My journey of getting into HD world started here, and as always, more and more things need to be added to your system to make it somewhat complete. Immediately I have the two following additions that I want to make.

Addition 1
Internet is the source of many videos, and I’ve been downloading them a lot on PC, and some of them are really high definition. In the past, I’ve been using my Xbox to stream video files from PC to TV.

And later after that getting abigs Multimedia Player.

But the 2 methods only can output SD (Standard Definition) video. I somehow need to get something that is capable of outputing HD video.

Addition 2
PC and TV are two different world in the past, only until recently. Most modern HDTV now has PC input port at the back. And the term Home Theatre Personal Computer (HTPC) emerges. Imagine while you are watching your favourite movie on your big screen TV, the landlord suddenly calls you of the overdue rental payment. It would be nice just from the comfort of my sofa, I quickly go on to Maybank2u.com for money transfer, right on the TV itself.

This is what I want too. Remember the Power Logic chassis that I ditch away last time since I get a new Cooler Master Chassis?

This is just the perfect time that I will make use of it.

With the above 2 things, that bring me to Low Yatt again, for another round of shopping.

The first thing that I get is WD TV HD Media Player. This thing has received a very good review for your high definition multimedia needs.

This is not actually a hard disk media player, any USB hard disk can be connected to this – as what the marketing tag for this says – Turn your USB drive into an HD media player. Time for unboxing.

These are the contents of the box.

And this is the unit itself. Being a HD multimedia device, the HDMI port is a must. But there are also RCA output jacks in case this needs to be used on older TV.

The remote controller is rather tiny. As using remote controller is the only way that you can control WD TV (there’s not buttons on WD TV itself), I can’t really afford to lose this.

Next, additional HDMI cable is needed, and trust me this thing is not cheap. Well, I tried to get the RM20 one from Carrefour, but it turned out that it doesn’t work on WD TV. I’ve been reading an article on CNET HDTV World that it doesn’t make a difference of using cheap or expensive cable. But how cheap is cheap?

Even though I’m just getting the RM65 one (compared to Philips one that priced RM480, and Monster Cable that is ridiculously priced at RM800), the cable feels quite high quality already, with the mesh wrapping around the cables.

Next is the motherboard for the Power Logic chassis that I have unused from the last time. I have Core 2 Duo processor and 2GB DDR2 RAM lying around somewhere. Since this is for HTPC, and not for gaming rig, I’m just getting a cheap entry level motherboard. Furthermore, this will only be used for internet surfing and movie playing on the HDTV. It doesn’t need to be that high end.

And here are the content of the box.

Being an entry level motherboard, you cannot expect that I will have 7.1 audio jack, digital audio jack and more USB ports.

Even though the motherboard has VGA port on-board, but connecting this to HDTV won’t really give a good visual. Therefore, I get this very cheap, RM125 entry level PCI-e VGA card – Sapphire HD 4350.

And here are the contents of the box.

Even though being quite cheap, but this VGA card is not shy of connectors – VGA, DVI and even HDMI port is there. This would be perfect – connecting it to my HDTV using HDMI cable.

As I get more things to be connected to internet (my Blu-Ray Disc Player is also connectable to the internet for the firmware upgrade and BD-Live feature), really need a switch for this. This 5-port D-Link switch is quite cheap too (RM45)

And here are the content of the box.

Well, it’s going to be a busy weekend again this week, which I’m really looking forward to ;)

• 0 Comments

My blog is finally running on Wordpress, and this is the very first blog entry that I write from Wordpress. It feels a bit strange as I was custom to blogger already. But I guess I will get used to this in no time.

Some may have noticed that my blog is buggy these few days. Even at times I’m completely not being able to access my blog. The main culprit is the TTL setting for the CNAME record that I set for my blog address. In the old day (from Google’s guide on setting up CNAME record for custom domain), the TTL has to be set for 1 week.

And what does that mean? TTL (Time To Live) is the amount of time that any name server on the Internet is allowed to cache the data associated with my domain name. After the TTL expires, a name server discard cached data and contact the authoritative name server to retrieve the updated one. So, I have blog pointing to Google’s server previously, with TTL of 1 week. Last Friday, I change blog to point to my own hosting, but since TTL is 1 week, some name server is still pointing blog.mohdimran.com to Google’s server. But Google’s server doesn’t have information about my blog already, and it gives page not found error.

Anyway, I’m glad to see that the guide for this at Google’s website is using 1 hour for TTL now (reference: http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=58317). I will need to change the TTL of other Google App’s CNAMES as well.

So if you suddenly can’t access my blog, just bare with it for the time being. It takes this coming Friday for the TTL that were set previously to expire.

Question. After all these years, why I suddenly decided to move away from Blogger to Wordpress? Hhmm. It’s complicated. LOL. Anyhow, welcome to my new blog (kinda of. LOL)

• 3 Comments

It’s quite a shocking news today to receive an SMS from friend telling that Micheal Jackson has died. Hopefully it’s just not another chain SMS that always happened. Quickly checking several of mainstream news website, yeap, it is confirmed.

Well, I was really hoping to see him making a comeback in this industry, and now it’s all history. May he rest in peace.

• 2 Comments

Let’s continue from where I left off last night. It’s time to hook up everything to the receiver. First this is the Blu-ray disc player.

The Blu-ray disc player’s box ripped open.

And here are the content of the box.

I didn’t actually do any photo taking for the unboxing of the LCD TV. That this is very heavy, and very delicate, that I need to attach to the stand quickly. Don’t really have a chance to take any photos in between.

However, it’s great that I have 2 models tonight that showcasing my new TV and Blu-ray Disc Player.

So everything now is hooked up together, and let’s test the TV. Wow. The TV looks really big in my living room. It didn’t look that big when I saw it in the showroom before, I guess when it’s sitting around other big size LCD TV, the size of it looks normal.

Anyway, it’s not the end yet. I still have to tidy up the house. Hoping to have another entry me enjoying the high definition media on this TV. Can’t really wait to slot in the Surf Up Blue-ray movie in.

• 0 Comments

The day that I have waiting patiently for the past 1 week has finally arrived. At around 12:30 pm today today I got my new Sony Bravia KLV-46W550A LCD TV and Sony BDP-S350 Blu-Ray Disc Player.

The Blu-Ray Disc player comes with free HDMI cable and free Surf Up Blu-Ray movie. Sweet. That should saved my money to get start with high definition movie right away as HDMI cable and Blu-Ray movie can easily cost you RM250.

But to road for me to enjoy high definition movie is still very far. First, I need to take out my old TV from the cabinet. The work for this commenced immediately.

Secondly, I need to rewire all of my sound system to include the new TV and the new Blu-Ray disc player, and taking out several other components in my system. Below is the diagram of my current system, which I blog last time in this entry.

I have Sony Home Theatre System at the moment. This is all in one system where the sound system and DVD player is combined in a single device. All this while, this has served me well for my surround sound need. But it lack of digital audio input (optical or coaxial) that allow you to plug any other device to it. So, I decided to take out this from the system, and use the previously bought Sony STR-DK5 Professional Karaoke Amplifier. This is already a full featured 5.1 channel receiver already. Did I mentioned in my previous blog entry that I’m Sony fan? LOL

So, I will unplugged everything from the system, and redo the cabling and wiring from scratch. Wow! The back of my TV cabinet surely keeping so my dust. And these are all tangled cables from my current sound system. It wasn’t this messy actually, but a few months ago, I need to take out my PS2 (selling it to someone else) where I have to untie all the cables.

All-rite. All the cables untied, and all the dust vacuumed away. Let get started from a scratch. If you are a regular reader of my blog, by now you should be able to guess already who is sitting on my TV cabinet.

The very first thing to do is to arrange and do the cabling for my 6-piece speaker. Instead on running the cable under my carpet, I decided to have the cables run along the wall this time. I hope my landlord won’t kill me for doing that.

6 different cables from my 6 speakers (except centre speaker) is nicely tied together.

And labelling is important. It’s easier later when connecting this to the receiver so that I know which one belongs to front speaker, which one is rear, which one is left channel and which one is right channel.

The clock shows 12:15am when I finish this. I get too tired already, and I don’t want to rush this. So I guess that’s all for today, and I will continue with the next step tomorrow.

• 12 Comments

On a very fine evening yesterday, my afternoon nap is disturbed with a call from a random number. The person introduces that she’s from Mid Valley. Ahh. Finally, the moment of truth. The result of my installment application yesterday. Yippe! The application is approved. So the person ask me to come tomorrow to make a first payment and arrange the delivery date.

So I’m there at Jusco Mid Valley today, which I happened to be on emergency leave since I have visitor at my home.

This is the time that the promoter is poisoning me even more. It turned out that there is another promotion that you can get the Sony Blu-Ray player for RM1000, on top of Bravia W-Series LCD TV purchase.

Wow! This is a very good offer. The player itself is priced at RM2499 if to be bought alone. This thing has long been on my wish list alongside with LCD TV. It’s like a must thing to have for you to enjoy high definition movie, which what Full HD LCD TV is all about.

The promoter even cut RM1 more from the price, making it RM999. Well, I put this on my plastic card first :D Anyway, will be getting RM1500 next month (someone will bayar hutang), so I guess I will settle the amount by then.

Then the delivery part. It’s kinda awkward that the delivery is only done from 1pm to 5pm. It’s like people don’t have to go to work and can happily stay at home at those time. This weekend is not a good idea too as I’m not in KL (going back to hometown). Then I don’t have a choice than to come back to KL a bit earlier next Monday, which I have applied for annual leave already. So the delivery date is set for next Monday.

There you go. 2 more new gadgets for me (TV and Blu-Ray player), and another new “hutang” as well. LOL.

• 0 Comments

Looking back at my 2008’s wish list, it’s been a long time already that I’m longing for a Full HD LCD TV. With the price of LCD TV dropping these day, I keep saying to myself that I will get one once my new house construction is completed. But thinking of it, that’s the time that you will use your money a lot – house renovation, furnitures etc, so finally, I’ve decided to get one – using installment of course.

Being a fan of Sony for TV products, went to Mid Valley to visit Sony Centre. Well, they have this Double Cash Back promotion for Sony Bravia TV.

Since Sony Centre only offered installment by using credit card only (max 12 months), I just decided to use AEON credit service at Jusco. Furhermore, I can get J-Card points ;) So which one to get?

Well, I have decided on which one to get way before. Been researching for a week already. The one that I’m getting is the W-Series 46-inch one (KLV-46W550A). I’m quite attracted to the 100 Hz MotionFlow technology, among other features that are unique to Sony LCD TVs.

There’s quite a good promotion too. There’s 5% discount, as well as RM300 cash back. So the final price is RM7299.05. Didn’t really plan to get the sound system for double cash back. Will invest in proper sound system later on (Yamaha perhaps).

I’ve been an AEON Express member already, but the express application (1 hour approval) is limited only to the maximum price of RM3000. For this one, I have to apply the normal way which will take a day or two to process. So I filled in all the necessary forms, and am waiting eagerly for the result. Really hope the application will be approved.

• 0 Comments

I just got the following SMS on my iPhone.

The text version of it.

The new iPhone OS3.0 software will be available on 18 June. As a valued Maxis iPhone customer, a complimentary installation CD will be sent to you for FREE. The updated software will enable your iPhone to MMS, copy and paste, perform call forwarding & voice recording and comes with Bahasa Malaysia capability. To find out more about the exciting new features, visit www.maxis.com.my/iPhone.

I guess this will be a good news to those iPhone users that don’t have Internet connection to download this new software. Call forwarding eh. Will test that one out soon.

• 2 Comments

The release of iPhone OS 3.0 is just around the corner. Even though it is just another a week away (morning of 17th June in US is almost 18th June for Malaysia), I kinda feel so eager to start using this new OS for iPhone.

The article on Gizmodo website titled iPhone OS 3.0 Now Available in Torrent really moved me. I finished downloading it Tuesday, and last night I just convinced that I’m too impatient to wait the official release, and decided to install this on my iPhone. According to the article, this one is the golden master, which Apple will distribute next week. But if this is not the final one, I can always upgrade later next week ;)

There’s a page on Apple website listing out all the new features that OS 3.0 has got to offer. I hope that the topic of this entry has not misled you. I’m actually recapping those features with Malaysian iPhone user in mind. Let’s go through a few features that I feel like highlighting, shall we?

Home Screen

There are 3 different things that I notice on the Home Screen.

OS 2.2		OS 3.0

• The messaging icon no longer have the SMS text in it, as now it supports both SMS and MMS. Instead being called Text previously, now it is called Messages
• Icon for Stocks is also different, perhaps indicating that this is an enhanced Stocks App
• A new app called Voice Memos

MMS

This is the very first feature that I test as soon as the installation of OS 3.0 on my iPhone finished. The missing of this option previously is very uneasy. I guess the service is not like normal MMS service that we set up on any other phone where the setting can be obtained from Maxis website. Also, there’s no option of setting up the MMS parameters in iPhone.

I use my house mate’s Nokia 5800 XpressMusic for testing as well, and the result is…

…it works already on Maxis. While in the US, AT&T will only offer MMS service late summer. I guess this is a thumbs up to Maxis of having this ready just before the new OS arrived, even the crappy 3G connection speed that I’m getting is still bothering me.

So, I’m able to send MMS. What about receiving one? Well, lets test that as well.

Yeap. MMS features seems to be working fine with the iPhone OS 3.0 on Maxis network already.

More on messaging

Every iPhone user must already feeling the pain of not able to delete individual SMS message last time, as well as forwarding any SMS received. This has been fixed in OS 3.0. You can now delete individual message, or forward it, and it works on both SMS and MMS.

New Languages & Countries

Malaysia wasn’t even in the list of countries that iPhone will launch at the time OS 2.2 is out. And when it’s out, the best time zone location that we can select is Singapore. Now Kuala Lumpur is already in the list.

You can also change the language of the whole iPhone itself to Bahasa Melayu.

And this is how it looks like when Bahasa Melayu is used. Hhhmmm. ‘Messages’ is still called SMS. It should be Mesej instead ;)

iPhone is using software based intelligence keyboard where it predicts, suggests and correct words as you type. This feature works well when typing in English last time, but how often that I write SMS in English ;) I end up having this feature turned off previously as it’s really annoying suggesting unrelated words when you are typing in Malay. And you can’t change to Malay language as well as it’s not available. Not anymore. OS 3.0 now offers Malay language as one of the keyboards language that you can choose.

Once Malay language selected, you can choose Bahasa Melayu as the keyboard language whenever you need to type something.

Not quite sure who that Apple consulted when adding the Malay language feature in OS 3.0, but the Space button is called Spais and Return button is called Kembali. Well, ok lar!

Cut, Copy & Paste

This is another mostly awaited feature, which also a big pain in the previous OS of not able to do this. I tested this feature, and like it very much

Spotlight Search

Originally introduced in MacOS, now this feature is available on iPhone OS 3.0 too.

This will search everything on your iPhone of the items matching the search text that you type. What to be included in the search results can be customized from the setting.

Internet Tethering

One of the feature that I enjoy a lot on Windows Mobile platform (when using HTC Touch Pro last time) is using the phone as the modem. That time I have unlimited data plan with my Maxis Value 50, and I’ve been using it as modem to connect to the Internet when I’m on the move.

Can we do the same on iPhone? Nope! Unless you jailbreak your phone and install one of the third party application. I think this feature is vital. With the data plan that we have with Maxis iValue or iData, there’s no way that we will full utilize that just on iPhone. Fear no more my friend as OS 3.0 now offers Internet Tethering – sharing your Internet connection on iPhone with your laptop or desktop via Bluetooth or USB.

The same article that I mentioned earlier at the beginning of this post suggests that AT&T will only offer tethering only by end of this summer, and via a special data plan. I hope it’s not the case with Maxis, and lets test it just to make sure.

Tethering can be enabled at the Settings -> General -> Network.

Once enabled, your Windows should detect a new hardware now. In Windows XP it is detected as Apple Mobile Device Ethernet.

Once the driver is installed, iPhone is treated as another Local Area Network connection, and once connected, your laptop or desktop is connected to the Internet already.

And on your iPhone, there will be a flashing bar at the top of the screen with the text Internet Tethering

This bar will be shown everywhere, I guess as a visual alert that the Internet connection of the iPhone is being shared by your laptop or desktop.

Final words

With all of these new features introduced, I do believe that iPhone will now become a worth piece of device to own. Furthermore, the slashing down of the price of 8GB iPhone 3G (with the introduction of 16GB and 32GB iPhone 3G S) will definitely attract more new iPhone users. So what I’m eagerly waiting for next is how Maxis will offer this, and what’s the price will be ;)

• 13 Comments

I was too sleepy to follow up Gizmodo’s Live Blog covering the Apple WWDC 2009 that starts 1am Malaysia time. I was only following the first 1/2 hour of it.

Woke up at 5:30am since Oyen making noise to get out of the room. After that, first thing that I do is to go to my PC to see what I have missed. So, anything new on iPhone? Yes. Apple launched a new model – iPhone 3G S, where S stands for speed.

Well, there’s still no front camera, but the phone supports HSPDA network already. No change on the look itself (I repeat, still no front camera…. grrrr….), only things are 2x faster on the inside.

This new iPhone will be shipped to Malaysia July 9th. That’s a month from now. Kinda wondering how Maxis will offer this to its subsriber. I bet there will be more stupid plans that will be introduced, like trade in your old iPhone 3G, change your plan to “iValue Speed” for example.

Is it worth an upgrade for me? Well, they have 16GB and 32GB version now, but do I need that much space? Well just wait for more reviews about this then I’ll revisit the thought of upgrading ;) At least software update to iPhone OS 3.0 is something to look forward.

• 9 Comments