Topics

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / "Insanity" mentionned as one of the "Top 5 New Games for Old Consoles".]

Not sure if this is the right forum section for this.

But the PCE, and more specifically, "Insanity" was mentioned as one of the "Top 5 New Games for Old Consoles".

http://www.blisteredthumbs.net/2010/12/the-pipeline-top-5-new-games-for-old-consoles/

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Issues in capturing TG (and PCFX video).]

I'm running into issues trying to capture video from my TG and PCFX (and several other consoles older consoles).  (I'd rather capture the video from the consoles themselves instead of emulators.)

I currently have 3 capture devices:
-An analog video to firewire device (Pyro A/V Link not quite the same as this model: http://www.adstech.com/products/API-558-EFS/intro/API-558_intro.asp?pid=API-558-EFS)
-A "computer less" pinnacle video-transfer device: http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/us/Products/Consumer+Products/Home+Video/Studio+Family/Instant+Video+Recorder.htm
-An an EyeTV hybrid video tuner: http://www.elgato.com/elgato/na/mainmenu/products/hybrid/product1.en.html

The Pyro A/V Link will record video from the consoles but it glitches every minute or so:
Examples on Sega Master System: http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-5869888825088850608&q=source%3A003238456617692569006&hl=en (first example around 1:06 you get weird artifacting and then sounds goes off for about 20 seconds)
It's more tolerable on some Vic-20 footage, sound just goes weird every 15-17 seconds for a second or two: http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=2511325464732023392&q=source%3A003238456617692569006&hl=en

I don't have any TG footage yet.

The Video Transfer just doesn't detect the video signals from any old consoles I tried (except my 3D0) and won't begin recording.

The tuner seems to be more forgiving, but it's currently being used as my PVR and is getting enough use that I don't want to try and move it around to record the occasional video.  And I would like to just use the Video Transfer for recording which saves me from dragging my consoles two my computer (or vice-versa). ;)

I was suggested to try and use a TBC, but I don't feel like spending a bunch of cash on something that just might not work.

I looked around and here's what I can find:
90$: http://www.converters.tv/products/ntsc_to_ntsc/55.html   (Doesn't say "Time Base Correction" just sync restoration?)
270$: http://www.hallresearch.com/page/Products/TBC-100

Some of the PAL/SECAM/NTSC converters say they have time base correction built in and vary from 130$ to 250$.  This could work if I'm able to go from NTSC to NTSC (but I doubt it):
-http://www.world-import.com/international-kdv-6000-pal-video-converter.htm
-http://www.220-electronics.com/kdv5000.htm
-http://www.world-import.com/cmd1500.htm

I wasn't able to find the one here: http://www.unterzuber.com/TBC.html .  The company that made the video scaler with TBC functionality discontinued their video conferencing to go with audio conferencing.

I'd rather not spend over 100$ for an experiment.

[Off-Topic / eBay bans sellers from posting negative Feedback?]

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/...ome=1202421391

eBay Stirs the Pot With Seller Feedback Ban
By Erika Morphy
E-Commerce Times
02/07/08 10:38 AM PT

"When a buyer pays for the item but has not received it, the buyer has completely fulfilled their obligations to the eBay community. Thus, they should receive positive feedback. They bought and paid for the item," said Anthony Citrano, who uses eBay to buy and sell photography. "However, sellers play this game of 'feedback hostage,' where they hold out the specter of no feedback or even negative feedback."

eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) Latest News about eBay has taken the controversial step of banning sellers from posting negative comments -- or even giving neutral feedback -- about the buyers with whom they do business. The new rule, which will take effect in May, is apparently a reaction to sellers flaming buyers who posted negative information about them.

eBay's announcement of the rule change earlier this week prompted a tidal wave of complaints about sellers from buyers -- who, not surprisingly, support the new rule.

It also sparked criticism of buyers by sellers -- some of whom are threatening to boycott the feedback option all together.

Members of both groups have expressed ire over eBay's inability or unwillingness to do a better job mediating buyer-seller disputes.

Sellers fear they will be held hostage to vindictive buyers who will still be allowed to post negative comments about them. However, "there are new protections being put into place for sellers as well," eBay spokesperson Nichola Sharpe told the E-Commerce Times.

eBay's new policy will include removal of negative feedback from buyers who did not pay for their goods, for starters. It also will require a buyer to wait three days following completion of a transaction before posting a negative comment. This is to guard against impatient buyers who may have unrealistic ideas about shipping speed.
Firestorm of Complaints

eBay decided to impose the restriction against sellers' negative comments because it found that the transparency made buyers reluctant to provide honest feedback, Sharpe said.

That may be an understatement. It is not difficult to find buyers unhappy with their eBay experience precisely for that reason.

Jennifer Goodwin, founder of an online business administrative service, told the E-Commerce Times that she has bought at least two items -- a US$5 bed light for reading and a designer sweat suit -- with which she was unsatisfied. After her first experience of receiving unfair seller feedback, she decided to avoid the entire process altogether.

With respect to her first purchase, the seller never sent the item, "and then acted like a crazy e-mail E-Mail Marketing Software - Free Trial. Click Here. maniac, complete with harassing threats," Goodwin said, adding that eBay suspended the seller but left the negative feedback associated with her username.

She did receive her second purchase -- but said it wasn't the right size and was clearly not a designer brand.

"I am too scared to leave negative feedback," Goodwin admitted. "I want to be fair and truthful but not at my own detriment. So the item sits unused and money is wasted." Goodwin, needless to say, was very happy to learn of eBay's new rule.

So was Dan Pritchett, vice president of marketing and business development at Logos Research Systems, a maker of Bible study software -- even though he no longer uses eBay.

A few years ago, Pritchett saw a copy of his company's software offered on eBay and bought it, suspecting it was a pirated version. He was right, he told the E-Commerce Times, but playing his hunch proved to be more trouble than it was worth.

When contacted about the legitimacy of the sale, the seller began a calculated campaign of harassment, culminating with mailing gay porn to Pritchett at his workplace.

eBay was unsympathetic to his problems, Pritchett said, and even shut down his account because of the seller's accusations.

Sharpe said she could not comment directly on Pritchett's situation for privacy reasons. However, she emphasized that eBay fights aggressively against software piracy through its Verified Right Owners Program.

"We don't want pirated information on our site," she said. "It's as simple as that."
Quid Pro Quo

Even if a buyer doesn't have a horrific experience with a seller, there is an unspoken assumption of quid pro quo that makes many buyers uncomfortable, Anthony Citrano, who uses eBay to buy and sell photography, told the E-Commerce Times.

"Many sellers ... do not leave positive feedback until they have received positive feedback on the transaction," he said.

"When a buyer pays for the item but has not received it, the buyer has completely fulfilled their obligations to the eBay community. Thus, they should receive positive feedback. They bought and paid for the item," Citrano reasoned. "However, sellers play this game of 'feedback hostage,' where they hold out the specter of no feedback or even negative feedback."

That's what happened to Citrano. "I merely left a neutral piece of feedback on a lame seller and was immediately hit with negative feedback -- despite having paid for the item within an hour after buying it."
The Power of Word of Mouth

It's easy to understand the flood of emotions eBay's new rule has unleashed, said Michal Ann Strahilevitz, a professor of marketing at Golden Gate University, who does research on the influence of word of mouth.

Its power "is undeniable," she told the E-Commerce Times. "While companies are focusing great efforts to work on spreading positive word of mouth, it turns out negative word of mouth is even more powerful, and more companies are realizing they need to put as much, or more, effort in reducing negative customer feedback."

It is unfair to give buyers this powerful leverage over sellers, Strahilevitz concluded.

Indeed, eBay sellers are voicing their own strong opinions about the rule change. "This will have devastating effects on the whole feedback system," Nancy Baughman, founder of eBiz Auctions, told the E-Commerce Times.

It is not this change alone, however, that is making sellers so unhappy, she noted. eBay recently instituted a new fee schedule and other rules that sellers feel are detrimental to their operations, if not margins.

The new feedback rule is particularly obnoxious because it gives buyers' absolute power, Baughman said. "Human nature being what it is, people will use the system to take out their frustrations on things that are out of the seller's control."

Also, the system now leaves sellers completely vulnerable to buyer fraud. She told of one buyer who purchased a $1,200 camera from her -- then contacted her to say it was broken and needed $250 worth of repairs. If she didn't send the money, he threatened, he would post negative feedback about her.

After tracing this particular buyer's activities on eBay, Baughman realized such demands were part of his MO. "He would buy something, claim it was broken, and then turn around and resell it on eBay," she said.

He was also 17 years old, Baughman subsequently discovered. She put a halt to his activities after contacting the boy's mother.

Sellers are likely to boycott the feedback system once the new system is in place, Baughman said. "If we can only leave positive comments, then we won't leave any comments at all."

She would have preferred a modified change to the feedback system to give sellers some voice in the process, as well as a more concerted education effort on the part of eBay so that buyers could better appreciate how the system works.
Working It Out

Improving communications between buyers and sellers would also go far in settling disputes when they arise, Cody Goehring, a publicist for Phenix and Phenix Literary Publicists, told the E-Commerce Times.

A few years ago, when he was studying for the LSAT, Goehring bought a prep CD pack from an eBay seller. "When I got it in the mail, I realized he had sent me the 2005 version, not the 2006 version as promised. When I contacted him about this, he never got back to me."

Goehring gave him a poor rating, and saw a few days later that the seller had given him a poor rating as well -- presumably in retaliation for his initial feedback.

"However, his bad rating encouraged me to do some research, and in doing so, I discovered that his primary e-mail address wasn't the one that he had registered with eBay/PayPal, which is why he never got back to me. After contacting him, he explained the story to me of why I got the 2005 version," Goehring said. They ended up rescinding their poor ratings of each other.

"Because of my experience, I can see both the bad and the good sides of this new policy," he said. "Sellers will no longer be able to retaliate with poor ratings when buyers rate them poorly, and this will allow buyers to give poor ratings -- if accurate -- without fear of getting a poor rating back."

The disadvantage, though, is that without the poor rating from the person who sold him the LSAT CD, "I would have never realized that the problem wasn't entirely the seller's fault. This allowed us to work together to resolve the problem, instead of both of us being mad at each other."

[Off-Topic / Need motivation to do house work?]

My wife sent me this link...  Hopefully she isn't trying to tell me something.
http://www.chorewars.com/index.php

[General Gaming / TRU Canada Sale.]

Don't know how many Canadians are on here.

Just wanted to give a heads-up for a sale happening at TRU this week in Canada.  

The most important is the Buy 1 Get 1 Free XBOX games sale.  (Just make sure you have seperate transactions for the various prices as it will only remove the lower priced titles.  [I.E.  If you have two 39.99$ titles and two 29.99$ titles, it will charge you for the two 39.99$ titles and give you the 29.99$ free.  If you put both 39.99$ titles together in one transaction, you pay 39.99$, and then have the 29.99$ titles together in another and pay 29.99$.])

After that, there is 5$ off some portable Mario Games (Super Mario Advanced, Mario Kart DS, etc.)  7$ off Mario Strikers and Baseball (GC).  There is 7$ off Lemmings and a soccer for the PSP...

[Off-Topic / Canadian Movie: Bon Cop Bad Cop]

Okay, people on NG.com will probably have read this already.

"Bon Cop Bad Cop" is a fun Canadian movie that's now  in theaters (I don't know how far the release has been, it would be interesting if anyone outside of Canada could let me know if they heard of it?)

Essentially, it's a play-by-numbers odd-couple buddy cop movie (Lethal Weapon, 48 hours, etc...)  It doesn't really invent anything there.  The difference is that you have one cop from Ontario (Toronto) and another from Quebec (Montreal).  The film's dialogue is both in English and French (about 50% each time).  One cop is the by-the-books and hoping to get a desk job, the other is a reckless loose cannon.  The film pokes some fun at the differences between francophone and english stereotypes and the clash of cultures but luckily it doesn't limit itself to this.

Both lead actors play each other very well, and for the most part the supporting cast is pretty good.  It's far from a perfect movie, but much better then what I was expecting. (I was expecting a low-budget film that would be 2 hours of each "side" lobbing the same tired jabs at each other.  Apparently the film actually had an 8 million dollar budget, which  is amazing for a Canadian film.)

The alternating of languages didn't bother me since it seems like this movie was tailored made for someone of my background (Franco-Ontarian).  Although I was occasionally following the subtitles used for the translations of the french speaking parts and I could tell that people dependant on them will miss some of the humour.  However my wife enjoyed the film, and she really liked one of the supporting characters (who is speaking very quickly in French).

The action is decent, although it's not quite the same level as big-budget Hollywood blockbusters.  I'm definately going to get the DVD when it's released.  It's doing quite well in Quebec (but then again, Quebec does have a healthy film industry with people that actually go and see these films).

I'm not saying that it's a ground breaking film, but it's a nice fun brain-dead film.  It has its flaws, but overrall it's enjoyable.  It's probably one of the few canadian films that have a more mainstream feel to them. If you're interested in watching it, you might want to catch it soon, however.  Outside of Quebec, home-grown films aren't very well supported.

Here's a link to IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0479647/

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / My SuperGrafx is DEAD?!]

Let's see... I just shipped out my spare CoreGrafx in a trade and I also after all these years get my hands on a 1.0 CD System Card.

I plug in my SGX + CD rom, put the card in it and turn it on... except nothing shows up on screen!

I turn everything off, unplug the CD rom, put in a HuCard and turn it on and nothing.  

I don't think that I shipped the wrong power supply with the CoreGrafx as if I remember correctly the CoreGrafx power supply doesn't fit on the SGX or the CD Rom.

Anyone have any ideas?  Do people have the specs to the power supply?  I can try a universal one to see if it's just a problem with the powersupply...  But at the moment it doesn't look promising.

[PC-FX Discussion / Support Q:Audio garbled/muted during FMV sequences]

Hi,

I just received my PCFX last night.  It came with Battle Heat and Team Innocent.  I also had two demo disks that came with those Super PCEngine magazines (I have volumes 1 and 2).

While playing the FMV intros of Battle Heat and Team Innocent, the audio would occasionally cut off, but the video more or less kept playing uninterrupted.

The system also had a bit of difficulty reading both demo disks at first, but then it seemed fine.  On one of the demo disks, there's a Yuna demo, and while some of the FMV sequences were playing there seemed to be issues were the audio was completly mangled (loud white noise) and at one point the audio seemed to be out of sync with the video?)  

Any recommendations?