The full Demo Trailer Mirrors list has been updated with a number of new mirrors; even the newer QuickTime5 hi-res movie has a mirror (thanks, Halo Orbit!). Check out the list for the full details. (There are now links at the top of the page for each flavor.)

Benjamin Coles points out that the price drop Ding mentioned a few days ago (and then speculated might not actually happen) has actually happened – Target is selling Halo for $27.88 this week, according to XboxAddict. If you need another copy, you can’t beat this price!

Its accuracy depends on Evil Otto having created his artwork to scale… but Shnfara has estimated the thickness of the Halo at almost 120 km by using a side-on picture of the ring and some pixel math. You’ll find the result in our Miscellaneous Art section. Update: My bad – that value (the thickness of the ring) is actually mentioned in ‘Halo: The Fall of Reach’. (It’s 22.3 km thick.) I’m not sure how I confused this number with the WIDTH of the ring – but that’s what I must have done. (I’ve pointed out the thickness many times on our forum.) What we’ve learned: Evil Otto didn’t draw this ring to scale. 🙂 (Thanks to Bobby Lucas for pointing this out.)

Six new desktops (8, if you count variations) have built up since we dropped everything for the demo trailer… you can now find them in our Wallpaper section. Update: one of the pieces has been yanked because it used artwork without getting permission from the creator of that artwork. This seems to be happening more and more; I’m going to add a rule that says that if you submit artwork to our site, and you use external artwork without permission, and we get a cease-and-desist request from the original artist (as we did in this case), we’re not only going to yank the piece, we’re going to ask that you no longer submit any artwork to us. This rule goes into effect right now; I’ll have a note about it on our Image Posting Guidelines page before the day’s out. It’s not cool to steal. (Using Bungie artwork in your wallpapers/misc art submissions is fine; that’s one of the reasons they post it. Snagging a nice shot of a planet off someone else’s site is NOT fine. Modifying someone else’s wallpaper or misc art without their permission is NOT fine. And so on.)

A new version of the trailer, encoded in MPEG1 format, is now available. It’s 87 mb, and has a screen resolution of 436×320. It’s a bit darker than it should be, maybe (I can’t tell for sure; it looks good on 3 of the four machines I checked it on), but if you can’t watch the existing versions, this puppy might be for you. Mirror offers gladly accepted.

Okay, here’s the deal. If you own a relatively new, fast PC, there’s absolutely no question which trailer you should download: get the WMP9 hi-res version. It’s simply gorgeous, running on decent hardware. And if your sound system supports it, it has Dolby 5.1 surround sound. It’s as close as you’re gonna get to having the E3 demo running in your living room. However, if you’re on a Mac, or a slower PC, or a PC with an older operating system… you might have trouble with this movie. For you, Bungie released a QuickTime version. It’s not up to the quality of the WMP version… but for a lot of people, less than perfect is better than nothing. The problem is, the QuickTime version was encoded using Apple’s mpeg-4 codec… and this is, unfortunately, rather processor-dependent for good playback. (It’s beautiful on a fast machine… but degrades significantly on older machines, and isn’t even playable on some operating systems.) So for you, we’re making alternate versions. First up – a hi-res QuickTime5-compatible version, weighing in at 106 mb. This one is close to the quality of Bungie’s hi-res QuickTime version – but it will play nicely on many, many more machines. Later today, there’ll be a slightly smaller (screensize of 436×320) MPEG1 version – there were very few compromises made on quality, so it weighs in at almost 87 mb. (Again, if you have a larger version that works for you, do not download this – leave the bandwidth for those who need it.) Currently being processed: A 400×270 WMP7-encoded .wmv that should weigh in at under 50 mb. Last up will be another Sorenson3-encoded quicktime, in a smaller screen resolution and smaller disk footprint. Hopefully, between these, and the REALLY small versions released by a couple of sites last night, those without the resources to see the ‘official’ versions will still be able to appreciate this trailer. (Again: one of the reasons it’s taken so long to get these alternate versions to you is because we’re doing our best to maximize quality. These ain’t cheap knockoffs; we understand that one of the reasons Bungie asked you not to download the shakeycam versions is because presentation matters.) Mirrors for these files are more than welcome – grab a copy, post it somewhere, send us the link. We’ll add it. Thanks!

Thursday night, I took the opportunity to fix minor problems with the dialogue transcript for the demo trailer we posted a couple of weeks ago. Thanks to Ross Mills for reminding me to actually POST these fixes.

While some of us were frantic about the demo trailer, the Fan Fiction crowd was pretty busy – check out the latest 14 entries:

• Its Just One of Those Days: Intro, by Elfster
• Covenant Invasion! Part One, by Hunter_Killer
• A Broken Covenant, by TheRambler
• Sacrifice, by Gruntkiller
• All Roads Lead To Sol…Unless Stated Otherwise: Chapter 1, by S7N
• All Roads Lead To Sol…Unless Stated Otherwise: Chapter 2, by S7N
• All Roads Lead To Sol…Unless Stated Otherwise: Chapter 3, by S7N
• All Roads Lead To Sol…Unless Stated Otherwise: Chapter 4, by S7N
• The Ganymede Seige part 1, by Spartan 81388
• Flood Survival Part II, by Forever Forerunner
• The Fall of Fate: Grunter, by ‘Nosolee
• Ishkabibbl’sSotry/Humanity’sLastHope/Bloodywar (Part 2), by Ishkabibbl
• True Purpose(10), by Frensa Geran
• The Clergy, by Angelus

That’s a lotta reading…

That Weasel has been busy; there are several new flavors of the trailer (and one official flavor) at That Weasel Television; these are (for the most part) very low-bandwidth items. (These have been added to the full mirrors list.) Apologies for the delay in the HIGH-bandwidth re-encodes from me; first versions had screwed-up gamma. If you want sub-20mb versions, go visit the Weasel! (Ask him about the Weasel dance while you’re there…)

Jay Weinland, otherwise known as Jay the Younger (in deference to the hard-of-hearing Marty O’Donnell), has put forth a challenge to the fans: can you tell what meter(s) the “outro” music for the trailer is written in? (Check the thread for more details, and as of now, one guess.)

Couple of notes about European Halo play; the big one is in France. Swing by Halo-Game’s site for full details, but here’s the quick rundown: competition is the last weekend in August in Clermont Ferrant (central France). Entrance fee is €20, top prize is €4000 in merchandise. Sign up if you’re gonna be in France during that time. We also got word (on our forum) of a tournament (multi-game, including Halo) in London, on July 5th and 12th. Entrance fee is £3, winner will appear on British television.

Nukedude has converted the WMP9 version of the demo trailer to a 320×216, 20.3 mb DivX-encoded .avi. If you’re tight on bandwidth, you might want to grab this. It’s not nearly as majestic as the original… but it’s light-years ahead of the shakeycam versions floating around. I have no way to get this to mirror sites right now, so be gentle to nukedude’s server! Update: nukedude has added another small pipe for this one, via ftp. Anybody else wants to mirror it, we’re HAPPY to spread the word. 🙂

Target’s current sale of Halo for $37.88 might be the only actual sale of the game… next week’s purported drop to $27.88 might not happen, according to some insider tips I received. If you wish, you can hedge your bets: buy the game now, and if it does drop down another $10, you can take it back to Target and get the difference refunded.

In the insanity that was yesterday, the Friday edition of One One Se7en was overlooked. After WATCHING the flaming ninja material, however, you’re more equipped to appreciate this episode…

Don’t they ever stop? Bungie has put up yet another desktop for you – this time, it’s a pretty straightforward screenshot adaptation, using material from Halo PC. Check it out on the Halo PC Wallpapers page at Bungie’s Tru7h and Reconciliation. Thanks to nukedude for the heads-up. (This was actually announced, along with the Ghost Chase II image we mentioned yesterday… but somehow I missed the reference. Busy, or something. Not sure.)

The mirror list for the E3 Demo Trailer continues to grow… more links were added overnight. We’ll also be beginning to add alternate formats. Any alternate formats added will be created from existing files, so there is absolutely no need to download them if you’ve already got a copy that you can watch; these are for people who couldn’t, for one reason or another, view the originals. None of these alternate formats will be available until 1) we can get them to mirror sites, and 2) current bandwidth demands drop far enough that the mirror sites can handle the load. (Mythica served almost 400 GB yesterday, with BitTorrent clients adding another 200 GB or so to that – and the Red vs Blue guys did double that. Add to those numbers the big boys like IGN, Gamespot, and FilePlanet, and all the smaller mirrors that served thousands more copies… there was a LOT of demand, and it’s not gone yet.) There’s a Sorenson3-encoded version of the QT movie for machines that aren’t good with mpeg-4 encoding… and an MPEG1 version in the works for those with even more limits. Dropping to older technologies means losing the bells and whistles (like the WMP9 version’s Dolby 5.1 sound)… but for those who can’t PLAY the newest stuff, losing bells is better than not having ANYTHING. We’ll probably put together a WMP7 version, as well, at some point.

mnemesis, bored because he saw the demo footage 3 or 4 dozen times during E3, took the opportunity to update the Halo Story Page today. Twice. I mean, come on. Twice?

Geez, almost missed it… SketchFactor, thinking that maybe you didn’t have ENOUGH media to look at today, tossed up another screenshot for the Tru7h and Reconciliation website. You’ll find it on the bottom of the page.

The mirror list for the demo trailer continues to grow. Latest addition is Xbox Community HK – it’s a Hong Kong-based server with excellent connections to Taiwan and mainland China (and the rest of Asia). Hopefully, we’ll have more European links for you soon, as well. (Brian Towne updated the forum on the efficacy of the BitTorrent links; they’re really starting to pick up. Remember, if you use them, leave the window open after your download finishes, and share the wealth! The more people who help out with uploading, the faster it goes for EVERYBODY.)

Catching up… SketchFactor reminded everyone on Bungie.net that next week marks the debut of the Discovery Channel special on the Xbox, which highlights Bungie. Check it out (and see Sketch’s writeup for a link to a teaser trailer)!