bloggingIT

Well, I’m very excited.

The Beeb have made it possible for Wii users to watch streaming video with the iPlayer.

Right now, UK Wii owners who use the Internet Channel (£3.50 to you squire) can visit the iPlayer website and watch TV right now.

There are also hints that an iPlayer channel for the Wii will be available some time in the future (hopefully for free, but likely to be bundled with the Internet Channel).

This is great for that media convergent home. Ironically, the Wii is the console least likely to be touted as a multimedia center - and yet it’s the first of the current generation of consoles to be able to play the content.

Word is that the Playstation 3 will not be far behind - but Microsoft’s XBox360 will be unlikely to take part unless a deal can be made between MS and BBC.

I think that if the iPlayer Channel does manifest itself - I’ll be spending much more time on the Wii. Potentially, this could knock out a whole load of the Sky+ box’s usefulness along with it.

I’ve just ‘played’ Sky One’s viral marketing campagin promoting the new series of 24 through the www.ctuagent.com website.

A mildly entertaining diversion which has you looking at YouTube and other sites that present themselves as authentic.

It’s the first time that I’ve actually participated in one of these marketing campaigns - but I quite enjoyed the anonymous phone calls and text messages.

Once you get to the end, you have the change to win a holiday and HD TV, which can’t be bad.

I won’t go into how to solve it (it’s not particularly hard), but if you do have Sky TV, then I’m sure that you’ll enjoy it if you try it out.

This was the first time that I’ve actually been annoyed with the resolution of am episode of BSG.

After building up to what is basically an inevitable death for a lead character, the sci-fi engine kicks in and saves Roslin from dying of terminal cancer. Not only that - but she’s completely cured!

Nevermind the final ‘twist’ at the end which was completely unneccesary and unwarranted. I can’t fathom how that could have even be pulled off.

It’s a shame because the episode had some really good strengths. When Boomer started banging her head against the glass window, it was a shocking display or raw emotion.

Tigh’s restrained jubilation as Adama grabbed the terrorist by the throat was an excellently executed.

And of course, there was the issue of Baltar’s motivations which now even he’s confusing himself. With two clear motivations available to him for helping Roslin and saving her life, it seems he’s deluded himself into thinking that he was doing it out of the kindness of his heart. The root motivation of course is that he’s trying to save Boomer’s child.

Yep - not a bad episode in the least, just let down by a few quirks in the storyline.

I’ve recently been getting various failed messages recording on my Sky+ box.

Annoyingly, this is simply a shortcoming of the box’s ability to manage the hard disk drive that’s inside.

To that end (and before I forget again), I thought I’d better post the remote command to access the engineer’s menu which I found on an Overclockers blog this time round.

While watching the TV normally, press the following combination on the remote (don’t worry about what happens on screen as you do so):

Services
4
0
1
Select

Once in the menu, select Sky+ Planner Rebuild. The Sky+ Box will go off-line as the planner is rebuilt, you will have to turn it back on when the process is complete. It’s a hairy few moments, but solves the issues of failed recordings and reported low disk space.

So the BBC had their annual Test the Nation IQ test tonight.

It was a bit of a grind as one of the sections asked questions about a video that they played at the start which I didn’t watch. Luckily, my knowledge of Monty Python sketches and Smith and Jones comedies allowed me to scrape a few points back that I wouldn’t have had otherwise.

Still, I dropped a few points from last year and ended up with a 129. I swear it was harder than last year, and a few questions I managed by guessing them. My reasoning for others was so far off it was untrue.

Still, it’s a nice way to spend a Saturday night.