Itchy Fingers and Dreamworlds

I have that Itchy Fingers feeling again, which probably means I'm going to buy something expensive sometime soon ...

I'm going to leave the Airport Express until Xmas/Birthday time, as that will at least leave Something for people to get me that I haven't already acquired. See it, want it, buy it is what I tend to do. Unless it's expensive or I've got something that does a similar job already. And then I'll research the target to death and never actually buy it.

The target now is a Blu-ray solution ... I've been thinking Sony PS3 for that for ages but when I've looked in the games shops, I've never really seen games that I'd think of as Must Have. So a PS3 is probably OTT. However, I got my eyes opened to the possibility of using a laptop to do the job which is pretty convenient seeing as my laptop is nearing the end of its days. Trouble is, while laptops have more convenient TV outputs now, their audio outputs tend to be a little lacking. HDMI is an interesting connector but I'm not seeing too many surround sound amplifiers with HDMI audio inputs. No big deal - Creative labs do sound cards that slot into a PCMCIA slot (da credit card size slot in the side of da laptop) that will give me what I'm wanting.

Another little snag, I like to have my laptop on the sofa beside me when watching films but if the laptop were the Blu-Ray player, it would be on the floor in front of telly and my fingers just ain't that long.

But - there's another possibility ... I have the carcass of my last PC still, it probably wouldn't take that much to strip that, put some more bits in and rebuild it into a box that can live by the telly ... Worth looking into :-)

So that's :

Option 1 - Playstation 3 to give me a standalone player but a console I'll never play games on.
Option 2 - New Laptop :-) This is the shiny option that a magpie like me will find hard to resist. But - tricky to look at those forums on it while watching da movie.
Option 3 - Rebuild Guilmon, my last PC. This one is probably worth looking into - the hardware that was inside that old monster wasn't good enough to handle games any more but should be able to deal with Blu-Ray discs quite happily.

Option 3 is kinda deja vu, cos it mirrors what I started watching dvds with - a PC that had a couple of special bits inside it for showing the dvds. There's an Option 3a too, use my current desktop box. Interesting ... but would lead to a few wires running across the room that I couldn't hide.

Pricecheck - can't do one of these type of posts without checking out the damage :-)

Option 1 - PS3 = £300, could get a Sony Blu-Ray player for £215.
Option 2 - lots - probably £500 min, £750 actual for suitable laptop.
Option 3 :
Blu-Ray disc player for £55
Cables ...
Graphics card for £115 - my current one is starting to suffer anyway, plus a new one would give one of those HDMI sockets.
Software ...

Software is always the tricky thing with PC stuff. The manufacturers tend to throw software at people when they buy bits, I have about 6 copies of Nero and probably 5 copies of PowerDVD. Trouble is, the software people also want you to buy their software, so they cripple what goes into the box with your bits in it. Things like the version of PowerDVD on this machine only supporting 2 speakers, which is a bit lame when you're used to 5 and a subwoofer. Pah. Software could be the stumbling block ...

The research thing is where the Dreamworlds comment came from. I had a peek in the Hi-Fi mags, as you do ;-) I didn't buy one because I don't consider a mag that reviews £300 budget Blu-Ray players and then recommends a £3000 speaker/amp/TV combo to go with them as credible. They should be looking at the £200-£300 items instead of blowing £1200 on speakers. It's one reason why I ignore the Hi-Fi mags, their reviewers live in dream worlds aimed at selling really expensive kit that's not worth the cash. I've done fine for about 10 years now with a Creative Labs 5.1 speaker set originally designed for PCs, which has given me decent but not fantastic surround sound all through its life for only £210. It's tempting to look them up again ...

It'll be a while yet until I go spending money - my laptop is still grimly hanging on to dear life, despite having a good few old age issues. The big decision point will be the telly - my old style 28" widescreen CRT is still going strong and has a good few years left. And it still gives an excellent picture on modern films like the new Star Wars Trilogy. I've been watching those again and I'm halfway through the saga. Just the old ones to go now :-)

On films (& music too) - if you have a peek at the Sleepypete Stories link in the blogroll, you'll see that I'm using that 2nd blog as a place to track the A to Z books challenge. I've piled through a few excellent books lately and I'm now on my first taste of Warhammer novel fiction with Rogue Star by Andy Hoare due to fill the hole at R in books. I'm thinking of running another couple of challenges :

Films -
Titles A to Z - watching 26 films with the first letters of the alphabet
Music Artists A to Z - listening to albums with the first letter of alphabet for artist
Music Albums A to Z - albums with first letter of alphabet for name

Looking through my iTunes library, I need something for artists H, N, W, X, Y, Z. And looking through what doesn't show up in iTunes properly - Holst, Williams, Zimmer ... Album names are only an issue with X, Y and Z, albeit cheating with Queen Greatest Hits ;-)

Right - back to surfing for Blu-Ray system solutions while listening to iTunes and getting more into Rogue Star.

Addon - Just dropping in a link for Naomi that goes to the Adobe pages for troubleshooting Flashplayer ... I hope it helps :-) Although it does look a little on the arcane side ...