Erkki

Finished Goodbye Deponia. I have to agree with John Walker's review on RPS (too lazy to find link) -- Rufus is even more annoying than before (in the first game it was tolerable to me), and there are some things that are really hard not to take as racist and misogynist. Indeed the developers seem to lack taste. But there were some pretty good moments in this one too. Sadly, the game seems to end with another cliffhanger so we can probably expect another one, with possibly an even more annoying Rufus.

Actually the more I think about HDBaseT, the more I think that maybe I don't want a Steam Box or living room streaming PC. If it could really deliver everything over a cat5, why not just hook up input devices to a HDBaseT device, and the other end similarly, to the powerful desktop computer.

Apparently it also delivers USB 2.0? http://www.cepro.com/article/why_hdbaset_2.0_is_so_awesome_usb_and_multipoint_video_distribution/ Although... (from August)

Have you heard of HDBaseT -- sends several kinds of signals (including HDMI and Ethernet) over ethernet wires. I don't know how well it works, I just recently read about it. (of course, this is assuming you have ethernet wires in walls) [edit] Also it sends control signals, which I wonder if can be somehow adapted for game controller signals.

Wasn't this at IGF several years ago? Like maybe 5 or 6 years? [edit] Hmm... maybe not IGF, and maybe not so long. I found something on a forum from 2010:

What did you try? Was input the only problem?

The characters still look very 320x240. Were backgrounds updated or something? (I still haven't played it)

Got blackout curtains installed today! Day-time projection is now more feasible. Also ordered some speakers which have a DAC and digital input, for testing the system before I get a real DAC+amp. I'll replace my old crappy computer speakers with these later.

I played Firefly, but we didn't finish it (in 4 hours including rules intro!) because one person had to leave. It seem like a good game to me, although could have been I just enjoyed the company more than the game itself. I want to play a full game or two before making a final judgment. I don't think I've played many similar games so don't have much to compare it to -- maybe Merchants & Marauders. M&M is certainly better, I think, and simpler with cleaner systems. This game might just try a bit too hard to tie things to the show without really getting to the kernel.

Great! I've been hoping they'd introduce some new (sub)systems.

Found this website that rates games based on how well they work in 3D. Some more games I think I'll be trying: Stalker Shadow of Chernobyl, Batman: Arkham City, Metro 2033, Mount & Blade, FlatOut, Just Cause 2, LIMBO

Update: I also tried Sir You Are Being Hunted, which looked awful, and HL2: Ep 2 is so-and-so. Any water or liquid is nauseating to look at due to wrong depth or something, and when you are really close to someone, you feel that your weapon should go through them, but is just overlaid on top and looks really bizarre.

BenQ W1070 -- so far it seems really good, but I don't have anything to compare it to. I also considered some others, you may want to check the "Building a Home Theater" thread in Idle Banter

If you have a chance to play The Witcher 2 in 3D, do it! Looks awesome, as if the game was made with 3D in mind. I noticed details I had never noticed before (even though the resolution got smaller), and some of the sign effects looked really nice.

It wasn't completely awesome all the time, though (but I was projecting on a brown wall, so maybe it's better with a proper screen) -- I didn't notice much of the 3D effect on the colossi, except on rare occasions when climbing them and their movement caused a sudden change of perspective.

Just got my 3D glasses and watched a bit of Life of Pi and played Ico and Shadow of the Colossus*. Life of Pi was pretty good, but in the games I couldn't always see much difference. Occasionally both Ico and Shadow of the Colossus looked great in 3D, though. Ico had an almost tilt-shift like look with some camera angles. I suspect generally 3D might be better when the camera doesn't move much? * projected on my brown wall, still haven't set up the screen.

Wow, I didn't realize this HD remastered version had 3D support. I just got my 3D glasses and tried it, it was occasionally quite nice, especially when riding Argo and climbing colossi.

Ditto.

I watched the KS video but I don't understand how it works... it's a projector in the glasses, but the images in the videos didn't seem to move with peoples heads?

Yeah, I wonder if I should add a small wooden frame for the velvet, though, or just put it on the hardboard directly. The thing has almost exactly the height of 96" diagonal screen, which is a good size, so I don't have much room for top/bottom borders.

Ordered! Watched a video, those seem great!

The piece I got was a bit wobbly initially, though. I put it under some weights and will keep it there for a couple of days to make it straighter, but I wonder if I should use magnet spacers (for lack of a better word) or something to keep it straight on the wall. I haven't thought through how to attach it yet.

I just went with what people I know have used. Could be that it's not the best, but as I said earlier in this thread, the projector even managed to put a pretty good picture on a normally painted off-white wall. The hard fibreboard is very smooth on one side, and I will just apply that matte light gray paint, and maybe cut it to image size or add some black light-absorbing edge material. This is what the material looks like:

Bought some materials for building a screen for 15€! Those expensive screens can go fuck themselves. I don't know what exactly it's called in English, maybe "hard fibreboard". In Estonian we say "Finnish cardboard". And some light gray paint (Tikkurila Harmony F500). We'll see how it goes. Now I need to find some instructables... I heard you have to apply some other materials before coloring to get a good screen...

Damn it, I can't decide whether to stay with the stereo plan or go for 5.1 sound. I've never experienced proper surround sound (outside of cinema) so I don't know what I'm missing. I know I'll probably be content with stereo, but maybe surround would be really awesome? Here's what my room looks like: It's probably a bit weird to build a home cinema into a room shaped like this in the first place, but whatever, I like how my apartment is laid out. However, is 5.1 even going to make sense here? The screen is offset to the left compared to the couch (it would be almost as wide as the whole wall where the TV is on the diagram) -- it's fine enough for viewing, but I'm afraid the weird shape of the room is going to mess up the sound anyway, so maybe there isn't even a point for going with more than stereo?