Uncompressed Episode 40
As we move into the holiday season lots or people are trying their hardest to get their hands on a Wii or PS3. This week (as we often do) we further explore these systems focusing on some very scary news reports circling around the PS3. Tony finally managed to find a Wii and talks all about that; other topics include AMD’s new 4×4 platform, the long awaited Optimus keyboard, and a missing member of the tech community. Also featured in this episode is the kickoff of our 2006 Uncompress Yourself Holiday Contest. So please, check that out and make sure to enter!
News
- Peter Jackson is the lord, of the Lord of the Rings. But what about The Hobbit?
- Senior Editor at CNet, James Kim, has gone missing.
- Ken Kutaragi has been removed from directly working with the Playstation.
- AMD will have to try a bit harder than what their new 4×4 platform is offering up.
- Behold! Optimus! … that’s it?
Gaming
- Gran Turismo HD cancelled.
- Mario Galaxy looks like it is going to be delayed.
- PS3 fans trade their babies for a crack at the new system.
- EA is not happy with PS3 sales to this point.
- Nintendo has posted a bit of safety information for using your new Wii.
- Yay for SIXAXIS.
YouTube of the Week
Hamster live action video game.
Also, I just wanted to point out that for those using remote desktop, MS just released an updated version. Pretty slick.
Thanks for listening, dont forget to tune in next week for the second part of our Uncompress Yourself Holiday Contest! 
December 4th, 2006 at 6:47 pm
Follow up on missing CNet editor story: Kati Kim and the children have been found alive. James is still missing.
December 5th, 2006 at 6:58 am
Just a little bit of picking
The AMD thing isn’t really ‘quad core’ its 2x dual-core
also, the ps3 scaling is a problem where the game max resolution is 720 and the ps3 is set to 1080i. So the console will do 1080i if the game actually renders at that res, it will not scale up from 720p to 1080 though.
good show though.
December 5th, 2006 at 10:03 am
Hi Chaz, thanks for dropping by.
I understand that the AMD isnt “exactly” quad core, heck, even the Intel QX6700 is 2 core 2 duo processors on the same chip — but youre right in that you need two physical processors for the 4×4 solution. That being said AMD is marketing it as a quad core (for the “true” 4×4 quad core, quad sli) solution to put it in direct competition with the QX6700 and other processors that will fill out that family in the coming months. Thats the problem with doing a podcast like ours, some people like yourself are technical enough to know the nuances like you pointed out, but sometimes we have to streamline our wording — else a large number of our listeners who arent as familiar get confused. (no offense to those listeners! this is complicated stuff! ;))
Kinda the same thing on the PS3 issue, it’s complicated. You are 100% right in your statement above. Perhaps we could have worded the story better, but what it comes down to is that older HDTVs which supported only 1080i, 480p, 480i, are getting the short end of the stick when it comes to 720p gaming — everything gets down graded instead of upconverted. Now this isnt really shocking per say if youre familiar with all of the crazy resolution conversions your cablebox, satellite receiver, tv, xbox, dvd player, scaler, etc are doing on a daily basis, — but it is definately disappointing when you buy a console (the PS3) that is marketed based on “HD gaming” and having more processing power than God, only to have it display things at the same resolution as the graphically inferior Wii.
Im not trying to get defensive here, just clearing things up based on your feedback.
Thank you for making those points, and I am glad you enjoyed the show!
December 6th, 2006 at 8:03 pm
Follow up: James Kim was found dead. Story is here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16079394/
December 7th, 2006 at 4:09 am
No worries, like i said i was being picky
Sony definately dropped the ball and need to be called on it, just didn’t want you to be accused of sony bashing
December 7th, 2006 at 10:09 am
lol Ive been accused of worse, but I really do appreciate the help filling in the details.