This next announcement is specifically for those who are looking for good deals regarding HDTVs, or those looking for one. After discussing the possibilities of what they could extend to the forum crowd here, they are eager to tap into the market here for those who are looking for special prices on LCD TVs as well as Plasmas. Garry, the executive manager there, agreed on extending this offer to the forum populace here:- For all the prices of their HDTVs being sold in their stores, we forum members of Lowyat.net will get those HDTVs sold a pricetags below retail price than those specified at the store. How much lower depends on the unit you are buying. Mediaplex is also extending a special bulk prices, or for those power buyers who are buying more than just one unit of LCD TV/Plasma at their store. After discussing how they are going to identify who is forum member here, to make sure you are eligible for this special prices, (this was not determined by me), Garry suggested that each forum members interested to take up these offers to go through me to identify if you are really from the forum to take up these offer. This is to avoid other mischiefs and complications that arise later from non-forum folks who might have overheard about this, and wanting to take advantage of it. This also helps in bringing Lowyat.net forum into the limelight, and to encourage member joining and taking up participation in the forum as well.

Mediaplex offers this, you, the Lowyat.net forum member community, to name your LCD TVs/Plasma/Projectors/Home Theatre Equipment of your choice, state the model number, and if you have done research, the price you found some place else, and they will better it! If they cannot better it, they will match it, and throw something else on top of your purchase.

I initially wanted a list of what's currently available at their showroom, but seeing how they can hold of items not even in their showroom, your choices are practically limitless. Heck, they can even get for me the Yamaha 2700 series Network Receiver!

Again, as a reminder, you need to identify yourself as a LYN forum member, which is at the moment, since we dont have member cards or anything to tell us who we are in the forum, will have to take up identification through another forum member, which is me. Any other suggestion to make this process more managable/comfortable, i am all ears.

So, if you'd like to take up this offer, start doing your research on which screens, which display medium, which home theatre equipment that you have been wanting to get all this while, look around for your best best price, and Mediaplex will better it at a lower price, or if they cant, they will match it and throw something on top of your purchase. For those wanting even LOWER prices, gather a group of friends, and do a POWER BUY, which is a bulk order of a same unit, for even more savings. Whatever it is, everyone is most welcomed to view all the items being offered at Mediaplex KLCC showroom, in KLCC for more details. This offer requires identification of your forum member status and validity through yours truly, but that is a small hassle compared to the huge savings and excellent quality services you will get from these guys at Mediaplex, i guarantee it!

Addendum: Mediaplex KLCC do provide Zero % installment plans for your purchases, these are the banks that offer this facility :- Maybank, UOB, Citibank, Eon Bank and Alliance. Those are the major credit card banking facility that provides it, i will get back here with the other smaller banks that provide the sme facility if any. Garry was very busy when i called in to enquire.

Further enquiries may be forwarded to this thread. And if anyone can provide a better way of identifying an LYN forum member rather than going through me (since i dont fall into favour with much of the people here) , feel free to suggest. Thank you for your time.

=====================================================
YDL 5.0 Info
YDL stands for Yellow Dog Linux, with version 5.0 avaiable for download via public mirrors and FTPs from TerraSoft. It clocks in at 3.3Gb, and copies of the DVD is available either through me, Insecure or Alkt. you may approach any one of us for the disc, which is distributed free, as how Linux distros are meant to be done.

Packaged softwares within the DVD includes GAIM, Rhythmbox, Firefox, Gnome Terminal and Thunderbird. First time users may be intimidated by the command based Linux workings compared to setup EXEs, and clickable GUIs as per WinXP. Support and info for YDL is provided by the free links readily installed on top of Firefox which leads to YDL.net, Terrasoft homepage and links to the Yellow Dog Linux message board.

YDL 5.0 Installation brief walkthrough

You will have to prep your PS3 before installation. First thing to ask yourself, are you going to install a bigger HDD or use the present HDD? Then comes the formatting of the HDD, which for me, i chose the quick format, seeing how the HDD im doing the installation is brand new 160Gb. You will be asked whether you want to allocate 10Gb for YDL and the rest for GameOS, or vice versa. I chose the former, as i need the space for the downloads and demos from PSN later.

Then you need to prepare an external storage medium, such as SD card, Memory Stick, ....any format that the built-in media card reader or the USB ports accepts , or burn onto any optical media (CDR, DVDR, BDR), the two files, bootloader and bootloader installer. Save these two files onto their appropriate file folders.

REboot PS3 into GameOS, go to Settings and choose Install Other OS. PS3 now will scan for the two bootloader and bootloader installer files you have placed in your chosen medium before, and starts the bootloader installation process. This basically tells the PS3 that you are initiating the OtherOS installation. Insert the YDL DVD and start the installation.

You will need a monitor/HDTV capable of 720p to run the installation in graphical mode. The default "install" command does this in 720p. If your screen is not capable of this resolution, you may TAB and choose "installtext" to go into low-res text mode.

Once this is initiated, you will enter Anaconda, YDL OS installer. Follow the on screen prompts.Anaconda will now ask for your preferred language, keyboard type and partitioning options.You will also need to type in your root password. Anaconda then checks for package dependencies, more or less like what Setup.exe does, and then starts the YDL package installation. This typically takes 1hr or so.

Once installation is complete, you will reboot and go through the loading texts till the kboot prompt. The kboot prompt now offers options of "ydl", "ydl480p", "ydl1080i" and "ydltext" for those with screens with no support of any HDTV resolution. The default selection is "ydl" which is set to 720p, so if your HDTV does support this, make sure to TAB through the selection to the appropriate resolution.

2 YDL icons representing the PPC processors on the PPU and 6 penguins representing the 6 of the available 8 SPUs will appear. Go thorugh the welcome text, and do your firstboot into YDL.

After this, the PS3 will be set to load into YDL all the time, unless you type this command line at the kboot prompt:-

"boot-game-os"

You can also rewrite the kboot.conf file by editing it with a text editor while in root (WinXP equivalent of a system administrator) to include the command line "boot-game-os" as an option when you TAB through it.

Use a wired USB keyboard and mouse for the first time you're installing YDL, you may opt to use wireless keyboard and mouse, once installation is complete. YDL auto-detects the USB HID devices and they are usable right from the kboot prompt.

All in all, this will take between 1hr30- 1hr45mins.

List of devices working under YDL 5.0

I am also compiling the list of devices that works within the Linux environment of YDL5.0, the general understanding here is, anything that works off a USB dongle minus and required installation in a Windows environment should work in YDL as well, although these would either be partial or full features working. Any standard USB wired solution should work as it, without any need to install softwares. Be advised that YDL 5.0 have yet to support PS3's built in wireless WIFI card, so all network connections are via wired only, at this moment in time. TerraSoft have expressedly shown interest in developing in tandem with Sony, the workable Linux drivers for the PS3 built-in Wifi card.

These are the working wireless devices that i have tried with my own installation of YDL in PS3:-

1- Logitech diNovo Edge - All keyboard buttons works, special features buttons not working, Touchdisc™ not working. Workaround for a working Touchdisc™ is available by getting Anycom USB-250 USB dongle, flashing it with a different firmware.

2- Logitech VX Revolution - All features working except zooming.
================================================================================

Dont think i have to post details about the unit which has already been told countless time already, let's get to the meat of things, the impressions.

Firstly, where is resides in the HT cabinet...may be temporary, once i get together and haul my lazy ass to clean things up a bit, it may find its permanent residence.



PS3 and Xbox 360 face-off! Both shiny, both chromey! Modded the 360 into the full-Bling-It-On! makeover, while the Ps3 comes as shiny as it is out from the box.



The built-in card reader, hidden by the flap at the front of the PS3. Takes all kinds of formats.

The front of the PS2 hosts 4 USB2.9 ports, with HDD and wireless activity LEDs. The back sports the HDMI port, the AV Multi port, Ethernet port and the power plug of course.I have yet to fiddle with the HDD slot yet.

Someone asked about how the SixAxis controller feels like. Well for one thing, it's lighter as hell, feels like a toy rather than a controller. The rumble motors are gone, which lifts out most of the weight anyway.



Same old Dualshock, without the shock. A new PS button acts almost exactly like the Guide button on the 360 controller. You can turn on the console with it, quit a game, turn off a controller and assign controller ports with it. Also to play the legacy PS2 games, you need to login by holding down the PS button when prompted.360 uses circle quadrants for controller ports assignments, the PS3 uses numbered LED positions.One point to note, gamers with sweaty hands will hate the L2 and R2 triggers now, they are build in such way that they slide down like a trigger. The surface they have arent that resistant to hold your fingers in place, and with sweaty fingers, your fingers will slip off them easily.

This post has been edited by stringfellow: Mar 24 2007, 03:05 PM

I've set mine to autologin into the master account , so it did what it is supposed to do. But first, even before you do anything, the console will prompt you to do a firmware update right off the bat. You can either do this via Storage Media or directly via Internet. I had mine done yesterday in Imbi while i was inspecting it, latching onto one of the SSIDs of the shop there (we all know each other anyway, it's not like im stealing the line ), and follow the prompts onscreen. Pretty straightforward, just like the PSP.



Setting up a PSN account is tricky at best. Yesterday's attempt at TNL was a complete disaster, the console only accepts Japanese credit cards for access into Playstation Store. But after bro Ninja came to the rescue with the valuable info, that you can skip the credit card validation process for a later time and still able to generate your PS Network ID, everything went on smoothly from there. Do take note that you still need a valid Japanese address, but you can easily get this from Googling anyway. The tricky part is alighning which part of the address to which address line in the console query, since Japanese addresses have their postcodes first, and these postcodes need to match the city/provinces, and the city/provinces are all written in Japanese!

I'll only higlight the interesting points here, if there are other questions you want to ask, feel free to do so, i will try and answer them for you.

Legacy PS2 games plays fine, tried GT4 Concept Asian version yesterday. The console prompts you to create a virtual memory card of 8Mb space before you can start the game, and everything else is followed on screen. No graphical improvements of any sort for older games, unlike the Xbox 360. I have not tried the GT Force Pro wheel yet to check whether older accessories work with the game.

Remote Play is also available, although the second device that uses this feature, the PSP has yet to receive its firmware update to activate it. From the SSID generation in the console, it looks like an adhoc connection with both the PS3 and PSP sharing mutual SSIDs to talk to each other. I cant go any further than this since steps after this requires the PSP to be updated to firmware 3.0.



Loading up the browser works exactly like the PSP, with PSN site set as home address. Sucks when it comes to pages with heavy browser plugins, it prompts you continuously to ask whether you wanna load the page with its embedded plugins. Also USB keyboards and USB mouses work flawlessly right off the bat as well, plug and play. No more crappy cellphone-like keypads to type on.

There are two things left to do before all features on PS3 is locked, for me anyway. One, is the Playstation Store, and two, the 1080p. I dont see problem number one being solved anytime soon, problem number will be tackled by the end of this month once i get my 1080p display.

Playstation.net visitors will be very familiar with how Sony sets up the Playstation Store. Not as unified and centralised as how Microsoft sets up their Live offerings, which is accessible from inside the Dashboard itself, Sony uses browser interfaces in presenting theirs. This brings up the inherent problems of loading up the page, with the glitzy graphics, and ends up making the user waits for the page to load. Unlike the 360 Marketplace which loads up fairly quickly (since it has to deal with minimal graphics and mostly text), users with slower connections will face significant amount of wait time for the Store front to load. I dont see Sony changing this anytime soon, more likely they will continue using this method in the future. Sucks to be slow broadboand users like us in Malaysia though....



Also tried pairing( Sony called it registering) Bluetooth headsets, microphones and headphones to the PS3. I used the iTech R35 stereo Bluetooth headset and it detected and paired without a hitch. Mic and audio played back in stereo, but no chance to try the mic within the game yet. Mic levels are controlled within the Audio Device setting to adjust for ambient background noise and voice level pickups. Tried pairing my N93 to it, no joy. I have not tried this with my Motorola HT820 yet. More to come.

There is also an option to install OS onto the hard drive, but this feature requires partitioning of the said harddrive before installation is ever attempted. Linux would be the obvious choice, though i have not researched on which version/type of the multitude of Linux offerings that can be installed on the PS3. Last i checked , you need Fedora Core 5, with the AddOn disc, as well as the OtherOS installer. The first two are readily available for LEGAL download, but the third ingredient, the OtherOS installer will only be available within a week from the Playstation 3 OpenPlatform site.Stay tuned for more info on this.

Let's get to the games, i know everyone's restless about how the games works and look like. I couldnt get a proper screenshot of a game in here, my digital camera is crappy as hell. The best i can take is static images and not moving imageries. Next stop, Ridge Racer 7!

By the way, slipping in the game into the slot is akin to the loading machanism of any slotloading drive(think Apple Superdrives, only shinier and cooler!), keeps the whole unit looking slick and streamlined, not to mention cool!

Once the disc is read, the console will read it as its approproate format. In this case, RR7 brings up the loading template with RR7 background, short description of the game and also thumbnailed clip of the game in action, just like your PSP. What else are you waiting for, RUN the game!



Online presence in RR7 is managed solely by the games themselves, although unified singular login is provided by PSN. The game picks up your login detail from PSN and logs you in appropriately when you feel the need to burn rubber in online matches. Customizing things a bit, you need to pick a country of residence, as well as picking your spot on the globe as well. Proud to be a Malaysian here so you know what i picked. Went into online lobby for a while just now, and not many are playing, the crowd starts to pick up during nighttime. Of course, i got owned by them Japs, while i was struggling to even generate enough Nitrous to start thinking of catching up. There is also a feature called Slipstreaming, in which you basically tailgate behind another car to fill your Nitrous meter.

The game also provides installation of portions of the game onto the HDD for caching purposes. Load times are cut down drastically this way.

How does the game compare with RR6, you ask? On par and better on certain things, crappier on the other. First the pros. Online matches are not actually playable, with no lag whatsoever. My online experience with RR6 on Live was horrendous, with slideshow-like races, and lag. Add that to the fact that i have tons of racers cursing my line and lagging their races as well, i stopped playing online on RR6 not to long after that. *This incident is solely unique to RR6 on Live only, other games that i have on Live are generally lag-free* No such things on RR7.I hope it is not because im connected to the Japanese players hence eliminating the around-the-globe hopping horrible latencies, but it has been horrendous from Day 1 for me when i got into RR6 on Live. The stages are also revamped, with new effects and new stages. Some of the stages looks more colorful than their RR6 cousins, and new stages too. The Slipstream features adds incentives for being stuck behind bunches of cars ahead of you, since you can accumulate Nitrous this way.

The cons? The stages looks almost the same as their RR6 versions, with minor facelifts. As some have bad rendering, such as the water effects on long stretches of road in one of the stages. Also, you get the feeling of "been there, done that" since it is generally not much of a different experience from your previous RR. This should be RR6 Reloaded/Remix/Extra rather than slapping the number "7" and call it a new Ridge Racer. Fans of Reiko Nagase? Prepare to weep, no intro movie on this one.

Time to turn this baby off and head out for lunch, and getting Genji from TNL today.



Pressing the PS button brings up the menu where you chose those options.

One last parting shot before i go:-



SHINY GET!

Time to take a break, anyone with further questions, please feel free to post them here.

This post has been edited by stringfellow: Nov 16 2006, 02:54 PM

Welcome to PS3 FAQ V2 Thread.

Previous discussion is here: http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/368284

This post has been edited by Ninja: Mar 15 2007, 10:17 AM

Oh no wonder i couldn't post my reply. U were creating v2. Nice!!
------

Anyways here's my reply to the problem with sixaxis
-------
^ Nope..nothing to do with the battery as mine is always full and it still happens. Could be the Wi-Fi that's interfering with the signal..but then again, the six-axis is Bluetooth. I have no other bluetooth devices in the same room also. Happens very frequently when i play Tekken 5:DR

I had the same problem once with my Sixaxis while playing Resistance online. My controller suddenly hangs, and not responding to any key-press. So, I have to reset my controller.

Anyways here's my reply to the problem with sixaxis
-------
^ Nope..nothing to do with the battery as mine is always full and it still happens. Could be the Wi-Fi that's interfering with the signal..but then again, the six-axis is Bluetooth. I have no other bluetooth devices in the same room also. Happens very frequently when i play Tekken 5:DR

[/quote]

i nvr had this b4

no problems with mine either, touch wood, its only 1 week old

Def Jam Demo on Thursday (Tomorrow Malaysian Time)



March 14, 2007 - Several new goodies become available on the PlayStation Store this Thursday. Chief among the additions is the release of a Def Jam: Icon demo. Icon, which shipped recently and is available in stores for $59.99, continues the legacy of EA's successful street brawler franchise. Though IGN wasn't too hot on Icon, you can test the demo for yourself tomorrow.

Also available tomorrow are three new behind-the-scenes videos about Resistance: Fall of Man and several Paramount Pictures movie trailers. The trailer list includes Premonition and Shooter.

Source: IGN.com

Oooh nice updates Ninja.

-----------------------------

About the sixaxis controller thingy, that happened to me too.
When I was playing GT:HD, my controller suddenly doesn't respond to my presses, until I jerk it a lil and it works again. Strange thing.

o.o looks like alot of ppl having this sixaxis prob o.o

just as i was thinking, is ther any others to dl... cant wait

What's Def Jam anyways? Fighting game?

Regarding the sixaxis problem, when that happens keep pressing the start button, u'll notice that the game wont pause. Happens to me many times already ...sigh

Zero Sixaxis problem for me, even after vigourously switching between my consoles and the consoles in Mediaplex. Still sticks.

i want to survey/buy lcd tv from mediaplex bro string..
can you tell gary that i'll come at his shop either this saturday/sunday..
probably i'll buy if i'm interested..
the name is sub_zero & i'm a big malay guy.. tq..

This post has been edited by sub_zero: Mar 15 2007, 03:18 PM

Talk to Gary or Chris, or Mr.Tan, they are the ones who can give the lowest price. The rest cant. That's what i learned. Tell them about the prices you have surveyed from other places, and they will try and match it, should it be reasonable.

ok thanks, i'll talk to gary, chris / mr tan..
if i say i know stringfellow from LYN.. they should know right?

LOL, not that name, my real name. I'll talk to them dont worry. If im there , all the better, but im going to Paris tonight and coming back Sunday morning only. If you can wait till Sunday, i can be there.

Ok my PS3 will be arrive tomorrow,what should i put at the adress part when register PSN ID?
a fake one right? Must be a HK one? Since i should be choosing HK as my main account.
If HK one do they accept Malaysia credit card?