YouTube, Let's Plays, and Xbox Capturing

Hey Folks!

Welcome to whatever re-incarnation this will be!  Hopefully you found this blog by a google search or some other linked reference.  I have started working on my YouTube channel, no more Vlogs, I suppose those have been gone for quite some time though!  So now I am doing Let's Plays, I have about a month's worth posted, It also appears that YouTube is working on fixing an issue with my account.

So now I received an El Gato Game Capture HD this week, this weekend I will be starting a Let's Play of Batman Arkham City on Xbox.  I recorded an intro last night and will play tonight or tomorrow and start on the editing.  My next acquisition I need is a copy of Sony Vegas.  It is on my list, and it is only $100 but I can do what I NEED right now with Windows Movie Maker, however I would LIKE to be able to do noise cancellation on videos, some better effects, and maybe even some better looking renders.  As It stands with WMM if I import an elgato video (1080p, 30FPS) and cut off 10 seconds on the beginning the file size shrinks in half when WMM renders it, I don't need all that extra compression.

But I Digress, I will purchase a copy of vegas soon.  I will also license a copy of xsplit for live streaming if there are any requests or demand for it.

So For now, here is my Channel Intro.  Link Dump below





Channel:   http://www.youtube.com/user/vltek
Twitter:    http://www.twitter.com/shadowcvl
This Blog: http://shadowcvl.blogspot.com

My Letter to Directv

Ms. Filipiak,

I apologize for sending you this email directly, however I feel it may be best you know of my recent experiences with DirecTV customer service.

Full details of this can be found at a popular Satellite TV forum: http://www.satelliteguys.us/directv-forum/288473-i-need-little-help-dealing-equipment.html

I will paste the essential details here:

I have a HR21 in the living room and a HR20 in the bedroom

The 20 is the least issue, however its hard drive is getting so loud its starting to wake me up at night, I have had it since 2005/6

the 21... oh man

-I have to reboot it every 3-5 days because it locks up completely.
-I know you have to wait several hours before its usable again, but running a search on the box locks it up for 45 minutes MINIMUM, ive seen it take 90 mins
-changing channels - 2-5 minutes
-bringing up the guide or DVR list - 2-4 mins
-deleting recordings.... well I started deleting 5 episodes of top gear (SD) almost 30 mins ago... still going
thats all the big stuff

CSRs, called last tuesday, spoke to a guy, walked me through the troubleshooting, for 2 hours... most of that time was waiting for the thing to respond
he spoke to a manager/supervisor, then said they would be replacing it... confirmed the address, etc... he gave me a reference number but my dumb ass didnt write it down (I have only had this reciever for a year and last time it went smoothly)
Apparently he didnt notate the account or get an order in... I would guess it was a system flake but...?

So noticing no DVR today I call in to inquire.. nice lady answers and doesnt see me even calling in other than hitting the phone tree... wonderful... so I Am a little annoyed but nice to her, she starts walking me through troubleshooting... first step, swap the satellite cables... live.. ummm let me just send a voltage spike down the line... somehow it didnt fry anything thank god. of course that didnt fix the issues... next step... look at free space on DVR... 38% her words "that dvr only has 5 (not 500, and wrong anyway since it has 320) gigabytes of space, and it has to stay above 50% to work properly" i was befuddled, she even refuted my logic when I said the one in the bedroom sits between 3 and 5% free... she didnt get the fact that I dont set things to always keep... I know I need to keep some free space, but 50%.... noooope. She also went on to tell me that it is like a computer in that it has to have space to put things... I agreed, except that it deletes the oldest stuff when it needs to... so then she goes and I love this "well I Can offer you an upgrade for $200" my response was a belly laugh and a no, though I did press her for info on the model... an hr21-500... sigh.. I gave up and nicely asked her to transfer me to retentions...(this was over the span of the troubleshooting, a good 45 mins worth)

Enter Cancellations (yeah wrong dept, didnt realize it until later) I told the nice gentleman about my problems, asked nicely many questions about items available to me... best he could do to fix all my issues was to offer a 300 dollar upgrade to a hr34 and take the hr20 and replace it with a non dvr hd receiver... told him 300 was way too much (I would have taken 100 and possibly 2, I am not unreasonable, and havent had an upgrade in 5ish years) he said he could transfer me to retentions... oh crap... at this point I thanked him and got off the phone politely... 

So here I am asking for you guys thoughts and or help

Is there an executive escalations I can talk to (not retentions) I am not trying to get something for nothing, I am trying to be compensated for paying for service I am not getting, and willing to pay a little to get things resolved... seriously.

I am very willing to drop directv altogether, but I had dish in the past... didnt like the customer service... I can deal without the AMC networks. Other than that would be overpay for time warner... no way. If I have to suffer with dish for 2 years sobeit, but the hopper (yeah I know it has issues) would suit my needs just fine and is 99 dollars for everything I would need.

I would much rather stay with direct and either get 2 new/working good/properly DVRs OR go tot eh whole home HR34 and H(wahtever model) for the bedroom, I already have a H21 in my office connected to my slingbox and TV in there... I would move the bedroom receiver in the office but I foolishly didnt run 3 coax lines in here (1 is cable for modem) only 2.

I do not have DECA or SWM, I do have whole home over my Gig network (Directv is VLANed off)

I ahve done the factory reset about 9 times in the last year on the HR21.

And if anyone needs to know my background. I work in IT, I manage 2967 (actual number as of today) Servers (only about 900 are physical) for a large government entity.

Please help... anyone who has info on who I can call or email... I am going to attempt to refrain from calling tonight because I am very aggravated... 

I know it is just TV, thats why I am trying not to get too worked up about it.

That was my first post.  MY first call on the issue was July 3^rd

I took a few days to cool off and get all my ducks in a row, I called Friday the 13^th to find out if I was in contract, then spent the day Friday talking to dish sales and time warner sales.

Saturday the 14^th I called in to DirecTV to cancel.  Spoke to a very nice lady in retentions, after 30-45 minutes on the phone with her she managed to retain me, on one condition, that I get good working equipment.  She gave me all kinds of credits and even charged (then credited) 2 “Upgraded” receivers.  The basic gist of our conversation was that credits are great, except they are pointless if the equipment frustrates you to the point where you can not enjoy your entertainment.  She agreed and said she would do what she can to get 2 new receivers sent out.

Fast forward to Tuesday night (17^th) I got home from work, and there were 2 boxes from Directv on my stoop.  I opened the first one, an HR21, then the second one another HR21.

Let me pause here for a moment…  The HR21 is what I would call in the IT business the beginners box.  If you have never seen a different HD DVR operate it would probably be fine, for someone like my dad he wouldn’t even notice the slowness.  However for someone like me in the IT field (13 years of experience at this point if that matters for reference) the 21 line of DVRs are pieces of junk, they were slow when first released, but the new HD guide made them almost useless.  A search of programs should not take 45 minutes, nor should it take 3-5 minutes to change channel after the DVR gets more than 50 percent full.  There are some more in depth review of the 21 out there on the web, but there is a reason the warehouse is stuffed with refurbished ones

Back to Tuesday.  So I have 2 Refurb HR21s sitting at my house, first how is my “Paying” (it was charged after all, then credited) for an equipment upgrade of equipment I already have and getting the exact same equipment an upgrade.  I wouldn’t take your computer to my office dust it off, erase the hard drive, then bring it back to you and charge you for an upgrade.  But I digress, I will not install these, Slow Hunks of Junk, sure it will work fine for a day or 2, but once I record my usual stuff in less than a week itll be useless again.  I phoned up retentions again since there was a problem with my order through retentions.  Spoke to a nice lady who was surprised, at least she acted surprised, at the fact that not only did I not get new equipment, but that I knew what I was talking about.  After a few minutes of trying to figure it out she gave up and got a supervisor.  The nice gentleman spent almost 45 minutes trying to get me some newer equipment.  He, however, failed and sent an “escalation over to tech” and they should call me in 24 hours.  I was a little mad at this point but I did mention that this has been an issue for over 2 weeks and he said “if you haven’t received a call by Friday call us back”.  My response was that I would be for sure calling if I hadn’t received a call because I would be cancelling.

Today is Friday July 20^th, I have not heard a peep from “Tech”.  After my conversation with Retentions last Saturday I was glad to stay with Directv, everything would be ironed out right?  Wrong.  At this point I will be calling retentions this afternoon to cancel.  I have been with Direct since 2004, have not had any real issues until now, and was only late on 1 payment (I was switched to paperless billing a few years ago without knowing and without a paper bill at the time no bills got paid).  I realize I am 1 in 20,000,000 but in my life I am unique.  I am not asking for more credits, I am asking for 2 things: 1. Something be done so no more customers slip through the cracks (feel free to contact me if you would like more perspective) 2. please get me NEW equipment or I will have to cancel this evening.

I do not expect a response, however I will leave my contact info below, thank you for reading and have a nice day.

Christopher M Van Leuven

Cell xxx-xxx-xxxx

Office xxx-xxx-xxxx xxxx

Home: xxxxxxxx

Work: xxxxxxxxx

Why I HATE wireless carriers, phones, et al

I finally switched wireless carriers this year, 11 years with Tmobile and I was sick of them...

I got Tmobile in 2001, actually it was powertel then, but they changed names quickly.  I was mostly satisfied with the service, except where it didnt work.  Back then it wasnt uncommon for carriers not to have service in places like London, KY or in Lawrenceburg, KY but that has changed, in 2004 I noticed I had signal in London, and when I was shopping for houses I had signal in Lawrenceburg, yee haw.  Then it was the coming of the smartphone, in 2005 I got a Tmobile HTC Dash, the phone was awesome, it had windows and a full keyboard, I was High Falutin.  LAwrenceburg only had GPRS data, Frankfort in some places had Edge.. okay, no biggie, there is Wifi at home and where I was working.  Then I got an android phone, a Motorola Cliq, I was upsold on it at the tmobile store, but Motorola phones are generally pretty good.  So 3 months later when it started randomly rebooting I got concerned, Called tmobile, they replaced the phone, 3 months later same issue... called tmobile, they got motorola involved, after 6 months of dealing with tmobile trying to get a working phone the thing would reboot continuously until I would pull the battery and let it cool down, then I could get it working to send roughly 3 texts before it would reboot.  it was a known issue of overheating.  So I decided to change phones and got the HTC Mytouch 4g.  It was a top of the line phone, had every feature I needed.  even had 3g where I was working.  This phone lasted 6 months before it somehow corrupted its OS and hung in a continual reboot.  Wonderful, so I call tmobile and get a replacement.  Its working again.  But android was annoying me to death.  I had to reboot it 3 or 4 times a day or it would get so slow it was unusable.  even fresh out of the box it would do this.  No one has an answer on that.  Plus the android random restarts at least once a week, inevitably while I need the phone.

During all this time I got a used original iPhone right when the 3g iPhone came out.  Hacked it, got it on Tmobile and all was well, it was used on my spare line.  Thing is, the phone never had 1 issue, it always just worked.  That fact alone tempered my judgement, could a almost-smart phone actually fill my needs better than tempermental android.  If there is one piece of technology I need to always work its my phone.  My Cell phone is my lifeline.

So I need an iPhone, great, waht phone doesnt Tmobile have?  yeah, an iPhone.  And since Tmobile doesnt work in my building at work... time to make a change, but to who?

it stars on January Second, my odyssey into madness.

I need to switch 4 lines over, ATT is out becuase not only are they high priced, but also ranked the worst in all other fields, I have more negative experience with ATT than any company ever.

Sprint, okay I had issues with an AirCard with Sprint, but it was mostly due to my former employer ACS.  I start working with sprint on pricing and such to get 4 lines moved.  Everything is set, until they run my credit and only approve 3 lines... wait what?  I have 5 lines with tmobile, never paid late, my credit is very good, I just refinanced my house and bought a car, so its not as good as 6 months ago, but still very good.  Sprint refuses to budge... no idea why.

Verizon, whatcha got?  More expensive plans, no unlimited data, a comparable discount through my employer as they had with Sprint... Alright so I contact Verizon, get a call back in less than 10 minutes and we get the ball rolling.  2 iPhones and 2 flip phones for my parents.  no problem, the rep runs my credit to check if a deposit is needed.  Approved for 5 lines no deposit... what the hell sprint?  So we get the flip phones and iPhones ordered, flip phones show up first, then the iphones (they were on backorder).  The port ins took (and I kid you not) less than 5 mins per line.

My bill posted to the account this morning, it is within 2 dollars of what my tmobile bill was.  So I have the phones I want, on the #1 provider, and the bill is basically the same.  works for me.

EAAAAAA!!!!! (In best Kirk Voice)

Of all the times you needed to get it right, of all the years to put your absolute 100% best foot forward on consoles EA, you Fucked Up!  I suppose I shouldnt be surprised, after all it is what you are good at.

Let me qualify here...

I am NOT a COD Fanboy, as a matter of fact I LOVE the Battlefield Series, Ive owned them all, except 2142, I think it just hit at a weird time that I wasnt gaming on PC at all.

I dont game on PC anymore, it hurts my back because I get all tense in an office chair.  I could rig up something for the living room computer (its a last year high power machine hooked to my 65") but its not worth the effort when my 360 and PS3 are right there as well.

SO BF3 on 360, a different beast from PC, this is ONLY about the 360, because lets face it if you play COD the Majority is on 360.  BF3 has made great improvements over the last console iteration BF:BC2... of note are the server browser and ease of playing with friends.  It has the same flaws as public COD matches, but if you can get 12 friends going on one server you could occupy an entire team and use team chat.  problem 3/4 solved.  Still not as easy as COD, but when was the last time you could drive a tank in COD (Yes I know the Treyarch 3, and 5, which were... yuck) nevermind a helo or jet.

What is almost impossible to forgive though are the Dedicated servers.  Okay listen EA, I know you are going for a profit here, I know you are maximixing that profit.  BUT, what is the cost for leasing some extra servers (or BLADES) for say 2 to 4 weeks for launch?

Launch night was a DISASTER, I played 14 matches total.  Do you know how many actually completed without the server(s) crashing or the Bandwidth pipe causing a DOS?  2... Two... let that sink in for a moment.

Sunk in yet?  Ok Good, moving along... What are the implications for that?  well when the server drops/dies/is unreachable guess what happens to the points you had... they are gone.  By my best estimate I lost about 10000 points and unlocks/levels last night.  One match, and the one I almost threw my controller, I began at the beginning of the match, it was a very hard fought fight, I had 3000 points and the enemy team had 11 tickets left when *boop* black screen, then "EA servers unavailable"  I understand launch days can be screwy, thats fine, I fully expect the COD MW3 launch in 2 weeks to do the same(ish) stuff.  But I doubt Ill lose my progression when the network fails.  Thats a damn big one EA... and I mean DAMN BIG.

So Instead of being a level 3 when I next login on one of my 2 game nights a week I will still be level one with a whopping 2 matches played, and all that extra time is gone.

So, thats my rant.  I may write up a review on this game once I have played more matches, but I will definitely compare the 2 Shooters that are Directly competing this holiday.

and BTW EA unless Activision really badly screws the pooch on launch, you lost, that market share of the console shooters you were teasing activision about, enjoy that Crow taste, im sure its tasty.

I've got some Dust in my eye

Ah From Dust, where did you come from?

I have never really tried/gotten into these God games that are out there. None really appealed, well, with the exception of Sim City.  I used to play com city for hours, tough half the fun was cheating, building a huge city then triggering multiple disasters.

From Dust is a very cute game, yeah, I said cute.  It blends some incredibly beautiful visuals with some interesting character, and throws in some really nice gameplay.  It is not for everyone, I started playing this Tuesday night, played for maybe an hour, cleared a few maps.  Then I played Wednesday night, ran 4 maps, a Tropical Volcano, a Desert (more on that one), a Daytime Fire Island?!?, and a night time desert? (more on that last one).  I thought I had only played for an hour, turned out to be almost 4... oops.

So I am addicted to it while playing it, that's different, but not too new for me.  The maps so far have produced interesting challenges, specifically the Desert and Night Desert maps.  The Volcano was fun, no big challenge for me, the Fire Island one had no challenge at all for me.

The Desert map starts off with a little water and 3 springs sitting right in front of you, you clear off some brush and place your first village.  The game then tells you that it is too dry and that you need water to spread vegetation,  fair enough, so you move some of the water coming out of the springs and voila you have vegetation in the area.  I should note that the vegetation isnt required but it is part of the challenge.  Next I started clearing a path for my little guys to grab the repel water and next totem... then it happened, I hit another spring, crap its gonna flood my village, so I clear a channel for it to flow down, in clearing that channel i hit 5 more springs, this is a desert right?  After a long while of clogging springs and channeling water I got the 100% vegetation, but it wasnt a desert any more, looked more like a group of islands.

The night desert map was a neat map in that the center of the map acted like a see saw or one of those single pole single throw switches that rocks back and fourth, the trick here, water sloshes in that little area, and there is a totem at one end.  After acquiring the repel water power it was made easier, however there was some hilarity to be had right there.

So here I am talking about a god game.  It definitely has a lot of fun and character to it, but I found it to be an instant purchase after playing the demo.  So try the demo, if you dont like it, well then move on, but if you do, buy it.

http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/From-Dust/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d80258410a91

Trenched!!!

So... Trenched from Double Fine came out yesterday on the Xbox Live Arcade.


Did I really only pay 15 for this one?  yup

What makes me say that?  Several factors

1. 8-10 hour Story/campaign
2. 4 Player Co-Op
3. Robust Loot System
4. Very cool graphics
5. Upgradable/customizable mechs

Wow, all this from a 15 dollar arcade game.  This really sets the bar high.

I was fortunate enough to play a few hours of rounds with Finfan, Fin's son, Godkill, Tacoma, and a few others last night.  The game is good, you really have to think about turret strategy, on top of what loadout you are taking compared to others and what role you will play.  I will say that the loot/scrap is more scarce than I expected, but it adds to the challenge.  And the humor, wow, very well done, who lights a cigar with a gunshot... this game.

A little background on mech games for me.  Yes I loved Mechassault, and the sequel for the original xbox, fun, fun games.  Then came Chromehounds on the 360, I must have put 250+ hours into that game, when they shut the servers down I was heartbroken, but the community had waned considerably.  But the level of customization and depth of the online war was superb.  I will never forget going into battle with a loadout of 3 double howitzer/cannons (dubbed the T-Dub, or as Major 10 0 calls it the "Tripple Double") getting into position, someone spotting my shots for me and unleashing absolute hell on an enemy base from what would be miles away, and the joy when my spotter would say "Dead on" my response.. "Get the hell out of there, FIRING FULL EFFECT" and unholy fire would rain on that base, 6 explosive or incindiary shells at a time, I can even remember some more interesting designs on those mechs, or Hounds as the game called it.

Chromehounds will be missed, this game fills that void, less customizably, less persisent but for 15 dollars, hell I would pay 60 for it, and if Double Fine comes out with some DLC for it (Chassis, Turrets, MISSIONS) I am first in virtual line!

Have a great day!

ShadowCVL

Is an iPad a computer?

Hi everyone,

I am typing this out on my iPad somewhat ironically. Why you ask? Because until very recently I never understood what the hubbub was about surrounding iOS devices. I own an original iPhone I purchased from someone for 100 bucks and unlocked it for tmobile use. I used it for about a year But eventually realized that in comparison to android offerings and the lack of updates to iOS 4 I was Up a creek. So I set it aside and used it as an iPod (still do actually). I have an iMac at my house, but I boot camped it so it has a 450 gig windows partition and a 50 gig mac os partition.... Suffice it to say, well, I prefer windows over Mac os. I'm not die hard, I just have a preference.

So a situation presented itself recently where I could purchase a new iPad 2 for an incredibly low price, since I was really wanting a tablet, and at the time leaning toward android, I actually bought it. And I am so shocked. The Thing has not only replaced the netbook I keep sitting by the couch, but it makes it to my nightstand nightly. It's just so damned convenient. But does it do everything I can do on a computer? Nope, but it has filled a need.
I purchased a netbook a year Ago, barely used it. I purchased this 3 weeks ago and use it almost constantly. No I didnt get the 3G version, my android does free wireless tethering, without rooting.

So I look at the specs, it's a dual core 1 ghz processor with a dedicated graphics chip. Wait, huh? It's more powerful than that top of the line pc I put together in 2003 that sounds like a jet engine and is now relegated to running Linux? Yup... And it fits in my hands, is silent... Oh crap...and it plays games, very well. Yesterday I picked up dead space on it for a buck, WOW is all I can say. On top of that you have games like warp gate hd and angry birds, as well as plants vs zombies. And the screen is larger than a phone, I can browse the web in almost all it's glory, connect to my sling box at home, watch my Netflix and hulu plus. And the battery life? With my usage (A LOT) it hits about 75% by the end of the day, I haven't had it below 30, but that was 4 days of moderate use. I couldn't be more happy. So for now, the iPad has become my traveling computer, and gaming machine, and since I am not often home right now, I fills a very big need. So for the first time ever I am praising an apple product and I do feel it is worth it. Thanks apple!

A Gamer Lacking

For as long as I have been playing games (yes all the way back to Atari) I have loved the Flight Genre.  More so the Sims than the Arcades, but they each have their benefits and their drawbacks.  I remember buying Microsoft Flight Simulator back on DOS 5.0 and I sat there and flew that little Cessna for days and days.  Then I found the Jane's series of fighter pilot sims, again I sat and played for days and days.

All this stems from my love of flying, I always wanted to be a pilot, still do, and when I have a more stable life I will get my license.  My Gamertag/Nickname/Handle of "Shadow" came from playing Fighter Pilot games over LAN, and 14.4 modem, I was apparently my target's shadow, it stuck.

Fast forward to modern times and the modern generation of consoles.  Since the 360 is my primary platform let me list the flight games I currently own for it.

H.A.W.X.
Over G Fighters
Ace Combat 6 (Bought the big kit with the Flight Stick on this one)


I have owned Blazing Angels, and I think, Blazing Angels 2

The reason I still own the games above is simply because they are Good, Over G is the closest to a modern sim, HAWX is a great very arcadey game, and Ace Combat sits somewhere in between the 2.

All of these titles are good, but where is my GREAT title?  I see the new Ace Combat previews, and I see the next HAWX previews, but I wont hold my breath.

My biggest complaint with the current flight games, it has to be that no one plays these online...I would love to be up in the skies dogfighting again!

That is it for now.  Thank you for reading!

CVL

Redux

Wow, may 9th was my last post. Sheesh

Well it is time to start the blog anew.

First, why the reboot?

So much has changed... oh so much

But most importantly, I am now a podcaster and/or a games journalist

so here are some links to the cast/site. I will be posting here and there, I also am leaving old posts up, who knows someone might want an insight into my past sometime?

Twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/ShadowCVL

TheDeadRoomSite

TheDeadRoom Podcast:

iTunes
Zune
RSS

Glow Ball!

Don't know if anyone reads this but...

Its 1:14am and I just got home from my first time playing glow ball.

Its Golf at night with Glowsticks on the pins, in the cup, and in the ball.

Its hard as hell to even hit the ball strait but it is soooooo much fun

Special thanks to Bkingx and Jkeyes0 and some friends from work for making it a great evening!

AND I got to experience a new drink I hadn't tried, Captain and Coke, I don't know why I had never tried it before but its one of the best mixed drinks I have ever had.

Glowball gets a \nn/ from me, and so does captain and coke.

Today is Mothers day and I wanted to say to all you moms and grandmoms out there that includes moms of Humans and Pets, Happy Mothers Day, I appreciate you!

Everyone have a great rest of the weekend. Ill post some VLOG stuff soon!