Still Kicking

No, I haven't died, and no, I haven't been slacking.

A couple of weeks ago, I put up videos for Mega Man 2, and the most anticipated titles of this year.  Because I fully believe in coming back to this in a semi-regular fashion, I upgraded my studio a little bit, and decided to get a more streamlined video recorder.

Therein lies the problem.  You see, my PC is not powerful enough to handle the MP4s that I have been creating.  All weekend long, I was struggling to figure out why the videos that I was making wouldn't work, or were suffering from ridiculous dither or aliasing.

I recorded probably 4 hours of Far Cry 3, and put together a somewhat decent review early last week.  However, every time I tried to throw a transition onto the video track, my editing program of choice would crash.  After trying everything I could for two days, I decided to try and upgrade to the newer edition of the program in the hopes of having fewer problems.  As it turns out, Power Director 8 can't handle the MP4s with the high quality I recorded, but Power Director 11 can.

The new problem that I encountered was the aforementioned dithering and aliasing.  While the production video looks and plays without any issue, when I publish it to YouTube, the thing looks like absolute crap.  Blocks show up all over the output file, and make what looks beautiful look like it's having a seizure.  After messing with settings all morning on Sunday, I finally just threw in the towel.  Until I get a new PC, it looks like the videos are going to remain in 720p quality.

That said, the old Power Director program that I had still can't run the video files even in production mode.  The version of Power Director 11 that I'm currently using is only a trial version, so it has that nice watermark in the beginning of the video.  I can sacrifice some quality, but I'm not going to do that.  With that in mind, the more modern videos are going to be put on hold until the middle of February when I get my tax return and can better afford the program.  Cross your fingers that it's a big one, and maybe I'll even upgrade my PC so that I can produce files at 1080p as well.

In the meantime, I'm going to try and shift my focus to the retro reviews again briefly.  I can still produce them on PD8, and I've got a huge backlog of them to put out there, so be on the lookout for that.

And in other news, the That's Entertainment Podcast wasn't able to record today, thanks to a sickly cohost.  With that in mind, a quick rundown of all I was going to talk about during the show:

• Still love the Cheesecake Factory.  Had a Filet Mignon that melted in my mouth.
• Hansel and Gretel was a decent popcorn flick movie.  It's not going to win any oscars, but if you want to see a movie that doesn't take itself seriously but is still ridiculously fun, go to see this.
• Dishonored is the kind of game where even if you're decent at it, you still feel like you're an incompetent fool.

With that, I'm out peeps!

Back in Business

Finally, I've got some really good news.

That's Entertainment has been in a massive upswing for at least the last couple of months.  The podcast is back, we've got some games on the site, and I even managed to put up a few videos recently.

I'm going to be able to get back into it a little more, now, however.  A few days ago, I purchased a Hauppage HD-PVR device so that I could record software a little easier. 

It's like it's scanning my body for weak points.

Before, the process was very cumbersome, convoluted and expensive.  I had a DVD recorder, which of course had size limitations.  I was only able to record about 4 hours worth of material, meaning that I had to be very careful about what I was recording.  Typically, I could only fit about two games on each DVD.  On top of that, using the DVD recorder meant playing the game with downscaled, standard definition graphics.  In order for me to give each game an objective, unbiased review, I had to play through them twice - once in HD, and once in SD.  It really was a pain in the ass.  On top of that, I had to write the reviews, edit them, record the audio... it was all very time consuming.

Now, I can at least cut back on some of the redundancy.  With the Hauppage, I can record in high definition, straight away.  My first experience is the most important, because I'm more patient, I'm more eager to find secrets, and I'm taking in all that the game has to offer.  Also, because the Hauppage let's me record straight to a PC, the size limitation is practically eliminated.

I had some fears with the device until yesterday.  Whenever I recorded, the presentation was fine.  The raw production didn't have any issues either.  It was only when I was looking at the converted MP4 file that the video looked like absolute dog shit.  I wasn't sure what was going on.  There was no real reason, as far as I could tell, that the video would be that ugly.  I downloaded quicktime to try and see if a different video player would make it look better.  No dice.  Running through the jungle in Far Cry 3 was like stumbling down the stairs after a drunken night of debaunchery.  It looked awful.

Finally, I tried to see what it looked like on my other PCs.  Thankfully, everything turned out fine.  They're a little more up to date, and even the files that were saved on the PC for recording looked as perfect as they did while I was recording.  So, for anyone that has a Hauppage, or is interested in buying one, keep that in mind if your first experience with it isn't positive.

All that said, the device is still a clunky beast, with so many wires it makes the Kraken from Pirates of the Caribbean jealous.

So, with all that said, it's going to be much easier for me to get back into the game a little bit.  I'm mostly going to be playing catch up, because software still costs money.  Whenever I can, though, I'll get new videos up, in addition to retro reviews and lost gems.

The That's Entertainment YouTube channel may also feature second opinion pieces soon.  My girlfriend, Rhianna, is considering offering a more feminine perspective on certain games, like Skyrim, Dragon's Dogma and Dynasty Warriors.  It should be interesting, especially considering she gets bad vertigo - don't expect her to review any high speed racing games, is what I'm saying.

Still, despite the growth that That's Entertainment is seeing, the books still have to take up most of my attention.  I'll try and be fair to both of my passions, though.  While it is a slow march forward, I am coming back to YouTube, and this time, I'll do my best to stick around.