Psst... That's "all for naught"

On top. It blends in with the glossy black bezel.

I just have a couple 1TB USB 2.0 external drives hooked up to my desktop/server machine. They serve over SMB to a couple modded xbox's running XBMC. That system works beautifully.

Believe it or not, I actually enjoyed Discovery and History in SD.

In fact, I mostly ignored my HD programming until Discovery (simulcast, not theater) and History were available. They were the first HD channels that actually had worthwhile content.

Content is king.

Most of the content I want to watch is only available in SD. HD is great and all, but I'm not going to watch something just because it's in HD.

A couple years ago, there were only a few HD channels being offered and most of them seemed stuck on the idea of showing off the capabilities of HD.

That was cute for the first couple weeks, then I got over it and tuned back into my SD channels which had worthwhile content.

I didn't want to watch "Birds over sunset", I wanted MythBusters, I just wanted it in HD.

It's not so much that settops will replace consoles so much as consoles will envelop settops.

Take a look at the Xbox Live service. I can download games, rent movies, watch television shows...

It would be a stretch to see settops competing with game consoles, but it wouldn't take much for my xbox to take over my television programming.

Happy Birthday!

Makes sense to me: playing a game should not feel like when your 12 year old newphew tries to explain Pokemon.

As an art form, video games should resemble films, not novels. You have some backstory, very few characters, one central plot, thematic elements. Films are simple.

Bioshock followed this model. Ryan creates underground world, something bad happened, and you're smack in the middle of the result. As the plot goes on, you learn more about what happened. Simple, but effective.

Often, designers will want to recreate something vastly complex, like Tolkien's Middle Earth, with a long history and complex interactions. All this does is bore and confuse your audience, no matter how smart they are...

Am I the only one that finds the choppy video a little staged?

Indispensible supporting character? Is Master Chief the hot chick?