Yesterday photos appeared showing a white XBOX 360 with an HDMI port. Was that a Premium or a white Elite? Well, it was a Premium.

Over on FatWallet.com, one user reported buying an XBOX 360 Premium at their local Target yesterday. On the box was an HDMI logo. The owner confirmed that the Premium did in fact have an HDMI port on the back of the console.

All of a sudden the XBOX 360 has gotten more affordable while getting more powerful. Buy your Premiums with care and make sure you get one with HDMI out.

Tip: Get an HDMI to DVI cable to play your 360 on PC monitors. Don’t buy the cable from Best Buy, CompUSA, Circuit City, etc. They will charge you $50 to $150 for a 6-foot cable. I just bought my cable for $10 from my local computer shop. Recall that the XBOX 360 VGA cable costs $40.

Note: See that port above the HDMI port in the image above? Notice anything different about it? You can’t plug the first-gen XBOX 360 A/V packs into that slot if you have an HDMI cable plugged in at the same time. This may or may not affect anyone. Not worry, Microsoft ships a slimmed down A/V adapter to plug into the 360’s A/V port. You can get Optical Audio and L/R Audio from that adapter.

currently playing: Shadowrun
currently supporting: Ron Paul

Microsoft says that HALO 3 has sold over 1,000,000 pre-orders to date. Considering that the cost of HALO 3 will be from $50 to $120, that’s a lot of cash. That’s at least $50,000,000 already – probably closer to $70,000,000. You can probably expect two or three million more copies of HALO 3 being sold by the end of the year. Holy cash cow, Batman!

And Microsoft isn’t the only one that recognizes HALO 3’s power. 7-Eleven, Burger King, Mountain Dew, and others will be promoting HALO 3 with their products and brands. Some are even making NEW products. Check out all of the stuff that will be headed our way:

* In a few select markets, Mountain Dew will offer a special-edition aluminum bottle of Mountain Dew Game Fuel with an exclusive design created by Bungie Studios, the developers of Halo 3. This bottle will be available in very limited quantities, making it a highly sought-after collector’s item.

* Mountain Dew will unveil the first beverage co-branded with a video game, Mountain Dew Game Fuel. Game Fuel has the same great taste of Mountain Dew with an invigorating blast of citrus cherry flavor and added caffeine for maximum intensity. Game Fuel will come in 20-ounce bottles, 2-liter bottles and 12-packs of 12-ounce cans and will be available nationwide for a limited time starting Aug. 13, 2007.

* 7-Eleven today confirmed its plans to support the launch of Halo 3 through a variety of in-store promotions, including three Halo 3-branded collectible Slurpee cups. In addition,7-Eleven will run a Halo 3 promotion with Mountain Dew Game Fuel and Doritos, with thousands of Halo 3-themed prizes, including, as grand prize, a chance to win a minor role as a voice actor in the upcoming Xbox 360 video game, Halo Wars, by Ensemble Studios.

* Pontiac will host Pontiac Gamers Garage events in select locations, providing consumers with a chance to play the game for the first time before its release. In addition, in support of the launch of its upcoming high-performance G6 GXP Street, Pontiac is offering 1,000 consumers a chance to win a copy of the game; one lucky gamer will win a limited-edition Halo 3 G6 GXP Street car.

* Burger King Corp. will continue its sponsorship of Xbox 360 with national, in-restaurant support from Sept. 24 through Oct. 22. Halo 3-themed packaging will offer customers access to exclusive content by logging on to http://www.bk.com/halo3 beginning Sept. 23. Graphics will be featured on select packaging, including the 42-ounce cup and King FRYPOD.

* Comcast has also joined the Halo 3 campaign and will host exclusive video content, including user-generated movies and machinima, on its Web sites http://gameinvasion.net and http://www.ziddio.com. Comcast will also feature standard- and high-definition Halo 3 videos on its signature ON DEMAND service.

* Halo 3 is also the official sponsor of the Projekt Revolution tour this summer, which includes bands Linkin Park and My Chemical Romance. Exclusive Halo 3 VIP events will take place in select cities on the tour, where attendees will receive Halo 3-themed merchandise and have an opportunity to meet the members of Linkin Park.

Has SONY or Nintendo came up with a game with kind of promotional power? Me thinks not.

currently playing: Shadowrun
currently supporting: Ron Paul

The XBOX 360 Premium is really close to costing less than $300. Over in the Hushed Casket store at Amazon an XBOX 360 Premium costs just $329. These things were going for around $400 last week. Walmart.com lists this same system for $350.

HALO fans who haven’t yet purchased an XBOX 360 have a very good reason to buy a Premium system.

$329.99 for XBOX 360 Premium at Amazon with free shipping.

By the way, the XBOX 360 Elite costs $449.99 at Amazon.

currently playing: Shadowrun
currently supporting: Ron Paul

[update: The final project is complete. Read the entire thread for the gory details].

A couple months ago I became interested in the concept of creating a DVR that could record and play high definition TV, and possibly copy the episodes to DVD, but would be absent any subscription fees and totally under my control. It turns out this has been going on for quite a while, and it goes by many names:

-Home Theater PC (HTPC)
-Personal Video Recorder (PVR)
-Digital Video Recorder (DVR)

I began to read, read, and read some more about how to accomplish my goal. In the midst, I found out that HTPCs are pretty versatile. You can use them as Blu-ray players, HD-DVD players, TV tuners, gaming rigs, and even extend them to other TVs through either 3rd party software or MS Windows Media Center and an Xbox 360.

Click “read more” to find out what I did, why I did it, and how I did it.

My requirements are as follows:
1. Tune and record HDTV from over the air (OTA, also knows as ATSC format) or QAM (Clear, unencrypted HD channels that cable companies send over your coax cable. Usually, just the locals, but if you have a cable subscription it’s easier to get the locals from QAM than screwing with an antenna for OTA).
2. Output the video in 1920x1080p60 to a 1080p HDTV.
3. Output 5.1 audio to my receiver.
4. Have a clean and intuitive interface so that anyone can easily use it.

Maturing technology makes these tasks attainable without extreme costs. As a matter of fact, since I don’t want to use my HTPC as a HD-DVD, BR player, or gaming rig then my task is relatively easy.

To start, you need a computer. How good a computer do you need? Well, it greatly depends on your video card. Processing video is the sole purpose of this machine, so it needs to do it seamlessly without stuttering, and with HD material nonetheless. Fortunately, the GeForce 8500GT/8600GT chipset from NVidia is almost made for HTPC use. It 100% offloads video processing (H.264, to be exact) from the CPU, necessitating the CPU only run the OS and software supporting the HTPC, which is relatively easy for any modern chip. If I were going to decode HD-DVD and BR I would need a faster processor. I found an extremely hot deal on an Acer T180UD400A at Circuit City that features Vista Home Premium, an AMD 64 x2 4000+ processor, 1 GB RAM, and a 250GB hard drive.

The existing PC needed a RAM upgrade to make Vista, Media Center, and my tuner applications sing, so I ordered 2 GB extra to increase the total to 3 GB.

Next, you need a video card to output the HD signal. I went with the Nvidia GeForce 8500GT, since the 8500/8600 chipsets have the exact same video processing capabilities (but not 3D rendering capabilities) and the 8500GT is cheaper. The card I used is from MSI. I will output the signal via DVI and feed it to my TV via a cheap and readily available DVI/HDMI converter. Since I’m not playing HD-DVD/BR I also don’t need to worry about a HDCP compliant video card, which widens my options and drops my price.

Now I have three variables left:
Tuner
Audio
3rd Party software if Media Center doesn’t cut it

If I want to tune QAM with Vista I am locked into the HD Homerun tuner. It’s a pretty cool device, but expensive at $169 MSRP. It’s a network device that has two tuners, including ATSC/QAM, and it serves the feeds to any device on your network via wired CAT 5e conntection. If you want to serve more than three devices it recommends a gigabit network. The Hauppauge series of tuners is also popular (HVR-1600 and new HVR-1800 for Vista), but I’d need to hook up an antenna, which isn’t the end of the world, but makes for more wires, hassle, and expense. However, at $60 and $100 the cards are significantly cheaper than the HD Homerun.

Audio is easy. My mobo has a 4-pin S/PDIF header that will output digital audio. I just have to buy or make a harness to get the feed off the mobo on to an empty PCI slot cover. I made a cheap adapter using a RCA to 2-conductor adapter and a cheap plastic plug I found at a hobby electronics store.

I’ll cross the 3rd party software bridge when I get there. I hope MC will be sufficient, but if it’s not I’ll go with Beyond TV, a very popular, robust, and easy to use program.

Below you’ll see the final budget for this rig. A HTPC with this functionality for $500 is a real bargain. I do figure in applicable rebates (which I am a Nazi about completing) and my 2% cash back from my Redstone Visa. Compared to a HD cable subscription and DVR rental it will pay for itself in about a year, and offer more functionality. At the top of this post is a picture of the final product (albeit on a 22” monitor, have since connected it to my 1080p DLP TV)

Hit me with questions and comments.