string... does that joytech thingy upscale composite/s-video inputs to the component out? or is it just pass-thru?

Wow thats a sweet looking device there. How much was it?

So this will also essentially help me in my lack of component input problem right?

Ermm...so how much is that fancy looking switcher? I saw online and it is around RM500?

String,
time to upgrade ur speakers

anyone start the MO hehehehe?

string, how much is the final cost including all in, buying the HDDVD?

AUD155, which is roughly that anyway.
NO cant do, space tak ada.

OH MY GOD! If you think King Kong's U-Control is awesome, Tokyo Drift's is God Almighty! I know i've been know to hype things up, but hear me out on this.

Okay, okay, Tokyo Drift has the normal stuff like behind the scenes, the making, production gallery, storyboards and PiP all that stuff doing it, but the two other extra features TOTALY BLOWS EVERYTHING out of the water! They are "Tech Specs" and "GPS Navigation".

Some scenes even comes with multiple features, like the Tokyo city chase scene, the U-Control's practically bursting with all 5 features, "Storyboard", "Tech Specs", "GPS", Production Gallery" and "Behind the Scenes". Let me explain the two more interesting features. "Tech Specs" basically does what it says, it specs all the stuff in that particular scene according to what is going on. For example, the very first scene in the movie that has "Tech Specs" is the drift rac e inside the parking lot. What Tech Specs does is, tally and calculate the ACTUAL DAMAGE costs to the car everytime Sean crashes that "Mona Lisa" around the car park. Each time the crash happens, a detailed cost card pops out with damage details to the hood, the bumpers, engines, doors, side mirrors, spoilers,....EVERYTHING! Once the scene ends, Tech Specs then totals things up for the final damage. This is like playing the Crash RAce version of Burnout, only this time, it happens within the movie, and the the graphics are not only real time, but REAL LIFE! We all know how movie industry is fighting head to head with videogames in terms of innovation and revenues, this time guys,......the movie industry fights back! Videogames becoming like movies, and movies incorporating videogames features!

GPS! GPS! GPS! Holy $hit is what came out of my mouth when i turned this on during the Tokyo city chase scene. The movie TRACKS EACH OF the 4 cars in the chase, with an on-screen GPS device, from start to finish! How is that for interactivity! Hell yeah, Tokyo Drift is THE title to get if you wanna feel what U-Control is.

Even the behind the scenes PiPs are longers and more impromptu and spontaneous in this movie. Very very personal and intimate. Hell, i dare say, Tokyo Drift is my favourite HD title so far, on all the Bluray and HD-DVD titles i have now, even though the screen details arent as eye-bulging as King Kong on HD-DVD or Kingdom of Heaven on Bluray.

Later guys, im gonna go play that GPS and Tech Specs scenes again!

Hey string, its all the crash info and GPS info pre calculated since the movie is pretty much fixed? Its just basically layering more metadata over the movie watching experience, not some real time calculation like a game. Anyhow more interactivity in a movie is better than none.

i believe those are precalculated lah, no point real time calculating, its prerecorded movie wud.

thx strong, so in other words, to start with i need around RM 802.15 to start with, Japs version? I am on Asia console, can use also right?

Critiquing "U-Control" on Tokyo Drift
by Travis Michael, September 27, 2006

I think most of us will agree that Tokyo Drift is a reference quality disc in all aspects including picture, sound, and extras. And since it's the first title released with the U-Control feature, I wanted to share my thoughts and comments on this particular feature. I watched the movie the first time with no added features turned on since I hadn't seen the movie before. Then tonight after work, I turned on the U-Control feature and plowed through the movie again.

Here are my thoughts and comments:

1) Picture in Picture. Definitely a step beyond the traditional audio commentary. It's pretty awesome to watch a PIP of behind the scenes material and interviews that is directed towards specific parts of the movie while you are watching them (though sometimes they did go off on tangents). I found myself much more able to sit through a second viewing of a movie with the PIP extras rather than just an audio commentary (which is also included on this title, by the way). On the other hand, I wish the PIP feature had a few more options such as adjusting the size and position of the PIP screen itself (it's fairly small in the lower right corner). Also, it would be cool if you could flip the PIP with the actual movie so that the movie itself is in the PIP and the extras are on the larger screen.

2) Storyboards and Production Photos. Pretty self-explanatory - they overlay on the screen during certain segments of the movie. I'm not highly interested in these, but I know some people like them. The only problem I see is that you have to repetitively go to the button on the U-Control to turn it on. There doesn't seem to be a way to just leave it on for the whole movie. The option will appear when storyboards or photos are available and it will turn itself off when there aren't any more to display for a particular scene. So every time one pops up, you have to scroll back down and turn it back on. It would be nicer to just click it once so that all of the storyboards and/or photos display through the whole movie automatically.

3) GPS. This is a pretty unique feature but also somewhat gimmicky. During the one big race a little over half way through the movie, this option will appear and you can see the cars as dots on a map to see their location. The only problem is that the cars pretty much stay all together anyway, so there's really no point in having a GPS other than seeing where they are in relation to the city streets. Still, I can see this TYPE of feature having some great potential for the format.

4) Insurance/Damage Calculator. Another somewhat gimmicky feature, this will show an overlay with damage amounts when the cars are being damaged during specific scenes. It gives you a little chuckle to see the damages rack up when the cars get hit, but again it isn't a substantial add to the extras. But stuff like this is very welcomed and could be taken much further with success, I'm sure.

5) Tech Stats. This one shows an overlay with description information about the cars themselves when they appear in the movie. It shows the make, model, and some other figures like time from 0-60, etc. I found this to be pretty cool, especially for someone like me who doesn't know one car from the other.

NOTE: The PIP display can be left on for the entire feature, but the rest of the U-Control features mentioned above are mutually exclusive - meaning, you can only have one on at a time AND you must turn them on repetitively at different points in the movie. So while you are watching the movie with PIP turned on, other buttons will appear (like the tech stats, etc). So you scroll down and turn it on, but sometimes you have to rewind a bit if you aren't fast enough turning the button on. And there are times when multiple buttons will appear, in which case you'll have to skip back to watch both features, one at a time. This works reasonably well, aside from the pain of turning each feature on over and over (even if all you wanted to watch throughout was the storyboards).

The PIP feature is the meat and potatoes of the U-Control and it's really cool. I would like to see this feature become as standard on HD-DVD as the director's commentaries are on SD-DVD's.

Finally, I should mention that the U-Control is only a fraction of what is available in the extras department on this disc. There's a pretty neat (but again gimmicky) feature when you can change the paint job / tires of a car in a particular scene. There's the standard audio commentary, music videos, and multiple featurettes about drifting.


HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! Bring on more interactive extras!

Now, here is where 'The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift' sets itself apart from all next-gen releases that have come before (and that includes you, too, Blu-ray). In a bid for high-def supremacy, Universal is seeking to expand the boundaries of the "In-Movie Experience" we're already familiar with. Though technically "interactive," IME is really just a pre-edited video commentary with two modes -- on or off -- and the few titles so far that have included the feature (such as 'The Bourne Supremacy,' 'Constantine' and 'Terminator 3') don't really let you "customize" the experience in any appreciable way. But 'Tokyo Drift' attempts to change all that, bringing true on-the-fly, user-controlled supplements to a pre-recorded video format.

Which makes my job as a reviewer now next to impossible. I'm not sure exactly how to "review" an experience that, for the first time on an optical disc format, does not exist in the linear sense. Unlike an audio commentary, or a featurette, or a bunch of deleted scenes, there is not necessarily a "start" and "stop" time to these extras. No beginning, middle and end. It is almost like a new paradigm shift in how we consume supplemental material, or, to make a bad analogy, like customizing a hot rod to your own tastes, then driving it around the track of your choosing. Weird, I know. But once you get the hang of it, rather tantalizing.

Let me try to explain the technobabble side of things. For 'Tokyo Drift,' Universal has utilized the HD DVD's format's enhanced (and until now largely untapped) iHD authoring environment. It allows for a variety of pre-encoded material (video, audio, text overlays, etc.) to be stored and accessed separately or together, as well as in real-time and on-the-fly, by users during playback. Multiple audio streams can be encoded on a disc and "mixed live" by the player for integrated supplemental audio content, picture-in-picture video streams can be displayed simultaneously, and even graphic overlays can be "mapped" to specific objects on the screen. If it sounds futuristic, it is, and 'Tokyo Drift' is only the beginning of the possibilities. (Note that some readers have reported that the 2.0 firmware upgrade is necessary in order to view the iHD-powered "U-Control" features.)

As far as the real-world experience goes, Universal has dubbed the user interface on 'Tokyo Drift' "U-Control." There are on-screen instructions to guide you, but anytime throughout the movie, you can just switch on the features you want to watch via the remote. For example, if you are watching the film and decide that during a certain scene you want to see the director's commentary as a picture-in-picture video stream, just make sure you are in U-Control mode and activate the feature -- then turn it off when you're finished. Same with the multitude of other U-Control goodies on 'Tokyo Drift.' In addition to a full-length video chat with director Justin Lin, other U-Control material includes making-of documentary footage on the film's car racing scenes, storyboards and other conceptual art, the ability to "customize" a vehicle and actually have it "drive" it in a scene from the movie (you gotta check this one out to really get an appreciation for it), and perhaps most unique of all, the "GPS mapping" function, which will give you various stats on the cars in the film. And this information is also dynamic -- for example, you can track a car's "damage estimates" as the film progresses, and it is all generated on the fly by the player.

If this sounds a bit confusing, in some ways it can be. However, I will say first that U-Control is indeed very easy to use. But at the same time, the concept is admittedly intimidating. For me, it requires a huge shift in how I perceive supplemental content. I'm used to sitting back and having extras fed to me, whether as a full-length documentary or in easily-digestible bits. With U-Control, it is all in your hands, and requires a great deal more decision-making on behalf of the user. Perhaps for the videogame generation, this is nothing new. But for an old fogey like me, who actually remembers what a Laserdisc is and still plays Pac-Man, it is like learning to ride a bike for the first time.

Certainly, I'm fascinated to see what the reaction will be to 'Tokyo Drift.' It allows for more customization than ever before to the user experience, but also feels like the opening of the door. As the HD DVD format also supports internet connectivity, it is not hard to imagine how all of this could be developed on future releases. Additional content could be made accessible via the web, or extras merged with e-commerce, or a host of other applications. But will all of this ultimately be too much for those who just want to watch the movie and maybe a few extras? I suspect that the younger generation -- especially gamers -- will warm to it easy. Older, more linear-minded users may have more trouble with it. In any case, I'm excited to see what's next...

Wow thats a sweet looking device there. How much was it?

So this will also essentially help me in my lack of component input problem right?