" ending.

Here's everything I've heard Mumon say:

• Have you heard this before? The question of whether or not dogs have souls. / Sounds stupid, right? But that’s all right. Questions like those are what you call Zen dialogue.

• Hey, are you all right? That coffee might have been a little too stimulating for you. / Well… climbing the stairway to maturity means you’ve gotta grit your teeth sometime and take that first step.

• When a flag blows in the wind, is it the flag that moves? Or the wind? / It’s neither, kid. What moves… is your heart.

• Ah, What great weather. I haven’t seen a sky this clear in ages… / Ha… I’m not talking about the sky out there. I know that your heart’s always clear as a summer’s day.

• Have you heard this before? About how a strong man’s weakness is his first defeat. / But… a guy like that isn’t strong. Someone who’s truly strong will never back down.

• Some things are real in this world, and some things are fake. Most people don’t have an eye for the difference… / But even so… if what’s real loses hope, don’t you think this world is done for?

• You know, kid… you remind me a lot of my brother. Especially the way that you act cool even if you have to force it. / But not everything in this world is fine. Sometimes, it’s just as important to show the ugly side of yourself…

• Has there ever been a time when you couldn’t find an answer to your problems? / When that time comes, I suggest you stop thinking about it. Not every question has an answer, after all.

• Ha… Your eyes didn’t lie. They’re fixed straight on the future… / No matter what happens, you better not back down. All you gotta do is keep going down the path that you believe in.

• Ha… You’re already a regular here, kid. Still, there’s no need to be so hasty… / Everyone becomes an adult eventually, like it or not.

Weird-ass dreams and the end of Pawn Stars on my DVR

Let's see. In one dream my cousin bought a Vita and he had something like a PhotoFast adapter for his Vita, not unlike how it's used in a PSP with two micro SD cards.

In another dream, I actually was at a grade school reunion, though I got along surprisingly best with somebody who shall rename nameless; he wasn't exactly anywhere near my close circle of friends but he was certainly friendly, we got along, and I even ran into him when I was at PCC. Nothing but respect for the guy and I hope he's doing well.

Lastly, I decided to delete Pawn Stars off the TiVo and delete the episodes that were on the hard drive. Sure, I missed some episodes when transitioning from DirecTV to the Charter box to TiVo, but I made sure to take note of which episodes I missed and tried to look out for them. But I haven't seen the episodes since March or so, and that's because I just really, really don't like Chumlee. Say what you will about the authenticity, but I always liked Old Man and Rick; their expertise and hardballing kept me watching. But when they revamped the intro to include Chumlee, that was the turning point. Just who does enjoy watching such a repulsive character? I remember when they swapped him with Roli (from Counting Cars) for a day, and stuff happened, and at the very end Chumlee was still some lazy ass. I think that was it for me right there. I was proud to say I saw and recorded every single Pawn Stars episode up to that point too. Now the episodes that I didn't yet burn away to my private DVD collection are gone as well.

Words I hate (2014-06-11)

• conversate

The word is "converse," you morons!

Quick update

So yeah, back in late February / early March my family cancelled DirecTV and AT&T (which were decades-long subscriptions) and got Charter cable. The Internet's cheaper and faster and we have more TV channels, so it's a win all-around. But the Charter DVR box completely sucks; the interface is as ugly as sin, the remote was infrared only, and not even all the options were selectable. I was trying to make the HDMI audio output plain old stereo instead of Dolby Digital and I just couldn't do it. I think the available options were "On" and "Auto" and no matter what my brother and I tried, we had to resort to RCA audio like animals.

Having had enough, my brother decided to get TiVo again (last time we had TiVo was around 2003). We got the Roamio and I agreed to shoulder the cost of the DVR box and service. Thanks to careful budgeting on my end, it's not too big of a problem; my brother only wanted 1/4 of the cost of the box, but I'll happily chip in for 1/2 of the box and 1/2 of the service. Of course then my brother got a TiVo Mini and upgraded the harddrive to 1 TB... or 3 TB, I forget. I'm only willing to pay 1/4 of the hard drive.

I must say, the quality of the channels isn't quite as good as DirecTV; it seems lower-priority channels like Lifetime really get hit hard with the compression while HBO is as clear as ever. But I need Lifetime to be clearer because of Hoarders. And sometimes you really can see the compression in sports; when the camera zooms in on a moving player (e.g. after scoring a point), the crowd in the background looks like pixelated vomit.

We noticed an issue where Food Network and Travel Channel weren't displaying the correct shows, but an email to TiVo cleared that up.

My brother went to Japan a few more times. (Why? Who knows.) But he got me Persona 3 Portable (Japanese version, of course), so now I'm more motivated to clear some of my backlog. There are a couple of guides for max social links in a single playthrough, but they're never as clear as they should be. I've found that you need to keep these things in mind:

1. All the Personas you need between dungeon visits for social links (Arcana and the number of Personas)
2. Level up to make sure you can actually carry that many Personas at the same time 
3. The money you need for stat-raising activities 
4. The money you need for summoning and fusing Personas

I'm currently playing Persona 4 Golden and I'm at just about Level 25 where I can finally hold 10 Personas. I think I was underleveled beating the first dungeon, but I didn't have a choice; there was simply no cheap, sustainable way to replenish SP. A large part of these max social link runs is clearing each new dungeon in a single day, so going back some other day was out of the question. I just barely beat the first dungeon at Level 9 or so, when the person I rescued turned out to be Level 15, I believe.

As for eBay adventures... I've been buying all the well-known NES must-have series for about $50 each. Last year I got all Mega Man 1-6 and Ninja Gaiden 1-3, and within these last few months I bought Contra & Super C, Double Dragon 1-3, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1-3. All that's left on my radar is Castlevania 1-3, though those sets tend to go for $60 or $70 for some reason. I do have Castlevania 1 for Wii Virtual Console and the Japanese Castlevania 3 (Akumajou Densetsu)... and I'm not in any rush to get Castlevania 2 thanks to a certain infamous video review. 

I did finally sell something on eBay for the first time ever, though what finally pushed me to sell was an eBay promotional offer. Well, all those promotional offers mysteriously disappeared from my inbox as soon as I sold something, so I ended up paying the listing fees anyway, and I'm certainly not expecting any $25 coupon code. Apparently I'm not alone. Was this how eBay got so big? By baiting and switching? I think eBay owes us all at least $5. 

And that item I sold? That was my double of Mega Man 1, and despite me going out of my way to make the most perfect item listing ever, the buyer still hasn't given me positive feedback yet. I shipped it as quick as possible and he received it in two days. What the hell is he waiting for?

With all this game buying, it looks like the video mods for my Atari 2600 and NES will have to wait a little while longer, especially since I'm probably going to Las Vegas in the summer.

On a positive note, I actually did the NES Max d-pad mod all by myself! I hopped on eBay and bought red Xbox 360 controller parts for a little over $2 from Hong Kong. It took some trial and error with the sandpaper, but the most important thing I found was to make sure there was just a little slack when installing the stick and connecting the black rings. As for which way to connect the rings, make sure the little 5 goes on top of the little 3 (they're a little hard to see), and then hold the controller up (facing down) and look under to make sure the ring pops out evenly in the front of the stick. If one side of the ring sticks out too much and another side too little, just rotate the ring until it's all balanced. 

And the mod works great! A part of me still prefers the plain old original d-pad (muscle memory and all that), but this Max mod turns the controller from a 5/10 usability rating to a 9.5/10. If I ever get over my fear of breaking it I'll raise my rating to a 10/10. But I did clear Mega Man 2 with that mod and the controller worked great. Before I would have to push harder than I'd want to go in a direction; I'd sometimes just stop walking. Now jumping over holes and grabbing on to ladders in Mega Man isn't a problem at all because I'm confident in the diagonals again.

New mouse

I recently switched from a Logitech wireless mouse with a whole bunch of buttons to a much simpler, corded mouse with only left-click, right-click, and a clickable scroll wheel. Having to change and rotate batteries got to be extremely annoying, and when the battery cover broke off, it was time for a change.

I knew I needed to be creative with AutoHotkey to match the functionality of my last mouse, and the additions I came up with made this three-button mouse even better. Which is what I want; if I got too used to the other mouse with more buttons, replacements would be price.

Here are the scripts (comment tags in yellow):

SetTitleMatchMode, 2
#IfWinNotActive, Google Chrome
MButton::Click 2
#IfWinNotActive
return
;a true, real double-click
;double-clicks with middle button (scroll button) everywhere EXCEPT Google Chrome
;I want to be able to open new tabs without going to them in Google Chrome

~LButton & RButton::
Send {LButton}{enter}
return
;double-click in file browsers
;the ~ is so left-click still left-clicks
;note that it's my own "improved" version because Windows 7 annoyingly moves the thing you clicked on when viewing ;files in list move, which prevents double-clicking on items that are "a little bit out of the way" from actually executing, so it's really "click, then Enter"

~LButton & WheelDown::
If (A_TimeSincePriorHotkey>400)
send !{left}
return
;alt+left (go back a page in file & Internet browsers), but left button left-clicks as usual 
;the ~ is so left-click still left-clicks
;the >400 part is so I don't have to carefully hit only one notch

~LButton & WheelUp::
If (A_TimeSincePriorHotkey>400)
send !{right}
return
;alt+right (go forward a page in file & Internet browsers), but left button left-clicks as usual 
;the ~ is so left-click still left-clicks
;the >400 part is so I don't have to carefully hit only one notch

~LButton & MButton::
send !{up}
return
;alt+up (go up a directory in file browsers), but left button left-clicks as usual 
;the ~ is so left-click still left-clicks

Happily outbid on eBay

Even though I spent the next few months' entertainment funds and have yet to make up the difference, I've been keeping an eye on eBay for some reason.

First there was a DVDO Edge that I made small bids on, but was then going to try to snipe with a max bid of $80. Then someone who hadn't bid before in that auction sniped it with $148. I could deal with that, especially after realizing that moving the DVDO Edge that I already have to the gaming room wasn't as big of a deal as I thought. (Note to self: write post about the DVDO Edge with the Panasonic Tau and experiments with Duck Hunt and PSP)

Then there was an auction for a VGI to DVI scaler, which this site says I need if i want to use a scanline generator (SLG3000). I made the starting bid at about $50, but I instantly regretted it because it turns out the SLG HD= YUV Edition was probably a better option for me. I saw some guy outbid me in the last few hours (I was awake at 3 a.m. because of work, and I will not go into detail). I let it slide and that guy won by $1. Thanks, guy!

So enough of this foolishness. No more getting sidetracked with NES or Atari eBay pickups. No more "bargain-hunting" on eBay for hardware purchases that would make my gaming life only marginally more convenient. It's time I settled down and seriously* started saving for the installation of the PlayChoice-10 PPU NES RGB mod (I already have the part)... which, despite the existence of the cheaper, more versatile NESRGB mod, I'd still like the original RGB mod so I could see with my own eyes its "flaws." The PlayChoice-10 is still original, official Nintendo hardware that I obtained for my own selfish purposes (the actual PlayChoice-10 arcade machine won't work without it), and this new NESRGB seems to have its own problems. And can I get the expanded Famicom audio with that mod or not? Who knows.

*I still need to get Final Fantasy III and Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, which are now/will be on sale, respectively...

Weird-ass dream (2014-01-22)

I dreamed I was hanging out with Kei Hosogai. That in and of itself wasn't too surprising since I saw him make an appearance on NHK World in a segment about bus travel.

Now, the really weird thing is that I was saying I remembered that I watched the NHK segment about bus travel in the dream.... so yeah.

Panasonic Tau, Part 2

Remember that Panasonic Tau (CT-36HL43G) I got a while back? Some new thoughts and discoveries:

I picked up a wood dolly at Home Depot for about $20, so now I can actually use it whenever I want instead of it just being a huge, immovable eyesore in the middle of the room. It took the whole family to put that 250-pound TV on that dolly (which is supposed to be able to support 1,000 pounds). Now that it's on wheels, I have a better viewing angle sitting on the futon couch, and it tucks away neatly. I don't worry about it slipping off the dolly either.

I got my old Gefen Home Theater Scaler back and I'm using it for its underscan function, and that one function makes my PC gaming experience on the Tau that much more enjoyable:

• I can see more of the floor in Mega Man Unlimited. It looked good before with its proper fullscreen aspect ratio, but now it's perfect.
• Street Fighter X Mega Man couldn't fullscreen properly with the laptop directly connected to the TV; Mega Man looked a little fat, even though this is a 4:3 game and the TV is also 4:3. With the scaler underscanning and locking the aspect ratio, all is well.
• Life bars and remaining lives in MAME are now visible.

Incidentally, it's because of MAME and lifebars that I finally ventured into the TV's settings and played around with the tilt. Turns out I need it +6 to eliminate the heavy curve on the upper-left corner. Now both of the top corners are only very slightly and evenly curved and it looks much better. I wouldn't have been able to calibrate it without seeing the life bars in Street Fighter 2. I also turned off "VM" (velocity scan modulation) because (1) the less processing, the better for gaming, and (2) some guys said it's better to turn it off.

Another game I tried was Cho Ren Sha 68K (超連射68K). I had to run it in Windows 95 mode on my Windows 8.1 laptop, and JoyToKey is still acting a little finicky with my MLG joystick, but the thing I was most curious about was the scanline option (F5). The TV and/or the scaler seemed to deinterlace that anyway, so all I got was a (IMO) worse picture than if I had just left it alone. 

Speaking of scanlines, there's an old video on YouTube showing some guy playing Duck Hunt on an HD CRT. He mentions he's using an XRGB-3 for the scaling from 240p to 480p and/or to add scanlines. I'm still not sure what part of that makes Duck Hunt work all of a sudden, but used XRGB-3 units still go for a little under $500 on eBay, I'm not exactly dying to play Duck Hunt (or Time Crisis) on the Tau, and who knows if the TV would just deinterlace those scanlines anyway, so I don't think I'll be getting more equipment for light gun games.

If I really need scanlines, BuckoA51 says if I want to use an SLG3000, I'll have to get yet another scaler, this time VGA to DVI. Those cost $200 to $400 on eBay, and I may or may not need that instead of/in addition to the XRGB-3 because the XRGB-3 can only add scanlines on 240p content. And I'll need to bring my HDFury3 out of retirement and buy the VGA adapter at the highway robbery price of $50 because the SL3000 is VGA only. Too many things to plug in at this point. Sure, there's the LKV351 too, but a little more digging shows that it's locked at 720p, and the Gefen I already have doesn't do 240p, so instead of figuring that all out I'll just stick to the trusty Samsung DynaFlat. 

More on the Gefen scaler: It's the only way I can view my sources on the Tau in 1080i. Unfortunately there's no way to zoom in and cut off the sides (ideal for Hulu); you'll always have a letterboxed picture, and I'm always worried about burn-in. I've tried the options in both the scaler and the TV. When the input is 1080i and I choose "4:3" on the TV, it's just a sort of reverse stretch-o-vision (panorama stretching) in 4:3. Yuck. But on the other hand, thanks to the scaler, I have another way to play those pesky PS3 games that lack a 1080i mode on the Tau. Games nowadays are optimized for HD displays (read: 720p and 1080p), and games with actual 1080i support are rare. If the PS3 can't detect 720p or 1080p, it will just fall back on 480i or 480p. In my case, the Tau lacks 720p and 1080p, so even though I might be able to have the PS3's XMB in 1080i 4:3, once a game is started, the PS3 will default to 480p. But theoretically I could have the PS3 output at 720p as always and have the scaler turn that into 1080i, which should still look loads better than 480p.

Definitely, the more I use the Tau, the more I love it! Now to find those IR codes. More on that (and using my old PSP as a remote) later.