Windows Media Center in Windows 8

Now, about this title. Playing videos like that in Windows 8 can be an insane thing on tablet devices because I can assume that you can hook up the USB external Blu-Ray drive or DVD drive to do the watching. But, another assumption is that the performance can be kind of worse when watching Blu-Ray videos as the resolution is way too large. There will be retina display for Windows 8 devices so that you can get the exact pixels or even sharper visuals when watching Blu-Ray videos. And Windows Media Center for Xbox 360 has input delays when I use it, WTF? At least, I can stream videos and music easily on my Xbox 360 from my computer using the Metro style apps on the console but for Windows Media Center on Xbox 360, it was not an easy setup if you anyhow configure things on your computer.

In fact, Windows Media Player on Windows 8 will not have DVD playback support and there will be the successor of Windows Anytime Upgrade called Add Features to Windows 8. Hmm, the meaning of Add Features to Windows 8 is quite different than Turn Windows features on or off as all the features you can turn on or off are available on the source installed somewhere on your partition. For Add Features to Windows 8, you can notice that the lower the edition of Windows, the lesser the number of features on the source.

By getting Media Center Pack or Pro Pack, you can get Windows Media Center but that will likely happen in the final version of Windows 8 as the Release Preview is likely to use the highest edition but be warned, these packs are priced so are the prices of Windows 8 when the product is finalized.

You know what else was lazy? The DVD playback would not be included in Windows Vista Business and Enterprise editions and that was one lazy flaw although I can assume that Windows Media Center is there in those two editions. In Home Basic and below, there won’t be DVD playback so that they can be optimized for low-end computers. It’s the same for Windows 7 but for Windows 7, you get more freedom like that as Home Premium edition and above allow DVD playback. When upgrading to Windows 8, you’re going to need the Media Center Pack or Pro Pack in order to play DVD. Well that sounds kind of bullshit to price these packs for desktop and laptop users. What about using DVD related drive to install desktop applications for desktop and laptop users? Sure you can watch YouTube videos on TV via game consoles, computers hooked to TV or perhaps the TV with internet access but computers hooked to TV doesn’t count. For Pro Pack, it includes Media Center Pack in addition to upgrading to Windows 8 Pro where you can get Windows Media Center as well as DVD playback.

Windows Live Reimagined

Looks like Windows Live brand is going to be discontinued in the future and Windows Live accounts are going to be migrated to Microsoft account which is overall at the top level just like Apple ID, Google account, etc. Microsoft Account is the new identity service for individuals who use Microsoft products and services. In Windows 8, you can choose to login locally or by your Windows Live/Hotmail account. From there, you can check your billing for services like Xbox Live, Zune and Windows store. In fact, our Microsoft account is connected to Xbox Live Gamertag so you can track high scores and games in various ways. First way will be the Xbox Companion app for smartphone and tablet devices including Windows 8. Second will be your console and third is the website. Regardless of which way to track high scores and games, certain games are for other Xbox Live platforms such as Windows 8 Metro games and Windows Phone 7 games. It may be the same for Games for Windows Live. In next several months across the Microsoft product line, your Windows Live ID will be migrated to Microsoft account. That also includes other Microsoft services you’ve used that will be merged in the migration process.

Accessing your Microsoft account is like accessing Hotmail account where you can manage your contacts, calendar, inbox and cloud storage. With Windows 8 and Windows Phone along with certain desktop apps for Windows, they connect to your mail account as well. With Microsoft account, your devices are shared across all Microsoft products and services.

When you logon to Windows 8 for the first time using the Microsoft account, it uses cloud services to roam settings across computers running Windows 8. Along with the account, you get the Skydrive where your cloud data is stored. Also, you can use the Camera app to take photos and videos and then store them to your Skydrive. For Office documents, they are accessed via Office Web Apps or Office client applications. Man, there should be Metro version of Office, not the desktop one. How the heck can that app be used properly on the tablets?

Speaking of Social Networking, you can get contacts from your respective Social Networking accounts in your Hotmail contact list which was already way before Windows 8 existed in prototype form. With your Hotmail account connected to your Social networking accounts, you can mail or instant message your contacts that way from your device.

As Windows 8 is designed to be cloud-powered and similar to smartphone devices, it comes with Metro style apps for communication, sharing, scheduling, photos, videos and other stuffs. They are powered by cloud services which is thankful so that when you log on to your Microsoft account on multiple devices, your stuff stored on those apps will be the same on multiple devices as they are stored on the cloud. It may be similar to using Windows Live Mail and Messenger where your mails, tasks, contacts and calendar are stored in the cloud. For Windows 7 users, you’ll still be using the Windows Live Essentials applications.

Note: Unfortunately, additional apps like Movie Maker and Photo Gallery are not available in the Consumer Preview but it may be useful for me to explore the Metro version of Movie Maker to see if I can use that a lot.

Skydrive update

Looks like there are more account updates coming in. Starting today, the public work of mine will be shared on Google Drive and the new Skydrive in addition to my DropBox storage. As we already know, it is already accessible through mobile apps and HTML5 as well as Office and 3rd party apps. Last time, there was already Windows Live Mesh in which I’m already using to store my gaming related development works. However, that storage is as private as un-sharable to the public and it can be synchronized between the program’s separate Skydrive storage and my computers.

Today, there are newer features for Skydrive as of this year such as new storage options just like other cloud services, apps that connect your devices to Skydrive similar to other cloud services and the desktop app for the computer similar to other cloud services’ desktop apps. There’s also the Metro app for Skydrive but there’s no way the automatic synchronization can happen between your Skydrive cloud storage and your device. If there’s one, it can be on par but then this is Metro version so things are different. Imagine trying to synchronize your music, photos and videos from your phone’s storage to the cloud automatically through some app, that should be what Metro Skydrive can be. It may be great like that for Windows 8 like there may be some data installed for hidden desktop operation but what about other platforms then? At least, you can store your data to the cloud and depending on the location and device, you can retrieve your corresponding data from there and start working on.

• Skydrive Desktop Client – Just like DropBox, you can automatically synchronize data between devices and the cloud and manage your data on the devices you’re using.
• Fetching data – I bet that easy retrieval and access to data from your Skydrive cloud can be suitable to computers having the desktop app, non-desktop app or both. Moreover, there’s also the online Office app that you can easily open the office documents online through Skydrive or email without having the obtain the Skydrive app.
• Skydrive storage updates – As I’m the existing user, I already upgraded to 25GB for free as they are increasing the limit to 7GB. This is similar to other cloud services but higher the storage size can mean the higher the cost.
• Skydrive for other devices – More platforms will soon have Skydrive for sure for better management features and sharing options.

You can get the Skydrive desktop app like I already did and it’s compatible for Windows Vista and above.

Three months ago, they announced the Metro version for Windows 8, the desktop version and the feature called ‘fetch’ that allows you to remotely access data from a connected computer. Just like Windows Live Mesh, as long as your computer with Skydrive desktop app installed is turned on and connected, the data from that computer can be remotely accessed. The data on Skydrive mounted drive which is the mounted cloud drive on your computer can be done online and offline. When you’re connected, the service will check to see if the data is modified and then synchronize the updated data. If the data is removed on your computer, so is the one from your cloud.

In Windows 7 and 8, you can add the folders from Skydrive to the corresponding libraries but if you’re offline, I can assume that your Skydrive data is inaccessible, leaving the local data accessible.

You can also change the location on where your Skydrive data will be stored on your computer but that is during the setup and you can’t change the location after that. This is one mistake that makes Skydrive on par with other cloud services like DropBox but more will be implemented, pretty soon.

In order to do some fetching however, you will have to provide a second factor of authentication beyond your account password. You’ll need to enter the code that is sent on your mobile phone or alternate email address if you’re already signed in to your Microsoft account.

Today, the limit will be changed to 7GB but if you’re already an existing Skydrive user and I am, you can increase to 25GB for free like I just did. However, there are other storage plans you can use but they costly just like other cloud services. Also, as a Windows Phone or IOS user, with the latest update, you can delete, rename and move data on the Skydrive but is there a reason not to include the Copy feature?

Overall, I’m already using Skydrive desktop app in addition to Live Mesh so I’ll try to make today’s public work available on my Skydrive cloud storage as well.

Cave Goods Corner, their future sales in June

Looks like there’s one more Cave Festival before the closure of the online shop at the end of this month happens for real. This is indeed a sad month but the farewell actually applies to the Cave Festival as their future shop will be held somewhere in Kotobukiya which their shop will be opened there in June. That can be where you can buy stuffs from there. Certain examples you can buy are soundtrack CDs, home accessories that are tribute to the popular Cave games out there, bags and the list goes on. Their future shop will be located on first floor but you can take a look at the other categories that are tributes to other stuffs as well usually other games and animes and the shop contains multiple floors where you can find more of these there. What’s more, you can even see the display showcasing the promotion videos related to their corresponding products. Be it the existing games that are available for the arcades or consoles or the animes in OVA or TV series format that can be watched on TV channels or perhaps Blu-Ray and DVD. That depends on the promotion video but also take note that you have to know the dates of how things are likely to happen to the products. Let’s say that the game was recently released this year for the arcade, you have to know when it was released so that you can catch the opportunity to play it after the day of the release. Otherwise, perhaps the soundtrack CD of the game is something you may want to listen to instead after you’ve found out the game’s release date.

Now this may be a future opportunity to buy certain Cave accessories with simple cash but who knows if the soundtrack CD of Dodonpachi Maximum and Saidaioujou will be available again in June. The company does but then you can explore the area of soundtrack CDs related to respective Cave shmup games. I don’t know if they will be on sale again next month but still, we have to focus on what’s going on this month.

Project Diva Arcade May Update

Oh well, I guess that the April vacation was the last for me to enjoy as sometime between May and June, some sort of guessed catastrophe will arrive to burn the shit out of everything in the globe. In the meantime, the update will be released in mid May.

This update seems to be another interesting one ever since the February update. It consists of two songs from Project Diva Extend along with the new one exclusive to the arcades. Hopefully, those songs exclusively to the arcades will make it to the next Project Diva game on Vita and Playstation 3 but then the exclusive songs of this year make use of FMV sequences so porting those them to consoles will take up a lot of resources and it’s not an easy future to do that. The first song in this update from Project Diva Extend will be Ura Omote Lovers and holy shit, this song is not easy to clear in Extreme Mode next to Singing Passion of H****** M***. The same kind of problem in clearing such songs like this on the PSP version also applies to the arcade version. What’s not exactly the same though will be the beatmap and the gameplay system between the arcade and the PSP version. However, the good news is that you’ll be able to see the HD visuals of those songs from Project Diva Extend.

Cave shop will be closing at the end of May

It’s kind of regrettable to say the least but it seems that the Cave online shop website will be closed down at the end of this month. What’s the reason for this, I don’t know? I guess that the items representing their games are sold out of something. However, there will be future plans to add in additional items to the shop and they surely have one more game to be released this month for Xbox 360.

The title of the closure message says that it is a farewell to Cave festival and Cave Shop will be closing down. What games will they be working on next after Mushihimesama Xbox 360 port? Well, who knows? At Cave festivals, you can see the games that are on action including the accessories that are the tributes to the respective games. There are also CDs and other stuffs in which you can buy from as well. Also, the event already started late last month and the first item would have to be Dodonpachi Saidaioujou and Maximum OST CD. This on-going event will be over in May 6th at 11:59PM which is next Sunday.

By then, it looks like the ultimate catastrophic ending is likely to be coming closer with the shop being closed down at this upcoming future. But who knows if the shop will be opened again with newer additional items including those that are tributes to the recent games released this year? Will they develop more shmup games in the future starting from this month?

Next Project Diva Update

I thought that you might need to tap on the star symbols to the beat but I was wrong. You’re supposed to rub the screen to the beat and that is the new part of the gameplay mechanics. Now how the heck can this make sense like that? Can’t you slide on the screen up and down as if you’re acting like a DJ or something?

At Nico Nico Douga, someone took the videos and posted them as live footages to Nico Nico Douga of this game that is currently in development. So far, there are like two songs but the interface is starting to be changed as if this new Project Diva game will be like Project Diva 3rd or something. Other than rubbing the screen to the beat which is the new part of the gameplay, the gameplay still remains identical but then the bonus scoring mechanics are likely to be worked on. Hopefully, the songs in this sequel will be backported to previous Project Diva games but the new parts of the gameplay mechanics will be missing by then. If the songs from this sequel are in Project Diva Arcade, chances are that there will be graphical changes and the gameplay in the arcade version will be nothing new by then. At this rate, there’s no way the graphics engine can be changed like that. I can imagine that in the future or something, there will be a sequel to Project Diva Arcade with newer interface, newer interactivity and newer graphics engine that is comparable to this upcoming sequel for Playstation Vita and 3.