Yearly Archives: 2006

Xbox Media Redux

Pursuant to my post last week regarding Xbox media, I received some suggestions to throw some leading Windows utilities at the problem, notably Nero and IsoBuster. They both report the same as my results in Linux.

IsoBuster:


IsoBuster perspective

Nero:


Nero perspective

I’m sure there were a lot of people out there who already knew this stuff. But it’s hard to find specifics on the internet (sort of like heavy technical details of reverse engineering).

PS3 Linux Confusion

To date, I can not clearly recall if I have ever picked up a PlayStation or PlayStation 2 controller. I had little reason to care about the PlayStation 3 until I heard rumblings that Terra Soft’s Yellow Dog Linux distribution will run on the upcoming console. The Cell technology sounds fascinating at a technical level and I am always interested in low-level programming on weird and wonderful CPU architectures. So far, though, it has been quite difficult to find any solid details about what the PS3-Linux distribution will actually allow you to do with the system. PS2-Linux sounded interesting as well but apparently suffered from some limitations, like not allowing Linux users to access the optical drive (which could apparently be circumvented by modding the hardware, or even allegedly via a software patch).


A little yellow dog

So my confusion revolves around what Yellow Dog Linux for the PlayStation 3 will actually allow an adventurous programmer to do. Questions I have include:

  • Will you be able to program all the CPUs (the main CPU and the 6 coprocessors)?
  • Will you be able to program the graphics?
  • In different video modes?
  • All the way up to full 1080p resolution?
  • Will there be any accelerated graphics facilities available?
  • Or will you only have the privilege to poke pixels into a framebuffer and slap the resulting bitmap onto the screen?
  • Will you be able to output sound?
  • Will you be able to output stereo sound?
  • Will you be able to output 7.1 surround sound?
  • Will you be able to access the network via either the gigabit ethernet or WiFi interface?
  • Will you be able to access the optical drive? (Extraordinarily unlikely)
  • Will you be able to plug in and use any USB device?

Ars Technica has the most descriptive treatment of the impending YDL distribution. Predictably, the ensuing 3 pages of comments nitpick endlessly over what the capabilities and possibilities might be without understanding many if any answers to the above questions.

Master Spreadsheet

Steven Zakulec (MultimediaWiki user Dashcloud) has performed an amazing service and tested every single sample in the MPlayer repository against FFmpeg. Can you even imagine? He has provided a spreadsheet (~87 KB, OpenOffice Calc format) that details which samples work or not given a particular SVN revision of the FFmpeg repository. I think this information needs to get into a searchable & maintainable online database soon so it does not go stale.

Fine Storage Box

Thanks to my multimedia collection hobby I have a ton of CD-ROMs that I need to store efficiently. I’m partial to storing the bare CDs in a very particular type of plastic & cloth CD envelope. But for storing large amounts of CDs, the best method I presently have is simply to stuff them alphabetically into sturdy shoe boxes.

While scavenging someone else’s trove of discarded computer miscellany, I happened upon a box that appears to have the absolute perfect form factor for storing 3.5″ floppy discs:


Floppy Dom Perignon

click for larger images

Floppy Dom Perignon

Now if only I had something that perfect for the 120mm form factor.