Last night I discovered what a pain an xbox is to set up.
Maybe I'm getting soft and expect too much to just work. Maybe I was just unlucky. Maybe I should just stop whingeing and play some games.
OK, first I must admit that I did not read the instructions. I just plugged in cables where they fitted and then switched it on. That worked fine.
What came next proved more difficult.
I squeezed some batteries into the controller and pressed random buttons until something lit up. I then tried to sync the controller with the console.
I found the sync buttons pretty easier (if in doubt, look for small, unlabelled and out of the way buttons for syncing things), but I could not get the controller to sync with the console. I pressed the contoller sync and the light started flashing, so I pressed the console sync and the light started flashing. Eventually they stopped, but there was no connection. I tried in the other order. Same thing. I tried pressing both together. I tried holding one down while pressing the other. At this point I decided to read the manual.
The manual stated they should already be sync'ed (but mine was second hand) I eventually found the right page. It explained what I had already done. I tried again. It still didn't work. I kept trying. On the 4th attempt, the flashing stopped after a shorter amount of time and things moved on the screen when I waggled by stick.
I hadn't even started on the internet connection and half the evening had gone. Still the wired connection to the internet worked (although it seem rather slow to connect, hopefully this is just a first time usage issue) I don't plan on buying a wifi card for it as it costs more than a more generic (and useful) wifi-ethernet bridge.
Anyway, everything seems to be up and running now. All I need now are some games.
And a live gold account to play online.
And, apparently, some microsoft points.
And the wifi-ethernet bridge, of course.
Wednesday, 22 September 2010
Friday, 20 August 2010
Experiments into 3D Video
Now I don't have any fancy 3D TV or projectors, but I do have some old amber/blue 3d glasses lying around, so I thought I'd have go at 3D video on no budget.
I have experimented with 3D images before, using Poser and Photoshop, but this time I would be working with real-world video (not CG) so I needed 2 cameras for my DIY 3D rig. I have 2 cameras. I have a very nice Sony-Z5 for high quality video and I have a cheap little JVC Everio for anything else. The way that the amber/blue 3D glasses work (so I am informed) is the the amber image has most of the colour, while the blue provides the depth. So I decided to use the Sony for the amber (left) and the JVC for the right (blue).
The first task was to patch together a 3D rig to hold both cameras. I didn't have much time, or materials, so I came up with an interesting workaround. I set up the Sony on a tripod as usual, then used a Joby Gorillapod to suspend the JVC, upside down, from the microphone mount on the right of the camera. With a bit of trial and error I got both cameras at about the same level and zoom and started recording.
Once I had my footage I imported both into After Effects as separate compositions, created a parent composition containing the two and began the work of lining them both up. Obviously, the first thing to do was to rotate the JVC footage 180 degrees so that it was the right way up. Once I had done that, I created a solid layer in the parent composition and applied the 3d glasses effect. I will not be using this effect for the final result, but it is useful to set it up to interlace the videos while aligning.
While displaying the interlaced view in one window, I scaled, rotated, resized and distorted the JVC footage, until it was a close match to the Sony footage (as the Sony footage was to contain the details I did the work on the JVC footage).
Once the clips were aligned, I hid the solid layer and tinted the JVC composition so that it appeared in greyscale. Making sure the Sony layer was above the JVC layer, I used the Set Channels effect on the Sony layer, setting the blue channel to be sourced from the JVC footage's lightness.
Et Voilà!
(obviously you will need amber/blue 3D glasses to see the effect)
I have experimented with 3D images before, using Poser and Photoshop, but this time I would be working with real-world video (not CG) so I needed 2 cameras for my DIY 3D rig. I have 2 cameras. I have a very nice Sony-Z5 for high quality video and I have a cheap little JVC Everio for anything else. The way that the amber/blue 3D glasses work (so I am informed) is the the amber image has most of the colour, while the blue provides the depth. So I decided to use the Sony for the amber (left) and the JVC for the right (blue).
The first task was to patch together a 3D rig to hold both cameras. I didn't have much time, or materials, so I came up with an interesting workaround. I set up the Sony on a tripod as usual, then used a Joby Gorillapod to suspend the JVC, upside down, from the microphone mount on the right of the camera. With a bit of trial and error I got both cameras at about the same level and zoom and started recording.
Once I had my footage I imported both into After Effects as separate compositions, created a parent composition containing the two and began the work of lining them both up. Obviously, the first thing to do was to rotate the JVC footage 180 degrees so that it was the right way up. Once I had done that, I created a solid layer in the parent composition and applied the 3d glasses effect. I will not be using this effect for the final result, but it is useful to set it up to interlace the videos while aligning.
While displaying the interlaced view in one window, I scaled, rotated, resized and distorted the JVC footage, until it was a close match to the Sony footage (as the Sony footage was to contain the details I did the work on the JVC footage).
Once the clips were aligned, I hid the solid layer and tinted the JVC composition so that it appeared in greyscale. Making sure the Sony layer was above the JVC layer, I used the Set Channels effect on the Sony layer, setting the blue channel to be sourced from the JVC footage's lightness.
Et Voilà!
(obviously you will need amber/blue 3D glasses to see the effect)
Thursday, 5 August 2010
Thursday, 22 July 2010
Thursday, 8 July 2010
Thursday, 1 July 2010
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