Here is a list of what I was aiming for:

1. Be able to play backed up DVD, Blu-ray & HDDVD videos in either .avi, .mkv (H.264) or WMV
2. Central bit of software to cover everything
3. Able to play off network shares
4. Be able to play back Blu-ray and HDDVD easily

For my software I am using the following:

• Microsoft Windows Vista x64 Ultimate Edition
• MediaPortal v1.0 (with TVSeries 2.0 plugin and Monochrome 2.2 skin)
• iMon 7.2

I did try using Ubuntu over Vista but found that Blu-ray support was a bit limited in the way you basically had to manually dump each film on to the harddrive stripping out the DRM.

So I ended up using Vista which has been very reliable. I have turned off Aero to give a small performance increase in playing 1080p MKV files and have disabled UAC for the obvious reason; it’s annoying.

Although the integrated Windows Media Centre that comes with Windows Vista is good, it can be a bit of a chore to get set up correctly to play any video format. So I am using MediaPortal which is a free bit of software which is simply fantastic.

I followed this guide from ProjectHTPC on setting up MediaPortal which is an easy to understand guide and tells you exactly what you need to know.

I then followed this guide on getting the Monochrome skin on Media Portal and getting the sound through to my sound system playing proper DTS. Following on from that guide, I came across a plugin for MediaPortal called TVSeries. It’s fantasic. I followed this guide and have all my TV series on my computer set up with fan art, which has now given me an excuse to get all my box sets on to the harddrive to have them as easy to access as possible.

Media Portal plays off network shares which has ticked off number 3 and allows me to continue on my search to get a NAS set up with a lot of storage to store all my DVDs etc on.

The only problem I still have to overcome is getting Blu-ray and HDDVD to play through MediaPortal properly, which should be OK once I get around to getting PowerDVD 7 or hacking PowerDVD 8 which removed any trace of HDDVD.

iMon has been a pain though, my case came with a CD with it on which I have now misplaced while moving house and have found myself downloading the latest version off the SoundGraph website extremely slowly.

This is because the embed tag is not supported, although it works on most browsers.

The code you get from YouTube is something similar to this:

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<object width="425" height="344">
<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/jJpx9MEi6_M&hl=en&fs=1"></param>
<param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param>
<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/jJpx9MEi6_M&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed>
</object>

Note that line #4 is the embed code that isn’t supported.

To make the code valid and work in most browsers (tested in IE6+, FF3, Chrome + Safari, Opera).

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<!--[if !IE]> <--> 
<object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="350" height="284" data="http://www.youtube.com/v/jJpx9MEi6_M&hl=en&fs=1"> 
<!--> <![endif]--> 
<!--[if IE]>
<object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="350" height="284" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0">
<![endif]--> 
<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/jJpx9MEi6_M&hl=en&fs=1" />  
<p>Your browser is not able to display this multimedia content.</p> 
</object>

With the use of condition formatting we are able to set out the code to work in most (if not all) browsers.

When you embed a video from YouTube you get some code like this:

<object width="425" height="344">
<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/jJpx9MEi6_M&hl=en&fs=1"></param>
<param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param>
<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/jJpx9MEi6_M&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed>
</object>

All you need to do is add &autoplay=0 to the end of both URLs, like so:

When you embed a video from YouTube you get some code like this:

<object width="425" height="344">
<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/jJpx9MEi6_M&hl=en&fs=1&autoplay=0"></param>
<param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param>
<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/jJpx9MEi6_M&hl=en&fs=1&autoplay=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed>
</object>

The Escapist

Yahtzee is a British-born, currently Australian-based writer and gamer with a sweet hat and a chip on his shoulder. When he isn’t talking very fast into a headset mic he also designs freeware adventure games and writes the back page column for PC Gamer, who are too important to mention us. His personal site is www.fullyramblomatic.com.

After some searching after my previous post.

I have found the answer on the AfterDawn forums.

The only difference being that IsoMagic failed to open up the ISO at all.  Instead I used IsoBuster created by Smart Projects.

The software you will need is:

• IsoBuster – (You will need to purchase, as free trial does not allow ability to extract.)
• tsMuxeR - Freeware.
• mkvtoolnix – Freeware (Windows download at the bottom.)

Here are the steps:

1. Open the ISO in IsoBuster.  Navigate to the BDMV folder then the STREAM folder.
2. In this folder you should find a the video called 00000.mts or 00001.mts or something similar.
3. Extract this to somewhere on your harddrive.
4. Once the file has finally finished extracting to the hard drive, open up tsMuxeR.
5. Add the file you just extracted, you should have a window like the following:
   
6. Press Start demuxing. This will take a few minutes depending on the size of the file and your computer.
7. The outcome of this is that we will have seperate audio and video files which we will now merge together using a great tool called mkvmerge.
8. In mkvmerge, we want to select the .ac3 file and the .264 file, so go to Add at the top right and select both these files.
9. mkvmerge will correctly detect what sort of file they are, but you will need to manually set the fps of the video as mkvmerge won’t be able to detect it.  The output from tsMuxeR will tell you the fps, then all you need to do now is select where you want to save the finished MKV and press Start Muxing.
   
10. Like the demux this will take a while depending on the files and the hardware in your PC, once complete you can play the MKV in your media player.

Job done.  Let me know in the comments if this worked for you.

Edit: See comments if you are getting an out of sync problem.

To convert your file use the following command.

ffmpeg -i “C:\videos\videoname.mov” -ar 44100 -ab 96 -f flv “C:\videos\videoname.flv”

• ffmpeg – runs the program
• -i “filename.ext” – input file
• -ar 44100 – audio frequency
• -ab 96 – audio bitrate
• -f flv – force format followed by format
• “newfilename.ext” – output file

I used these settings to convert some 500MB+ Apple Quicktime (MOV) files down to ~20MB FLV which were perfect for uploading to YouTube.

I have played it on PC and Xbox 360 and I would personally say PC is better.

Gameplay

The style of game is arcade, which surprised me as I was expecting a game to compete a bit more against GT5.  But that wasn’t too much of a problem as I prefer arcade driving games such as Need for Speed, although ProStreet was rather annoying.

I find the game is similar to Project Gotham Racing but only better looking.

A very nice feature of the game is something called flashback.  If you crash and write off your car you can use the flashback feature to rewind through the race and pick up from a certain point in which you can avoid the accident.  Not only is it a useful feature for when you crash but it is actually pretty good to use, it acts like replays do in any other game then you press the designated flashback button (F12 for PC, X for 360) and the game will carry on from that point.

Damage is also a very good feature which is a lot better than I thought it was going to be, which by itself puts it ahead of NFS:PS.

Another positive about the game which I haven’t seen used in any other game is in the profile system you can chose your firstname from a list so the computer can actually speak out your name rather than you having a set name like in NFS:PS or having name spoken out like in PGR.  All you do is type your firstname and surname in to the create profile screen and you are then given a list of names to chose from which will automatically select your firstname ready for confirmation if it is in the list.  The game contains male and female names as well as a list of nicknames.

Controls

I played both using the Xbox 360 controller and the controls just seemed a bit more responsive with the PC.  The plus side on the 360 is the fact that all the controls are on the controller.  Even if you use a controller on the PC you have to use the keyboard for some functions such as the flashbacks.

Graphics

Running on an E6750, 3GB ram, 8800GTS 320MB at 1920×1200 with AA set to MSAAx2 the fps stayed above 35fps at all times, staying around 40fps most of the time and graphically at this settings was better than the 360.  The 360 did look a lot better on the loading screens and menus though, I can only assume the PC version had a slightly degraded graphics for the menus and loading screens to make the game work on lower spec PCs.

The smoke from the tyres is very good though, a lot more impressive than NFS.

Conclusion

All in all I think GRID is a very good game.  Not a great game, but a good game. If you are tired of GTA IV or you don’t like GTA IV and no new good games come out then it is worth a purchase.

If you have a good PC with a wired 360 controller I would get the PC version, otherwise get the 360 version or if you don’t have a 360 and a shit PC, but have a PS3, get it for PS3. If you have none, don’t buy it…..

EDIT: I have found out that GameTrailers have done a side by side HD video of the GRID; PS3 vs Xbox 360.  From the video the graphics are almost identical, the only visible difference is that the PS3 colours seem to be a bit washed out in comparison to the 360 version.  You can watch the video here.

Gametrailers HD

Gametrailers SD

Software needed:

• VirtualDubMod – as of time of writing, v1.5.10.2

VirtualDubMod is an enhanced version of VirtualDub and is completely OpenSource.

First of all you need to locate the videos you want to join together.

Open up VirtualDubMod. If this is the first time you are running VirtualDubMod you will need to say Yes/Agree to the messages that appear then Start VirtualDubMod.

Once within VDM click File > Open. Select the first part of the video, the opening sequence.

You will get 2 preview screens in the program. The left hand one is the original, the right hand one is the one that has any filters you apply, these don’t really matter for joining videos.

Now, go to File > Append Segment. Select part 2 of the video. Press OK to append it. If you move the slider at the bottom across you will notice that the 2nd part has been put on.

Now go to Video, and select Direct Stream Copy.

Then to save the video go to File > Save As. And save the new video whereever you want to put it.

Job done.

Graphics

With the release of the full game we are now able to crank the settings up although I still notice the lack of AA which Epic seems to have forgotten or kept out of the Unreal 3 engine. Although saying that, the game really doesn’t need it if it hasn’t got any but that would surprise me. I can only assume that it has some AA perhaps 2x or 4x turned on permanently and cannot be turned off.

With the demo we were restricted to only the low to medium textures but are now graced by the high textures with the full retail game hiding in the 7.87GB of game data.

Gameplay

Gameplay for me is pretty much identical to Unreal Tournament 2004 but with a little difference that I am unable to put my finger on.

Multiplayer of course is the main focus of the game with the following game types:

• Deathmatch
• Team Deathmatch
• Duel Deathmatch
• Capture the Flag
• Vehicle Capture the Flag
• Warfare

Deathmatch - Free-for-all deathmatch.

Team Deathmatch – Team-based deathmatch

Duel Deathmatch – A one-versus-one test of Deathmatch skill. Whoever wins the round will take on the next spectator watching the carnage.

Capture the Flag – Team-based capture the flag. Invade the opposing team’s base, grab their flag and bring it back to your own to obtain glory.

Vehicle Capture the Flag – Team-based capture the flag with vehicles. Invade the opposing team’s base, grab their flag and bring it back to your own to obtain glory.

Warfare – Link togetherNodes and destroy the enemy Core in this team based mode.

Warfare of course is the old Conquest game mode but has been renamed with a few changes. Warfare is basically Conquest and Assault mixed together, word is some of the maps are 3 times bigger than the old UT2K4 Onslaught maps. There is also an orb which can be used to instantly capture the enemy nodes.

Single Player Story

UT3 introduces a story in to the campaign mode that I quickly tried out. The story is started off with a pre rendered video which is basically a human town getting attacked by the Krall who are the Skaarj from 2K4 which involves the main character, Reaper (you), to get badly injured. You are then healed by another race and aim to fight back but the race that healed you wants to do some jobs for them, which then puts you in a ladder sort of system with battles against AI with your teammates Jester (Repear’s sister), Othello and Bishop.

Other Stuff

A nifty little extra that I wasn’t aware of was the ability to customize your character. You had the option in UT2K4 but it was pretty much limited to set models and gave you the ability to change the colour of it.

You are first asked to chose your faction then you have a choice to edit certain features of your character to adjust it’s physical look by changing the items from the categories which are facemask, helmet, goggles, torso, shoulder pads, arms, thighs and boots.

This is rendered in real time using the game engine which is cool as well as useful.

More extra’s can be unlocked through progression of the game so you can customize your character even further.

Conclusion

UT3 seems like a good buy on my early thoughts and can only hope that the multiplayer is as good as the single player and I am sure will tempt over the Unreal Tournament 2004 players if they have the hardware required to run the game at least at it’s medium settings.