My sons took these toys to nursery today.
#1 – a Lego fire truck
#2 – a Lego speed boat
Simulview and Dual Play
Simulview is Sony’s buzzword for displaying two player images on a 3D television so that each player sees only their screen. Essentially the shutters on the active glasses activate at the same time rather than alternately and so P1 sees only his/her image and P2 sees their image only. This is quite cool and displays (I assume) a 1080p picture to each player.
Downside: This only works on the Playstation Monitor.
DualPlay is the technology that LG have introduced to try and allow two players to see their own picture full screen. It has taken me four days to figure out how to get this to work (which is slightly embarrassing). DualPlay uses passive glasses with P1 having a left/left combination and P2 having a right/right combination. The standard two player screen (up/down or left/right split) is then stretched over the whole screen. This will work with most games with that picture split.
Downside: Aspect ratio issues.
I haven’t yet tried this on my TV but will soon. I am quite excited about it but also worried about the aspect ratio change. Nice of LG to think of gamers though.
New Aquisitions
So, it’s been a busy time. I have bought a new TV to replace my 40″ Sony that I bought in the summer of 2006. I don’t know if six years is a good length of time for a TV. I guess so. The problem is that I am an early adopter of technology [see this post here – currently in draft form].
The old TV was HD Ready which, it turns out, is only 720 lines of beautiful picture. It looked deep and gorgeous in HD. But it was time to upgrade. There were just too many TV advances for me to ignore anymore.
I now have an LG 3D TV. I went for 3D because Gran Turismo will output 3D and I like playing that. Do I think that 3D is a good cinema format? No. But for Gran Turismo . . .
Current TV Room Set Up:
Current Equipment:
- Television – LG 47LM670T
- AV Amplifier – Sony STR-DN1030
- BluRay player – Sony BDP-S790
- Satelite Decoder – Amstrad Sky HD
- Console – Sony PS3 320Gb
- Front left and right and passive sub-woofer – Bose Acoustimass Cube
- Active sub-woofer – Sony
- Centre, SL, SR, SBR, SBL speakers – Sony
When I get the chance I also use a Logitech Driving Force Pro steering wheel.
Toys of the Sons Part 28
Now have two boys taking toys to nursery.
#1 took these:
#2 took this:
Lego 9 Model 4208
Uncle Jase will be proud. A fire truck from Lego City.
Lego 8 Model 4432
Here’s a rather cool rubbish truck from Lego City. Ran out of superglue! Have to rebuild it in a few days!
Angel
Here’s a picture of the guardian angel I have looing over my Christmas tree. We have a non-religious star at the top of the tree and this chap is standing to attention just below that. It’s nice to consider him overlooking the children and keeping an eye on them. Much like Obi-Wan in this comminication.
School Visit
My sons wanted their bedtime toys to come to work with me today. So Rabbit and WooWoo sat in the front seat of the car so they could see where they were going. Then a bit later in the day I took them into my classroom. Here they are in front of my desk and visualiser.
Rabbit and WooWoo in my office at work.
Lego 7 Model 4641
Here’s the speedboat I glued for #2 son. He’s not seen it yet. Probably show him in the morning. Loving Lego.
Lego 6 Model 4427
Here’s Lego model 4427 made for #1. Still super gluing the bits at the moment as #2 might eat small parts!
Toys of the Son Part 27
Here’s what #1 took to nursery today. A couple of aeroplanes!
Toys of the Sons Part 26
This is what both boys took to nursery today. We have two airplanes to save arguments.
Toys of the Son Part 25
Here’s a picture of the toy that #1 took to nursery today.
Toys of the Son Part 24
Here’s what my boy took to nursery today.
Toys of the Son Part 23
Here’s today’s toy that #1 took to nursery. Uncle Jase would be proud.
Toys of the Son Part 22
Here’s what #1 son took to nursery today. It’s a lovely firefighting hovercraft.
GTune5
I’m happy.
There’s a Gran Turismo application (or program to someone my age) for the iPhone. It’s called GTune5 and is an app that should make the tuning of cars easier.
I think the idea is that it will give you settings based on a car set up you like and translate them to other cars. So, I like some oversteer in my cars and the app will allow me to recreate that in other cars once I enter the details for a car I can really handle well.
Lovely. Now I just need some time to play the game!
Find me on PSN as Kertz.
Just Rubbish
Bought a toy rubbish truck for #1 and he loves it. He played with it for two hours straight yesterday. It makes some noise and flashes lights, the rear door opens to retrieve the recycling and best part of all is the motorised bin arm that takes the yellow bin and deposits its contents into the truck. He woke at 530 this morning and the first thing he said was “can I play with my rubbish truck”.
GT5 Set-up
Here’s a picture of my Gran Turismo set up. There’s a big tv with home cinema 7.1 sound and my music playing using GT5’s jukebox function (shame it doesn’t run from a NAS drive though). Anyway, here’s my Logitech (their stuff is brilliant) Driving Force Pro wheel attached to the force feedback stabiliser (ironing board).
Not Symmetrical
This is probably my best train set up so far. All pieces used and no funny angles, you can bend the joints a bit to “make” a track fit, but none here!
Now I just need to keep this map handy so I can recreate this when needed.
