PS3 firmware 3.55->3.56->3.60->3.61->3.65->3.66 Nothing but Security Patches!

Haven’t updated for the firmware for quite some time, but nothing notable new features have been introduced since 3.55, because SONY has been busy combating with hackers. But thanks to that we all get some free games.

3.55 and 3.56 are pure security patches to disable jailbreak.

3.60 adds online storage (manual) and controller save setting.

3.61 forces user the PSN login password after the infamous hacking which caused the network down for almost two month.

3.65 and 3.66 are security patches as well. 3.65 is not mandatory, while 3.66 is, not sure what new has been added.

Scenasrist BD, x.264, qpfile chapter points

 

So I’ve been doing some experiments with x.264 encoding for Scenarist BD. I’ve been encoding with x.264 for a while, but pretty much for subtitling purpose since playback on raw BD while subbing is still too much to ask, even for my 1st gen i7 setup. And for professional production, I’ve been using Sonic CineVision 100%. Not that I’m super satisfied with the result, I can’t seem to find a better choice. But for anything under 10Mbps, the performance is really terrible.

So I decided to try x.264 by following this site. It’s pretty self explanatory. The only difficulty is putting the chapter marks on I frames. CineVision and Scenarist BD use very similar *.csv format for chapter marks, while x.264 requires qpfile which is somewhat different. The former ones use HH:MM:SS:FRAME#, and they have to be 24000/1.001 sped up ones (have to do 23.976->24 fps conversion, same goes for 30fps 30000/1.001), while qpfile uses total frame#. My NLE software is SONY Vegas, and I use frameserver as output, then create avs file, finally serve into megui. Unfortunately, this route doesn’t honor the chapter marks set in Vegas. So the qpfile is required. And if the chapter marks don’t match, you’ll get warnings in Scenarist BD (exact wording: PlayListMark is not an I-Picture). Although this is allowed in BD spec, you’d always want the chapter marks to be on I frame. In my experiment, the timecode in Vegas matches Scenarist BD format. SO here is what I’ve been doing:

Sample *.CSV file for CineVison is:

The timecode is copied from Vegas:

Same clip, just change the time format in Vegas, then copy it to a newly created qpfile (with notepad *.qpf):

0 K -1
4882 K -1
7075 K -1
10660 K -1
11062 K -1
14824 K -1
17700 K -1
21357 K -1
23359 K -1
25134 K –1

As for the timecode in Scenarist BD, you can use *.csv or *.tsv. The former is simpler, while the latter supports chapter name. The difference here between CineVision and Scenarist BD is that in Scenarist, you have to specify framerate and nondrop or drop frame.

Timecode Format    23.976    NonDrop   
Chapter Number    Timecode    Chapter Label    Mark Type
1    00:00:00:00       
2    00:03:23:10       
3    00:04:54:19       
4    00:07:24:04       
5    00:07:40:22       
6    00:10:17:16       
7    00:12:17:12       
8    00:14:49:21       
9    00:16:13:07       
10    00:17:27:06       
11    00:18:19:19       
12    00:20:31:05       

So for timecodes directly from Vegas, there’s no need to do frame conversion, but frames from DVD ifo or BD mpls files, it’s very likely that frame sped up is needed.

Cisco Linksys E2500 Router Review

 

So my old D-Link router bit the dust, I had to get a new one. This time I thought it’s better to make a change since I’ve been using three D-Link routers for the past six years. So the new router I get is the Cisco Linksys E2500 Advanced Simultaneous Dual-Band Wireless-N Router. It’s a pretty new product and it’s the upgrade from the E2000 line. I’ve been using this router for two weeks now, so here is the review.

On the physical design, this E2500 doesn’t have gigabyte ports unlike the E2000. I have a D-Link 8 port gigabyte switch so it didn’t bother me, plus I have at least five wired connection devices, so even if it does come with gigabyte ports, I’m still in short. It has odd shape which you can’t place it vertically or stacking with other device on top very easily. When placing horizontally, it takes up a lot of space. I don’t see a mounting option either. It doesn’t have front LED. And they call this “next-generation industrial design”… The old E2000 series seems to have some heat issue where they get lots of refurbished units. So far this E2500 has been working extremely fine without any disconnecting issues. Also the heat generation seems fine.

The router comes with one Cat5e cable and an installation CD only, no printed manual. It doesn’t list any default router address and password on the package or the router itself, which is kind of odd since all routers I’ve been used (D-Link, Buffalo, Trendnet) list them. I guess they want users to use their Cisco connect app. But I opted out to not install since I don’t want another piece of useless software. I found the router address on internet anyway: 192.168.1.1, user name: admin, pw: admin. There’s no way to create sub accounts, you can only change the admin account’s password.

For performance on accessing from web browser, in IE9 there’s slight hiccups, it’s just take longer to load for some reason. But in firefox, it’s pretty smooth.

For the interface, it’s about the same design as D-Link, except it’s not as attractive as D-Link. One thing I don’t like is there’s only a big help button, when you click it, it opens on another webpage which is kind of inconvenience. I like the ones which list help the same page. On the security side, there’s no timeout, which is kind of unsafe. Also I can’t find any button to log out? Once you login, you stay login until you close the web page… And there seems no limit on the number of users you can access the router, which is what I wanted. (The Buffalo one only limits one user at a time which could be extremely frustrating). Another potential security issue is that for wireless password, it just list them there without any protection whatsoever. So if someone gains access to your router, they can easily change the password…

There are all the standard features you can expect: DDNS, firewall, port forwarding, VPN, DHCP reservation, QoS, etc. The port forwarding and QoS settings seem a bit more straightforward than the D-Link. The only new feature is the guest access. It lists as an unsecured connection, users have to open in a web browser and enter password to gain access to your wireless network. I don’t find this feature to be useful so I turned it off. This is not what I thought based on my first impression. I thought you are getting two wireless SSIDs which you can secure both. But well, I don’t need it anyway. Well, another small feature is the parental control which you can restrict access to certain website at specified time period. It’s not useful for me either.

Firmware updates: The firmware it came with is 1.00, but there’s already an update 1.01, so I proceed updating it. The process is fast and smooth, all the settings are retained which is a surprise.

Wireless connection: Another reason I need an upgrade is of course the 802.11n standards. This router supports simultaneous 2.4G and 5G mode, but sadly I don’t have any compatible device for the 5G. So I’ll just comment on the 2.4G performance. I have three devices I need to wirelessly connected:

1. a SONY laptop with Atheros AR9287 chip (supposed to support full 300Mbps), but it connected this router at 144Mbps only, no matter how I tweak the settings on both sides.

2. a Toshiba laptop with Realtek chip (support upto 144Mbps), but it connected to this router at 72Mbps.

3. LG optimus T android phone (wireless G).

For the SONY, after fiddling in win7, I found once enabling the AdHoc 11n option. With this enabled, I can finally stream full Blu-ray rips upto 48Mbps without any hiccups over the wireless network.

And most important, the router has been rocking solid. I recently switched ISP, and I was told there’ll be lots of signal loss due to the length of the cable coming to my apartment. But apparently the signal loss wasn’t much a concern. The only problem is I need to reboot the previous D-Link router almost everyday, otherwise the internet will get disconnected and never back up until reboot. After the D-Link stopped working, I changed to my backup router, a Buffalo, but this one has the same problem of disconnecting everyday. So I thought this was a line problem and almost made me to call the ISP. But fortunately after I get this router, I haven’t had any disconnecting issues at all. So I’m pretty happy with the switch. Hopefully it will be this way for a long time.

My Playstation 3 Hard Drive Change Experience

 

So I finally made the decision to upgrade the Playstation 3 hard drive. I got the Hitachi travelstar 750GB drive. It’s a standard 2.5in 9.5mm height, 5400RPM drive. Unfortunately, it’s a 4k advanced format drive, which from the information gathered, the PS3 OS is supposed to not support it and have some performance issue which causes game stuttering. But still I took the bite, worst case I can always return it… My Playstation 3 was the original 60GB. I’ve been wanted to upgrade the hard drive for a while, but never made the decision until the recent PSN hacking incident where I can get a few games for free. That pushed me to switch out the hard drive, pretty in desperate of needing one. And here’s the story:

Frist found a used drive, formatted it with large fat32, and performed a backup, the went well. Then went out to get the drive, and here’s where the adventure started… The screws! I never thought the screws would cause so much trouble! Without the right size screw driver, it’s impossible to unscrew these damn 5 screws. Well, the blue screw isn’t that bad for the tool I have. But for the 4 small screws that mount the drive, it’s virtually impossible to make them move! I fought them for a good two hours, after getting tips online using the plier since I stripped two of them. After replacing the drive, I replaced the two stripped ones with the standard screws which have the rounded head and sticking out on the latching side. These two will fit into the case, on the other side, I just screwed the original ones with again the plier… The standard ones don’t fit. And I think I’ve overcome all the trouble. But no, the last step which restoring the backup failed mysteriously. I got error message 800283E7 around 21%. Upon researching, it’s probably some issues with external hard drive, or game DRM. So lessons learned, never trust the software. When backup, you should perform a system backup, AS WELL AS a manual backup. The system backup files are just a bunch of encrypted *.dat files, it’s useless since there’s no way to stripe them out… Fortunately I don’t have much loss since the original hard drive was 60GB only (an OEM seagate), and my backup size was 32GB with mostly games, mp3, and pictures. The games I can always retrieve from the downloading list. For the mp3, it’ll take a while for me to re-rip though.

The process which originally I thought was really simple, took me a whole damn day to do, and still failed miserably. It’s THE most frustrating thing I’ve encountered with my Playstation 3.

As far as the new hard drive performance, I can’t say much yet. I’ll keep updated. But right now, I’ve copied around 100GB video files onto the hard drive through TVersity’s DLNA server, and it’s been really smooth.

SONY VPCF13UFX/B Laptop Review 06-28-11 Update

 

06-28-11 Update: Some comment on the Atheros AR9287 PCI-e wireless card after switching a wireless n router. See at the back.

06-12-11 Update: It’s been another month, the laptop has been running pretty smoothly. The AC adapter seems fine for now. And almost no incident of BSOD after I figured out the driver conflicts except one incident where a kernel crash occurred one morning due to ntoskrnl.exe. But this is after almost a full month continuously running without shutting down. I’ve also upgraded the display driver to 270.61, which I had only encounter the driver kernel crashing for once. I’ve also tried encoding some video on this machine, while there’s definitely some speed boost, it’s not as significant as I had hoped. But I have to admit that my encoding parameters are quite demanding…

05-11-11 Update: First major follow up after two month and a half of heavy use. OK, bought this machine on Feb 25th, AC adapter started making constant high pitch buzzing noise on May 4th. Have to call SONY support on May 6th (Friday) to get a replacement AC adapter. Was told that it will arrive within 7 days. But received it on May 9th (Monday). That was pretty fast, but still disappointed at how unreliable the product was…

So the left is the replacement model VGP-AC19V45, the right is the original shipped model VGP-AC19V15. As you can see, the replacement is much larger, which translates to much heavier than the shipped one. But they did have the same spec (input, output). The replacement is still NOT entirely “quite”, you can hear the electronics (presumably a fan?) running if you stick your ears to it. It became more obvious in the night when everything is quite, you can hear it within a short distant. The packaging indicated that the replacement may or may not be refurbished. Upon checking, the 45 is indeed an old model that shipped with laptops manufactured last year, the 15 comes with the new ones shipped this year! One minor improvement for this replacement is that it handles the interference a lot better, you can barely hear the noise from headphone port, well, still a little during the night… So maybe the old adapter was DOA right out of the box? That’s what I want to say about the adapter for now. But I’m sure I’ll request another one AND the battery by the end of the one year limited warranty.

Another quality issue I have recently is the BSOD in Win 7 caused by drivers. The two types of BSOD I’m encountering are the netio.sys caused by the nic (not sure if it’s the Marvell Yukon gigabit or the atheros wireless) and nusb3xhc.sys caused by NEC USB 3.0 driver respectively. It would almost BSOD every single DAY, completely randomly! So I reinstalled the system from scratch, actually installed Win 7 Ultimate this time. But before that I went to the SONY website to pick up all the drivers, have to download that retarded taxi driver program… I opted to not install a lot of the unnecessary software this time, the installation is apparently smooth, every component worked fine except I didn’t install the hardware diagnose program and VAIO media gallery so that I can’t use the ASSIST and VAIO button. I didn’t install the auto update program as well since at this point I can no longer trust the “official” drivers from SONY. But as I had expected, this didn’t stop the machine from BSOD with the nusb3xhc.sys from crashing! Then I suspected it must be the “official” drivers! So I uninstalled it, and grabbed the driver from NEC directly. Now it seems to be working fine, at least for the past week I haven’t restarted the machine! I never installed the two network drivers BTW, therefore haven’t encountered any BSOD from netio.sys crashing. The atheros driver is from win7, the Marvell driver is from the manufacturer since win7 has a really old driver. So anyway, here are the drivers for NEC USB 3.0 controller (2034) [the official one from SONY is 2040 or 2041, but somehow 2034 is newer?] and Marvell Yukon gigabit (11.41.3.3).

 

BTW another issue I have is the Nvidia driver seems to crash from time to time, then had a kernal recovery. During the crash, there will be a split of second that the screen would go black, sort of like win7 switching from aero effect to no effect. But since this doesn’t happen too often and didn’t BSOD, I haven’t taken any action on this one. Well, the only thing I could do is to install a newer driver I guess. And hope for the best, it’s not a hardware issue! The driver from SONY (259.03) is apparently a special Tesla driver.

Also I’ve enabled Virtualization permanently in BIOS since I need to use VMware. There’s apparently very little impact on the fan noise unlike I said earlier.

04-07-11 Update: Minor follow up. Now I discovered that both running on AC or on DC battery, this machine will output some constant humming noise ALL the time, this is particularly noticeable if you are in a very quite environment. The noise comes from the power button area on the right.

When on AC, there's also the noise from headphone port which I'm fighting with since day one. However, I found that if the battery level drops below 75%, even if you're recharging (means on AC), the noise disappears! But when charging above 75%, the noise starts returning. I don’t think there is any fix on this problem except attaching an external sound card!

03-07-11 Update: I’ve got the Realtek audio mystery mostly figured out. It’s more of a problem from my environment. Mainly the interference of the noise issue is from the power supply due to my building is NOT properly wired. When attaching the power plug in, the noise IS there, but when using internal battery, the noise is NOT present! Also, the SPDIF does support ac3 and DTS pass-through, but by default it’s off. 

I’ve been looking for a laptop for some time now. So I finally decided to bring home a SONY VPCF13UFX/B last week. Got it from local retailer store with somewhat OK price. I was actually waiting for the sandy bridge ones, but this Sony seems nice and have all the features I want. So I splurged some money on it, $800+tax to be exact, the most –expensive laptop I’ve ever bought so far.

Specifications:

Operating System: Genuine Windows^® 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-740QM, 1.73GHz with Turbo Boost Technology up to 2.93GHz, 6MB Cache

Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® 310M with 512MB dedicated video RAM

Memory: 4GB DDR3 SDRAM Memory, Max supported = 8GB

Storage Drive: 500GB SATA Hard Drive

Optical Drive: DVD-Super Multi Drive

Display: 16.4" Display, 1600x900 resolution

Audio: Intel® High Definition Audio with Dolby® Home Theater Technology

Webcam: Built-in MOTION EYE® camera and microphone

Communications: 10baseT/100baseTX/1000baseT, Bluetooth with Integrated Stereo A2DP (2.1 + EDR), Atheros® 802.11b/g/n

Expandability: Memory Stick® Media Slot: 1, Express Card®/34 Slot: 1, Secure Digital (SD) Slot: 1

Ports: Headphone Jack: 1, Microphone Input: 1, VGA Output(s): 1, e-SATA: 1, HDMI™ Output(s): 1, USB 2.0: 1, USB 3.0: 2

Battery: Standard Lithium-Ion (5000 mAh)

Software:

Microsoft® Office Starter with reduced-functionality versions of Word and Excel, VAIO Care™, Media Gallery™ , PMB - VAIO Edition, Norton Internet Security™ 2011 30-Day Trial Offer

Some highlights are i7 740QM processor with quad-core 8 threads, 16.4” with 1600*900 resolution, Nvidia GF310M dedicated video card with HDMI output, 500GB 7200RPM Hitachi HDD, 2 USB 3.0 ports, 1 USB/eSATA port, backlit keyboard, bluetooth, crappy realtek HD audio with SPDIF digital output (shared with headphone), which are basically the things pushed me over to make the purchase. Another reason I got a SONY is because the PS3 leaves a very good impression, I hope this second big SONY product could work magic for the another time.

So here is my initial impression about the machine after a week of use.

Epson Artisan 725 Color Inkjet All-In-One Review – 062811 Update

 

06282011 Upadte: Adding troubleshooting for cannot find scanner issue at the back.

So Office Depot is offering a trade-in special on this EPSON Artisan 725 Color Inkjet AIO. I picked it up for $50 after turning in my ancient Lexmark AIO (which is still functioning I believe, but they don’t care if the printer is in working condition).

 

I picked up this model because I want to print CD/DVD labels with those direct printable surface. Also I want to print covers for the keep case. Plus the reviews on Amazon seems overall positive. After owning it for a week, printing a dozen labels/photos, I have to say that I’m impressed with the printing quality from this printer with its 6 color HD ink system. Also the network function exceeds my expectations. I have previously owned EPSON CX4400, CX7700, CX8400 AIOs (I so miss those great days where you can buy a cheap $10 camera and get these AIOs for free. Well, more like for free ink), but I wasn’t able to get much from those models. But this Artisan 725 packed with so much advanced features which made it worth the money.

 

 

First impression is that the printer is heavy and large, it takes up a lot of spaces! But I do like the top is flat unlike the previous CX8400. Initial setup was pretty easy. For connections, You can choose between USB, wireless, wired network. I opted for wired network installation since my desktop doesn’t have wireless and I want to have printing/scanning on all of my computers. So my particular setup was router –> 8 port switch –> printer. 2 laptops connected to the router wirelessly and then the printer, then 1 desktop connected to the switch then the printer. All computers can now access to the printer’s card reader, printer, and scanner. The card reader is mapped as a connected network device, on 32bit system, it seems to use up a drive letter Z, on a 64bit system, it shows up as a network device which didn’t use a drive letter. I’m not sure if it’s the normal behavior, personally I prefer as the latter since I’m running out of drive letters on my desktop!

 

 

 

Software consists of printer driver, scanning software (no OCR), network manager. There’s not much change between the driver and scanning software interface since those CX series. I never liked the scanning software, but I can live with it. It seems adding an office mode aside from auto, home, and professional from the CX series. The only thing I’m missing is ADF automatic document feeder but since this is an entry level model, they didn’t equip it. The scanning speed has improved dramatically. Either from lamp warming up to scanning, it’s really fast compared to the CX series. I can now scanning at 600dpi within minute, this took ridiculously long before on the CX8400. And the image is instantly available across a lousy slow wireless g network, even for images that are saved as *.bmp which could take up to 90MB easily (600dpi).

 

 

 

Another note for the network setup is that I wasn’t able to use the default WSD port for the scanner to work. But adding a standard TCP/IP port works. The only problem is the ink level checking no longer works. But you can still check the ink using the web interface by typing in the IP address: http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/PRESENTATION/

 

 

The screenshot reflects the ink level after printing ONLY a total of 6 DVD labels AND 8 keep case covers. So yes, this is another ink guzzling machine as expected… At this rate, I guess the yield is gonna be less than 100 paper… I’m not sure how they could claim 500 yield on draft mode… But this is not too surprising…

 

One thing that changes quite dramatically is the paper tray. It’s a 2-layer design where the large sized paper going the bottom, and small sized photo paper going the top. Some people on Amazon mentioned the printer has trouble grabbing two pieces of paper at a time, I only had this problem with some really thin copy paper supposedly used for laserjet, but that was not supposed to be used for inkjet…

Another tray is the CD/DVD tray for printing labels. It’s built-in unlike the previous models. You have to tilt the touch panel all the way up to see this tray. There’s a button on the touch panel to eject and close the tray, otherwise I don’t find such a button in the CD Printing software. It feels more like burning a CD/DVD now. The tray emulates a full size A4 or letter size paper. And it’s printing the image upside down. I have to mention this because the Verbatim BD-R DLs I got have letters on the disc where you cannot print over, so I have to adjust the orientation to avoid the letters covering on the important part of the images. The provided sample Memorex (oops!) CD-R does have white printable surface edge to edge without any letters. However, the printable Verbatim DVD-R/+Rs I got a while back has large non-printable center hub… So the discs really vary from model to model.

Another change is the addition of duplex module at the back. Double sided printing seems pretty standard nowadays, but I really don’t see much use on an inkjet. The module is large, and sticking out too much IMO. While it is removable, it leaves a large opening at the back, and EPSON didn’t provide a cover.

Printing, I’m very satisfied with the performance. It could easily compete with any local photo labs, if not better. The only problem I had initially was disabling color profile in EPSON’s driver so that it converts the colors twice, which causing the colors to be smeared and appears magenta… After reading this article on Adobe’s web, I was able to print photos very close to what I see on the screen even without any calibrations.

So basically you have to choose EPSON’s profiles in PS, then disable the ICM color adjustment in the printer driver:

From PS:

From driver:

Other neat features include operating without using computer. You can copy documents, even CD/DVD labels directly using the printer. You can also scan images directly onto memory cards. Then the images are shared across the network! Operating with computer, you can use the touch panel to scan pictures, open email application on the computer without using the software on the computer. (It would be cool to be able to send images as email attachments directly without computer) Also the USB port supports charging USB devices which I haven’t tried yet.

Lastly, this is the CD/DVD template for PS. This let you print labels directly inside PS, instead of using the included CD printing software which doesn’t have much flexibility… It’s from CDfreak, although it says it’s for Artisan 810, it works for my Artisan 725.

Recently my router broke, so I have to swap it. The problem is that the IP address changes, can the replacement one doesn’t have a fixed IP feature like the old one. Therefore the IP address of all my network devices changed, which of course includes this printer/scanner. The issue is with the the scanning software – Epson Scan cannot be started. So I looked into this, found that you have to enter the IP address manually in EPSON Scan Setting.

You might want to delete the original scanner, since it’s no longer useful. Clicking the Edit button only allows you to edit the name, so it’s useless. So just delete it, and add as a new.

Now the automatic search doesn’t work for me, so I have to enter my network address manually. The IP address can be found inside the router. This should solve the scanner problem.

June 2011 Blu-ray Purchase - Back to the future with Delorean bundle and its case

 

 

I got this from Amazon for $24.99. Not too shabby, although there’s better price as of this writing. The one I got is with the hotwheel Delorean 2011 model.

 

 

 

I guess the package is what the so-called older ones with shorter size? The discs come with digi-pak. The disc holders is yet another new creative type. It took me 10 minutes to figure out the correct way to handle these…

 

The disc holder has 3 fixed spots to hold the disc, there’s no traditional center button to push, instead you get two clip thing at the bottom. You need to use your index finger to hold the center of the disc, then push the disc against these two clips and lift the disc up. It’s another bad packaging, I never like digi-pak in the first place anyway. But it’s better than Fox’s Planet of the Apes 40th anniversary packaging (This one is from Universal). I haven’t decided if I should transfer these 6 discs to the 6-disc empty case I bought earlier. Digital copies are pretty much useless to me. If I ever need a copy, I would rather rip the disc and encode myself.

PSN free 2 game downloading issue and solution

 

This could be quite helpful, if you have issues with downloading the free 2 game from the welcome package, try this:

1. On your PlayStation 3 or PlayStation Portable navigate to the PlayStation Network icon on the XMB
2. Log into your PlayStation Network account and choose Account Management > Transaction Management > Services List
3. Choose “PlayStation Network Promotions” from the list of services displayed
4. Select either “PS3 Free Games” or “PSP Free Games” and then choose “Select Content”

My issue was I only downloaded my first free game, then when I log back to my PSN the next day, I can access the free game selection section, but I can’t see anything listed there. Very weird. But the service list trick solves my problem!

Also remember to get the free 2 PSP game even if you don’t have a PSP. Who knows if you might have a PSP or Vita someday in the future, they are free, all you need to do is just keep them in the downloading list. I think you can download the same file upto 6 times?

BTW I got dead nation and Super Stardust HD. I’ve already finished dead nation with the Braindead level (easiest). The game is pretty short, but quite fun. It could go pretty insane at times with so many zombies! But the optimization must be quite decent, since the loading is quite fast (talking to you, might&magic…) and the frames rarely drop due to intense graphics which I was quite amazed. Super Stardust HD, I’ve always wanted this game, but it’s a tough game…

LG Optimus T (Android smartphone) preview

 

So I managed to get my first smartphone – LG Optimus T from T-mobile. The phone was on sale on T-mobile’s prepaid site, I was able to get it for $120 with a $30 prepaid card. Although it’s described as refurbished, the phone came in in pretty good condition. The only thing that’s a little strange is that T-mobile puts the SIM card inside the phone already. I checked it to make sure that it’s NOT activated already. Accessories include a 2GB microSD card with adapter, a wall charger with detachable USB cable.

Spec:

General
2G Network
GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900

3G Network
HSDPA 1700 / 2100

Size
Dimensions
113.5 x 59 x 13.3 mm

Weight
129 g

Display
Type
TFT capacitive touchscreen, 256K colors

Size
320 x 480 pixels, 3.2 inches

- Accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate
- Proximity sensor for auto turn-off

Sound
Alert types
Vibration, MP3 ringtones

Loudspeaker
Yes

3.5mm jack
Yes

Memory
Phonebook
Practically unlimited entries and fields, Photocall

Call records
Practically unlimited

Internal
170 MB

Card slot
microSD, up to 32GB, 2GB included

Data
GPRS
Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 - 48 kbps

EDGE
Class 10, 236.8 kbps

3G
HSDPA 7.2 Mbps

WLAN
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, Wi-Fi hotspot

Bluetooth
Yes, v2.1 with A2DP

Infrared port
No

USB
Yes, microUSB v2.0

Camera
Primary
3.15 MP, 2048x1536 pixels, autofocus

Video
Yes, VGA@18fps

Secondary
No

Features
OS
Android OS, v2.2 (Froyo)

CPU
600 MHz processor

Messaging
SMS (threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Email, IM

Browser
HTML

Radio
Stereo FM radio

Games
Yes + downloadable

Colors
Burgundy, Titanium

GPS
Yes, with A-GPS support

Java
Yes, via Java MIDP emulator

- Digital compass
- Social networking integration
- Google Search, Maps, Gmail
- YouTube, Google Talk, Picasa
- DivX/Xvid/MP4/H.264/H.263/WMV player
- MP3/WAV/WMA/eAAC+ player
- Document viewer
- Organizer
- Voice memo/dial/commands
- Predictive text input (Swype)

Battery
Standard battery, Li-Ion 1500 mAh

Stand-by
Up to 450 h

Talk time
Up to 5 h

 

The first thing I did was rooting the phone so that I can use some apps such as Titanium backup (backup, removing apps), Link2SD (move SELECTED apps from internal storage to SD cards) without restriction. I followed this guide upto the recovery (backup rom) part, didn’t go further to flash a new custom rom since I found the stock system works good enough for my needs. Everything worked out smoothly. Rooting however is NOT to be confused with unlocking. I still need to call T-mobile for the unlocking codes after 60 days.

Since this is my first smartphone, I don’t have very high expectations for what it can do. I have previously owned an entry level Palm, but I wasn’t able to use it much, now it’s just sleeping in my drawer collecting dust. But now after almost a month of using of this LG Optimus T, I’m pretty impressed with what it can do. The most convenient feature is of course the WIFI, which greatly expands the usability of the phone. It integrates google services tightly. You can get all kinds of apps from Android market (or the slim version T-mobile market, not recommended). Of course you’ll have to appreciate majority of them are FREE. Most of the free ones are however ad based, but I don’t mind since developers are of course need to make a living. The performance is mostly decent enough, operation is pretty snappy most of the time. As someone who is moving from a Palm, the most significant change in the input method is instead of a stylus, now you use fingers. It’s a welcome change, but at the 3.2in screen size, I just get tons of input errors which I still have a hard time to overcome. You need to cut fingernails, I found that gets in the way too… But google did make some effort in simplifying the amount of input by including swype and google voice search. Still a stylus is much preferred at this screen size. Another change is the included gravity sensor to auto rotate screen.

  

The only thing is that the video playback performance is extremely poor, since it has a very weak 600Mhz CPU. Although the spec claims to play a variety formats: DivX/Xvid/MP4/H.264/H.263/WMV, from the videos I have tried, it barely managed to play a 640*480 DivX at 1Mbps.

 

Launcher, I found the pre-loaded LG launcher to be decent enough.

 

 

 

Scenarist BD – Clip, Stream (PlayList), IN/OUT Time Explained

So here I did it again, another masterpiece from me! It’s expanded from a pm from certain forum.

 

The Clip is the item at the bottom, and PlayList (Stream) at the top. When you add multiple clips into PlayList, it will create multiple PlayItem.

 

Things in Clip counts toward the disc space; while PlayList is virtual, no matter how many you created, it doesn't add space.

BD Reauthor cannot reset the time to 00:00:00:00. The time is ripped as is. However, if you remove stuff from PlayList and Clip, you can reset individual asset to zero. But you should never do this in reauthoring since there are probably other things like commands are referring to these PlayLists... An easier way is to use the time->video offset on Clip. This is usually needed for subtitles only.

More info on IN/OUT time:



By default, IN/OUT time are not set, unless your clip is set from the original disc. You can set IN/OUT time at both the Clip and PlayList level. If you set at the Clip level (Time->Duration), the clip and the playlist will both reflect the time you set. In Clip, you should see some yellow box saying "TIME", in PlayList, you should see the total playtime shortened. By setting IN/OUT time in Clip, you are essentially "trimming" the video and audio. You lose playback time and waste disc space by doing this. However, it is sometimes useful for seamless branching to ensure the audio and video have the exact same length to avoid the "no clean break" error. (Audio needs to be half second longer than video). But usually only the end couple frames is all you need to trim in this case.

The more common way to set IN/OUT time is at PlayList level, where you can create one playlist playing the whole footage, another playing only part of it without putting two versions of the same movie on disc (Clip).