_{[For his Monthly Musing, bassbeast shows how game music can be just as memorable and amazing as the gameplay itself. Want to see your own work on the front page? Go ahead and write a blog on this month's topic and it might get promoted! -- JRo]}

I'm a musician. Not the "I play guitar in my mom's basement" kind of musician. I've got a university degree in this. It's how I put food on my table and support my wife and son. Rather than retread the old, tired debate for music's value in a gaming experience (there are enough articles about that), for this month's Monthly Musing, I remembered the first time that music actually blew me away.

I'm 30, which means I'm old enough to remember when chiptunes weren't this cool alternative way of looking at in-game music; it was the only way. Certainly, the NES was filled with great soundtracks like Metroid, Castlevania, the Mario series, etc. Thinking back, given the memory and sound generation limitations at the time - four voices at most, saw, wave, triangle and noise generators - it's damned impressive that we have the amazing repository of great 8-bit tunes that are still hummable to this day. There's something to be said about doing so much more with less.

But that's not what this is about.

Sure, my Genesis was a big leg up from the NES in terms of sound, but it still reeked of 80s Roland-style synthesizer sounds. CD-based systems were still just in the hype-filled EGMs and Nintendo Powers of the day, and other than spending $300 on an add-on for Red-Book audio (basically, the system would load a level into the RAM, then hit the play button on the CD to stream an audio track), having real, decent music in a game that had real symphonic qualities was a pipe dream.

In 1991, enter Sony.

But wait, you may be saying. Wasn't the SNES introduced in 1991? The PlayStation was still years away! True, but Nintendo forged a more important relationship with Sony prior to the SNES CD debacle: the development of the SPC700 audio chip. For the first time, it wasn't just tone generation; these were real samples. Wanted strings? You could actually have a string sound. Cymbals finally shimmered with a metallic crash that had never been possible before.

As a budding musician, this was huge. I didn't have to imagine what the piece might sound like with real(ish) instruments. For the first time, game composers could actually make a soundtrack that sounded like it was played by people. In fact, if you go back, they still hold up pretty darn well 20 years later. For example, go back and listen to the Axelay soundtrack. I'll bet half of you haven't heard it before, and the other half probably forgot, but it's a great 16-bit collection of tunes.

Can't see the video? Click here

You've never heard this, and that's a shame.

But by the time Axelay was out, a lot of folks already knew what they were doing with the SPC700. Nintendo sure didn't with Super Mario World. Now don't get me wrong. It's a great memorable soundtrack, but most of the samples are weird pad-like sounds that sound two steps above what the Genesis was putting out. It took one game to transform what we thought was possible in game audio, my focus for this post: Actraiser.

Can't see the video? Click here

The most important orchestral cartridge-based tune of all time.

See that caption? I'm deadly serious when I say that "Bloodpool" is the single most important cartidge-based orchestral tune of all time. There is so much happening musically that had never happened before from a compositional standpoint. "Bloodpool" is our medium's seminal Beethoven moment.

First, we have symphonic texture. There are actually many instruments working together here. First, we have the obvious string melody (polyphonic, mind you, meaning it's actually harmonized constantly). You also probably noticed the military snare underneath. But did you hear the cleanliness of that crash cymbal? Never before had we heard that on a console.

But there's more. It's tougher to hear, but there's a great harmonic counterpoint occurring under the main melody in the form of French horns. They're very syncopated, and sit right in the middle of the pitch spectrum. They fill in the piece, making it feel much more broad and grand. Speaking of brass, there's also the secondary melody that the trumpets take over after the string repeats the opening motif an octave above. The fact that there's even a trumpet counterpoint to mention is huge. And they actually sound like trumpets! The tuba that supports the whole opening section is lush and Wagnerian.

It then morphs into a Danny Elfman-esque sequence of chromatically-descending dissonance. All of a sudden, we have a new set of instrumentation: plucked bass, drum kit and xylophone. The strings, once the main driving force of the melody, are now an off-beat rhythmic punch. Despite the fast stylistic shift, it all sounds organic and compositionally sound.

The strings are then abandoned for a short, dissonant brass section, where the tuba French horns and trumpets destroy any tonality that had been established before, using a series of French augmented sixth chords, chromatically rising until we reach the final section.

Finally, we move to a combination of the two different ideas. The xylophone begins to flurry about underneath, creating serious rhythmic momentum. The trumpets are clustered, creating that hard dissonance, along with the octave unison lines of the tuba and third trumpet rising on open 5ths. The line is then repeated a semitone higher, putting it on the dominant of the original key, setting ourselves up for a perfect cadence as the loop begins anew.

The entire piece is put through a reverb filter, allowing both the bass frequencies to be exaggerated (think why a subwoofer is so important for a home theater setup) and also giving the impression that the music is being performed in a concert hall.

All of this in a 37-second SNES tune.

Music technobabble aside, this kind of analysis is huge to be able to do. Think to the most memorable tune on the NES. You know what I'm talking about:

Can't see the video? Click here

The only tune you think of for NES music.

Actraiser was a launch title for the SNES, much like the original Super Mario Bros. was for the NES. But listen to the difference! It's literally night and day. It may seem trite now, but think about what it would have been like 20 years ago, going from the blips and beeps of Mario to the orchestra of Master.

There also the fact that the soundtrack was dynamic enough to even be analyzed at that level. When you've only got three notes and one noise, it's tough to find enough content to be able to find layers.

The soundtrack also has the distinction of being the first one to be orchestrated and performed live onstage. It was that different, that amazing that people actually paid money to see it performed by a real orchestra. The scary thing was that it doesn't sound that different when you compared the two performances, one live, one digital creation.

I'd never heard anything like this before, ever. It was so amazing I actually used my Game Genie to give myself unlimited time on the level, and just sit and listen. I didn't care that the loop was so short (they all were back in the day), it was just so engrossing that I couldn't stop.

Yuzo Koshiro may not have the name recognition of a Hans Zimmer, or Nobuo Uematsu, but what he did for music in gaming was nothing short of Aaamaazing.

Your nightly recaps is a little late tonight because I was busy getting my face rocked the f*ck off at the 8-bit SF show tonight. The Glowing Stars debut performance was amazing, Peelander-Z were quote "the first sentient beings made purely of cocaine" and Anamanaguchi brought the house down. As the band said themselves, this was the best show Anamanaguchi has performed yet.

As for what happened on Dtoid this past Thursday, we exclusively revealed some new F.E.A.R 3 enemies, Jordan checked out Battlefield Paly4Free, Minecraft is getting officially released on 11/11/11, retro Sonic is back and plenty more happened on 4/7/11.

Destructoid Originals:
New Destructoid Shirts! Featuring Squidbear!
The foes of F.E.A.R 3: The Armacham Military
The Memory Card .85: You have chosen ... wisely
Killing photographers in Tajikistan with Red River
Live show: Mash Tactics plays Fallout New Vegas
Live Show: Backlog continues quest in Forsaken Kingdom

Community:
Aaamaazing: Japan hasn't lost it's touch

Contests:
Contest: Win Gunnar Optiks Digital Performance Eyewear!

Previews:
Impressions: Battlefield Play4Free open beta

News:
Duke Nukem: Critical Mass has a trailer
GameStop to open a Facebook store
Ono: Mortal Kombat represents Western game design
Cave's iOS game line-up on sale
EA: Battlefield 3 'designed' to take down Call of Duty
Mass Effect anime announced by EA and FUNimation
Anonymous ceases PSN attacks as Sony investigates
Retro Sonic makes a return in SEGA's teaser trailer
Portal 2: Lab Rat comic to fill in gaps
Steel Diver dated May 6th for Europe
Mass Effect 3 is Game Informer's May issue cover story
Harvest Moon game announced for the 3DS
Levine: Videogame sex is like puppets with clothes off
More details on Capcom's 3D sound game, Nazo Yaku Wakata
Global Agenda goes free-to-play
Modojo's Facebook 3DS Friend Code Finder is a handy thing
More deets on Pandora's Tower for Wii
White Knight Chronicles II being published by D3Publisher
ChuChu Rocket! is free for iPhone today
Minecraft to shed beta status on 11/11/11

Offbeat:
Mega64: Bugging customers with Limbo
This portable Nintendo 64 looks pretty nice
Check out this sick Skull Kid costume
Is this the Chrono Cross 2 intro movie?
Here is a new L.A. Noire trailer for you to fap over
Amazing music video made in DSi Flipnote Studio
Got money? Okamiden plushes and pillows now available

Media:
Presenting Aksys Games' Press Release Theater
More details on Flashback creator's survival horror AMY
Warhammer 40k's Space Marines are still awesome
Look at this Prey 2 screenshot, because it's the only one
Rebecca Chambers is in Resident Evil: Mercenaries 3DS
Super Street Fighter IV: AE will be DLC, has new trailer
Mortal Kombat: Legacy debuting on Machinima next week!
Video walks us through Pac-Man & Galaga Dimensions
Oni officially revealed for Super Street Fighter IV: AE
Red Faction: Armageddon wants you, Descent fans

I have a confession to make:  I didn't see anywhere near the number of movies that my colleagues here did in 2010, so my list is going to be a little bit different.  I'm not so much making a "Best of" list for 2010, mine is more a list of most memorable movie experiences from the last year.  Almost all of them came in cinema halls, but one or two of them came at home with new films from this year.  You'll see a few familiar names, but then you'll see some things that I bet won't be found on the other guys' lists.  But, hey!  Isn't that what these lists are for, finding the things you missed? 

The films on this list made me laugh, chant, and knotted my stomach; sometimes they made me rethink what films should be like, they challenged my preconceptions about people and places; some of them made me question my own sanity, and some were just plain fun in a way that was fresh and new.  There are probably at least a couple that you haven't seen, well, here's your chance to seek them out, in no particular order apart from number one:

1. Enthiran (Dir: Shankar)  Enthiran was an event film of the highest magnitude.  The highest budgeted film ever made in India.  Superstar Rajinikanth inspires such devotion that nothing I've seen in my life compares to the mania that preceded and followed this films release.  The news from India was madness, 24 hour showings were booked solid for weeks in advance, men made pilgrimages to bless holy relics in hopes of the film's success, showings began at 5:30 AM in Dubai, people sat in auditoriums all day to watch the film numerous times.  Most of us cannot even imagine the kind of insanity a new Rajinikanth film inspires, let alone his biggest film ever.  Even in my little corner of the world in Dallas, I saw the film with my wife (neither of us are Indian) in an auditorium absolutely packed with screaming devotees.  We were the only non-Indians in the room, this showing had been sold out for a week, and there was a line out the front door of the theater for ticket holders.  All I can say is that if you missed this, you missed the film event of the year.  When Superstar Rajni's credit comes up (before the production company or any other credits) the house exploded, confetti rained down from the upper rows of the theater, and whistles, cat calls, and shouts of "Thalaivar!" (Rajni's nickname to fans) drowned out the sound track completely through the opening credits and music.  Then the film started, and it only got better.  In my review I made note of the fact that I have no illusions about the experience diminishing once I get a chance to watch this on home video (not available yet, trust me I'll let you know), however, I have confetti at the ready to try and recapture my top movie experience of 2010 at home!

2. Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (Dir: Edgar Wright)  I am a child of the 80's, I played the original Nintendo Entertainment System, I had a Commodore 64, and I pumped thousands of dollars, I'm sure, into Street Fighter II arcade machines.  I am the target audience for Scott Pilgrim.  That being said, it wasn't those cultural references that really impressed me about this film, though they were cute.  Edgar Wright made his most ambitious movie with Scott Pilgrim, he took chances, not only in making a film that would be hard to market outside of a core audience, but also by smashing so many different types of films together and then watching them explode on the screen in a way that is captivating and fresh.  I didn't walk out of the theater muttering to myself about the 8-bit video game theme music references, I wasn't looking for Easter eggs in the film; I walked about knowing that I'd seen something that no one had ever done before, and I loved it.  It had well-choreographed action, it had heart, it had conflict, it had art, it was touching, exciting, fresh, and familiar all at once.  The blurb on the home video label calls it a "game changer" and while I get the video game reference in that blurb, I unfortunately don't think this film will change much in the film game, especially due to its dismal box-office performance.  However, for those of us who saw it and enjoyed it, we all know that there is something special in Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, and we know that we may not see anything like it at a megaplex for a long time, and for that, we are sad.

3.  Piranha 3-D (Dir: Alexandre Aja)  Okay, here is where I'm sure I'll begin to drift from my fellow writers.  As evidenced in my Video Home Invasion column, I love horror.  I love horror, I love exploitation, I love gore films, I love them.  To be honest, I remember hearing that Aja was going to remake Piranha well ahead of the release and I wasn't terribly interested at that point. It wasn't until the first pre-release reviews starting trickling out over the internet that my interest piqued.  I read glorious tales of a film that went so far over the edge that it rivaled some of my favorite films from my teenage years.  Sex, blood, and killer fish were all I could think about.  The more I heard, the more I became convinced that all of the hype had to be over-blown, there was no way that a studio would let a director go that far in the boob-baring and blood-letting departments.  I riled myself up and bought my ticket for the midnight show, I went alone, my wife had work the next morning, Hell, so did I, but I wouldn't be deterred.  I saw Piranha 3-D in a nearly empty auditorium with perhaps four other people to share my experience.  The hype was all real.  It was everything that exploitation films of the 80's promised with their posters and rarely delivered.  The key gore set pieces were astonishing.  There were boobs to spare.  From the opening tribute to Jaws featuring Richard Dreyfuss, to the closing sequences promising more to come, Piranha 3-D was exactly the film I paid to see.  A sequel, fittingly titled Piranha 3-DD, has already been greenlit and is to be directed by John Gulager of Feast, I can't say I'm as enthusiastic for the next one, but I love being surprised.  Piranha 3-D releases on home video just after the new year, and it is a day one purchase for me, I'm not sure that the 3-D floating dismembered Member will be the same at home, but this is the type of film I'll support every time.  Piranha 3-D promised, Piranha 3-D delivered, can't ask for much more than that.

4.  Gandu (Dir: Q)  This is the only film on the list that I didn't manage to catch on the big screen, but I'm trying to make that happen here in Dallas sooner rather than later.  This film was a revelation to me.  I've seen a lot of Indian films, I know their tropes, I feel like I know their hopes and dreams, I feel like I know where they live.  I've seen the slums, I've seen the poverty, I've seen the new riches and opportunities, I've seen the heroism, I've seen the evil and corruption that seems to invade the lives of so many common Indian people.  Gandu is something I haven't seen.  It is a film about a loser.  Gandu has hopes and dreams, but he also has drug and gambling habits to feed, and they seem to take precedence more often than not.  It isn't brightly colored, it isn't coy, it isn't unassuming, it isn't a fable, and it is in no way conventional.  It isn't conventional for any film, let along an Indian film.  It is graphic in its depiction of sex, drugs, poverty, and the real struggles of real people living real lives, not the typical escapism of Indian film.  It showed me an India I'd never seen, and it made me care about and cheer for a person who is the hero of no one else's story but his own.  A person like me (only with more drugs).   Q took an idea and made it real, it was a risk, in fact, there is very little chance right now of Gandu getting a commercial release in India, its content will never pass the censors.  It isn't the kind of film that makes it into art house complexes in the west, it is too experimental.  Normally, I hate that, there is nothing worse that directors who love the smell of their own farts, but Q makes it work.  The film, though very disjointed, works and doesn't feel self-indulgent.  Everything in the film contributes to the messages, from the dialogue, or lack thereof, to the editing style and visual choices.  It is a complete work, and it represents 90 of the finest minutes I spent in front of my TV this year.

5. Symbol (Dir: Hitoshi Matsumoto)  Symbol isn't really about anything.  The first two thirds are a bizarre, yet captivating set up for a joke, but the audience doesn't know they're being told a joke, and the payoff is all the sweeter for it.  Matsumoto places the main action in two locations, first in rural Mexico, where an amateur luchador is off to a weekend wrestling match, and second with Matsumoto himself stuff in a big white room.  Much of the Mexican story plays out like Big Man Japan did, with a very wry sense of humor, and no real direction that the audience can see.  In the other "story", Matsumoto's unnamed character spends a good portion of the film trying to get out of this room in which he finds himself, he has awakened from a dream, he's even still wearing his jammies, and he can't quite figure out what is going on.  Almost that entire last sentence could also apply to Symbol's audience.  To describe it, Symbol doesn't sound like much, but never has such a seemingly endless stream of ephemera had such a volcanic result in a theater when the punchline is finally delivered.  By the time we reach the 2001: A Space Odyssey inspired conclusion, we are totally into it, and want to watch it all over again!

6.  Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil (Dir: Eli Craig)  The fact that this movie still hasn't found North American distribution is a crime.  Tucker & Dale is a pitch perfect send up of any number of classic Hillbilly horrors, from Deliverance to Wrong Turn.  In fact, this is pretty much Wrong Turn filmed from the inside out.  Tucker and Dale are a couple of down home boys celebrating their recent acquisition of a country cabin vacation home.  As they are on their way down to check the place out and start sprucing it up, they encounter a group of 20 somethings who are determined to get into trouble and are frightened by the prospects of anyone wearing overalls or speaking with a Southern accent.  In their ignorance and fear, the nubile would be victims turn aggressive and manage to get themselves killed one after another with no help from our hapless heroes, who are just trying to survive the weekend.  When I saw this film at the Dallas International Film Festival in April, the entire crowd was completely in stitches from start to finish.  The film has had regular theatrical runs in Russia and Lithuania, what the Hell is wrong with you, America?  See this film by any means necessary!

7.  Despicable Me (Dir: Pierre Coffin, Chris Renaud)  I have a six year old son, so I see a lot of kid's movies.  I saw almost all of them this year, though I did manage to avoid Yogi Bear and Marmaduke, but the one that stuck with me the most was Despicable Me.  I loved Toy Story 3, and I really enjoyed Tangled, TS3's efficient and bald-faced tear-jerking, and Tangled's attempt to resurrect the Disney musical, I think Despicable Me ultimately had the most heart of all of them.  The animation was fantastic, the 3-D effects, which are usually pretty anemic, were put to some of the best use I've seen yet in the film as well, but most of all, the characters had depth and were lovable.  I was pulling for Steve Carrel's Gru, and don't get me started on the Minions.  If I had my Christmas wish, I'd have a horde of Minions in my basement doing my bidding as well.  Most non-Pixar animated films suffer from the times in which they are made, and not from the technology, but mostly from jokes that will become dated within months.  Despicable Me has an absolute minimum of those jokes, and will translate into good times for my family and I for years to come.

8.  Summer Wars (Dir: Mamoru Hosoda)  I'm not an anime geek.  I don't watch anime serials, I very rarely watch features, but once in a great while something will grab me.  Summer Wars grabbed me.  Summer Wars was a wonderful, ambitious film.  Taking a very high tech world and attacking it from a sprawling country estate was an inspired decision.  The characters both inside the network and outside in the real world have real worries and concerns.  They mimic so many of us who hide behind our keyboards are create personas that live well beyond our real lives while in cyberspace.  I'm a simple quiet guy in real life, but here online I can be outspoken and opinionated.  This is the power that the Internet has afforded people, and Summer Wars explores that dynamic in an interesting and entertaining way.  Not the mention the fact that the animation is top notch.  I think I still may like Hosoda's The Girl Who Leapt Through Time better, but this is far more expansive and impressive an effort.

9.  House (Dir: Nobuhiko Obayashi)  I know this is a cheat, technically.  I said at the beginning of this column that this was a catalog of my experiences, and I experienced House for the very first time in 2010.   No single review of this film has managed to do it complete justice, and I'd wager that none ever will.  House is experimental but accessible, there is a completely lucid plot hidden beneath the layers of hallucinatory special effects.  You've never seen anything like it and you never will again, at once it is a product of its time in that the effects are very indicative of where the technology was at the time, but at the same time it is a film out of place with time.  It fits no movement, no particular genre, apart from being broadly a horror film, but it incorporates elements of the musical, the TV commercial, comedy, action, wuxia films, and too many other genres to count.  Nobuhiko Obayashi was a singular artist who's time has finally come, even though his name barely registered a blip on anyone's radar before about 2008.  The rediscovery and resurgence of House is one of the great filmic happenings of the last few years.  These films exist all over the place, mostly forgotten, waiting to be unearthed and shown anew to audiences who are ready to believe in the magic of cinema.  House is a film that leaves very few people undecided, either you love it, or you hate it, very few people are indifferent.  I find myself firmly in the former camp, and even though the film is 33 years old, it was still one of my top movie experiences of 2010.

10.  The Man From Nowhere (Dir: Lee Jeong-beom)  The Man From Nowhere was one of the great films from 2010 that very few people really had on their radar.  It came out of Fantastic Fest with a bunch of really great reviews.  Following that, it was picked up for limited runs in a couple dozen multiplexes across the US and Canada and it was successful anywhere people were able to see it.  It is a classically styled heroic bloodshed film in the mold of Kim Ji-woon's brilliant A Bittersweet Life.  I saw it on the opening night of that theatrical run in suburban Dallas and I was blown away.  The Man From Nowhere is far from a perfect film, and it throws everything including the kitchen sink in to move the plot along, but its brutality and violence can't quite hide its heart.  The movie belongs to Won Bin, who's silent power, charisma, and abs rule the day.  There are other characters, but they are mostly stock characters from any given South Korean gangster film, of which there are dozens to choose from, but Won Bin's Cha Tae-sik is a real person.   He just happens to be a real person who used to be an American trained super indestructible spy who has gone into hiding and now runs a pawn shop.  None of the events have any ring of truth, but there is an emotional truth behind everything Won Bin does, in spite of the hackneyed set ups of which he is a perpetual victim.  At the end you are cheering him on, even as the situations stray farther and farther from reality, he is involved in a Herculean quest, with insurmountable odds, but we still cheer him on.  Every punch and stab punctures the viewers heart, as the final scenes mark less of a choreographed battle and more of an endurance test for character and viewer alike.  Ultimately we are the winners, and while The Man From Nowhere leaves you drained, but exhilarated and ready for more.

That's it for me.  I'm going to post a top ten home video releases, but that may have to wait till I get home from vacation, as I suspect I'll have a couple of contenders in my mail to examine.  I hope this will inspire someone to seek out something new, or perhaps something they just overlooked.  Until next year!  

Generously talented and fantastically energetic (we're talking 8-bit chipmunk here) drag entertainer Jackie Beat is in town with her new show "Jackie Beat's All-You-Can-Eat Christmas," Fri/10 and Sat/11 and Brava Theater. It sounds like a real festive hoot. The long-time cabaret circuit favorite, underground club hostess, and member of scandalous electro-revival band Dirty Sanchez pulled out her giant fork and dug into a little interview with us about ambrosia salad, abortion, AM schlock .. and that's just the beginning. Go pay some money to see her!

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SFBG: OK I'm dying over the concept for All-You-Can-Eat Christmas -- it's so refreshing to hear a drag queen talk about eating! What are some of your favorite foods? And do you do a lot of cooking?

Jackie Beat: Well, I was referring more to huge portions of talent, but I do love to eat! The ironic thing is that I have actually lost 100 pounds since my last holiday show, so people may think the title is actually "All-You-Can-Eat (And Then Throw Up!) Christmas," but I promise it's not! I still love to eat, I just eat less. My favorite holiday food has to be good old-fashioned Ambrosia Salad.  It's a big mess of pineapple chunks, pecans, shredded coconut, mandarin orange segments in heavy syrup, mini marshmallow, sour cream and Cool Whip. You can eat a huge bowl of it and then honestly tell people, "All I had was salad!"

SFBG: I love that you sing live -- what kind of music is part of the new show?

JB: Most of the new material is in my amazing new outfit -- yards and yards of it! Seriously, it gets harder every year to come up with new stuff. I have done thousands of song parodies, including every holiday song ever written! This year, I am doing a Country Christmas Medley, a great medley of horrible old AM radio classics -- the type of crap you hear at wedding receptions -- but sung with the original lyrics that were too shocking at the time. You know, so all these sweet nostalgic old songs are now about fisting and abortion. Good times! I am also doing a new song about getting a full-cavity search at the TSA and there are plenty of classics like "Santa's Baby" and "Do Some Blow!"

SFBG: Who's your favorite Santa's reindeer?

JB: Grumpy? Oh wait, that was one of the Seven Dwarves, right? Um, Jan? No, she was in The Brady Bunch, sorry. Um, Rudolph of course! Because he's the fucking star -- like me!

SFBG:  If you had an elf of your own, what would you make him or her do for you?

JB: First he would be Puerto Rican and hung like a horse.  And I think you can figure out the rest!  Oh, and after THAT -- he would clean the fucking house!

SFBG: Can you tell me a bit about how the show came about?

JB: Um, I had bills to pay and I don't know how to do anything else, so...

SFBG: I bet you've been pretty busy in general -- what have you been doing lately? Any Dirty Sanchez news? You guys just performed here, yes?

JB: We did Folsom Street Fair last year, but we are all so busy with our own lives that we seldom perform together these days.  Hopefully we will be working on some new music soon!

SFBG: You're in San Francisco pretty regularly -- what are some of your favorite things about the city?

JB: The PAYING customers, of course!  Times are tough and like I said, I don't know how to do anything else.

SFBG: Unfortunately Christmas can't last forever -- what's next for Jackie Beat?

JB: Quite possibly dropping dead right after this grueling, brutal holiday tour -- so come see me now while I am still alive, bitches!

JACKIE BEAT'S ALL YOU CAN EAT CHRISTMAS

Fri/10 and Sat/11, 10:30 p.m., $20–$40. Brava Theater, 2781 24th St., SF. www.brownpapertickets.com

"Leadership. We needs it."
"Leadership. We really needs it."
"Serious medical help. We really, really needs it."
Editor's note: Due to a Turkey-related coma-like condition, this is an abbreviated version of the standard WotW post. Also, Antoine Walker is about to make a comeback. In the D-League. It's like Christmas came on Thanksgiving.

The Milwaukee Bucks: Even though their season has been pretty disappointing so far, the Bucks have been able to boast a defense that ranks 1st in Opponents PPG and 2nd in Defensive Rating. Then the equally disappointing Pistons -- who are in the bottom half of the league in Offensive Rating -- went out and dropped 103 points on them on 56 percent shooting. I guess they were stuck in a 24-hour Turkey Coma.

Said Milwaukee coach Scott Skiles: "We weren't sharp ... right from the beginning. I could see we were a couple of steps slow."

Shane Battier, quote machine: After going 1-for-9 in Houston's 99-89 loss to the Bobcraps in Charlotte, Batty said: "It's a make-or-miss league. By that, when you miss shots, the sky is falling down. When you make shots everything is honky-dory. Sometimes it is as simple as that."

Chris Bosh, quote machine: After the Heat barely managed to beat the 76ers (3-13) in Miami: "We're going to get teams' best. That's how it's going to be all season. ... If we had the answers to the test, believe me, we'd have used them a long time ago."

Dwyane Wade, quote machine: After the Heat barely managed to beat the 76ers (3-13) in Miami: "We've got to get away from worrying about how we get wins. We have to focus on getting wins."

LeBron James, quote machine: After the Heat barely managed to beat the 76ers (3-13) in Miami: "Guys just get up to play us. We just have to treat everybody ... like they're All-Stars."

Doug Collins, emo coach of the year candidate: After the Heat barely managed to beat the 76ers (3-13) in Miami: "They put so much work into this. It just rips at my gut that they can't taste a win. They just fought so hard. So hard."

The San Antonio Spurs: They had their win streak snapped at home by the Dallas Mavericks. Dirk Nowitzki was crazy-hot (12-for-14) and the Mavs shot 52 percent as a team. But the Spurs doomed themselves with a dreadful 2:45 stretch of basketball in the fourth quarter.

After George Hill hit a layup to put San Antonio up 88-86, the Spurs' next five possessions went: Tony Parker missed 9-footer, offensive rebound then turnover, Tim Duncan Turnover, Duncan missed 11-footer, Manu Ginobili turnover, Ginobili missed three-pointer. Nowitzki followed that Manu miss by nailing a 19-footer to put Dallas ahead 95-88 with 1:44 left. Game over.

Delayed Turkey Coma?

Said George Hill: "You can blame it on the little turkey or whatever. But it happens, it's been a good journey so far. The only thing we can do is focus on Sunday."

John Lucas / Tom Thibodeau / Chicago Bulls: On Friday night, the Derrick Rose-less Bulls were this close -- THIS CLOSE -- to knocking off the Nuggets in Denver. Chicago was up 97-96 with 24 seconds left. Knowing the Nuggets had to foul, Thibodeau put in his all-free-throw-shooting lineup, which included Lucas...who had been signed that very day. Lucas inbounded and Denver waited to foul until the ball had been passed back around to him. He stepped up to the line, missed 'em both. Surprise, surprise.

Of course, the Bulls still could've won the game. They forced Carmelo Anthony into a turrible shot, but the ball managed to roll past three Chicago players out of bounds. Denver still had possession with four seconds left. And despite knowing that the ball would probably get passed directly in to 'Melo for a jumper, the Bulls didn't deny the pass to Anthony. Then Luol Deng bit on a stutter dribble and backed up the half a foot 'Melo needed to launch the game-winner. Clutch fail.

Carmelo Anthony, quote machine: "See, I told you. I take that same shot, nine out of 10 times, I'll make it. Whether he contested it or not, whether he got a hand in my face or not, once I get a good look at the rim, I don't really think there's nothing nobody can do."

Free throws in general: From Basketbawful reader LotharBot:

This week has been one of the greatest anti-clutch free throw weeks ever. Bawful could run a "bricked free throws" feature and have plenty of material. I know of five games where bricked FT with under 2 minutes left changed the complexion of the game, and the bricking team went on to lose all five.

We had Trevor Ariza for the Hornets against the Clippers on Monday, down 2 with 21 seconds left and clanking both ft.

Then there was Evan Turner for Philly on Tuesday, with a 3 point lead and 8 seconds left against the Wiz, bricking both FT, which left the game close enough for John Wall to send it to OT.

On Wednesday, Jason Richardson hit 1 of 2 with 5 seconds left in the first OT, leaving his Suns with only a 2 point lead. This allowed Derrick Rose to send it to 2OT (with an easy 2 rather than a difficult 3), where the Bulls ran away with it.

Today is Friday, and John Lucas III got 2 FT with 12 seconds left and a 1 point lead against the Nuggets. He bricked both. Then Melo missed a potential go-ahead bucket with 4 seconds left, but 3 Bulls combined to lose the rebound out of bounds, which let Melo hit the game winner at the buzzer.

Also today, Darren Collison and Brandon Rush each bricked a FT with under 2 minutes to go in OT, in a game that was tied at 102 with the Thunder. Those 2 points would've been nice to have when it was 106-103 and the Pacers had possession with under 24 seconds left. A one point game with a chance to win at the buzzer is very different from a 3 point game where you're taking a tough shot just to tie, and a miss and ft at the other end leave you down 5.

The City of Los Angels: L.A. went 0-4 this weekend. The Lakers choked away a 19-point lead in a 102-96 loss to the Jazz in Utah before falling into a 15-point hole at home against the Pacers before losing 95-92. Mind you, Indy had lost 11 straight regular-season games to the Lakers on the road since its last win on February 14, 1999, shortly before Staples Center opened.

As usual, there's going to be a lot of talk about whether Kobe transforming into the Black Mamba and going into Hero Mode helped or hurt the Lakers. We know Kobe gave the Jazz and Pacers his own personal version of Anal Rampage...and we know the Lakers lost both games. Critics say Kobe going "LEEEEEEERRRROOOYYYY JEEENNNKIIIINNSS!!" killed the Lakers' offense. As Karc put it: "I know I'm not the only who saw that 14-point run and immediately said, 'Lakers are losing this game.'"

Defenders will say his teammates were playing like crap and Kobe's scoring outburts were the only think that kept L.A. in these games. Said Adam: "Actually Kobe going 'hero mode' had nothing to do with it. It was everybody else like Barnes, Fisher, Blake, and Brown bricking ill-advised three after ill-advised three and the whole team going cold after the first quarter."

Who was really at fault? Take your pick.

As for the Clippers, well, they fell behind by 25 to the Suns in Phoenix and eventually lost 116-108 and then finished off the weekend with a 109-97 loss at home to the Jazz. Make it 3-15.

After the Clips committed 18 turnovers and let the Jazz shoot 58 percent from the field, Eric Gordon offered: "They ended up playing good defense, but we stopped ourselves."

The Phoenix Suns: Their win against the Clippers was actually a cause for concern. They let a 25-point lead shrink to only four before closing The Other L.A. Team out. But check it: Eric Gordon had a season-high 32 points, Ryan Gomes scored a season-high 20, and Brian Cook added a season-high 16 points and 10 rebounds. That just gives you the defensive shivers, doesn't it?

Sure enough, on Sunday the Suns managed to score 133 points on 51 percent shooting...and lose. That's 'cause the Nuggets dropped 138 points on them. Without Carmelo Anthony. And despite missing 16 free throws.

Mind you, Denver's previous season-high in points had been 120. It was the team's highest point total since scoring 147 in double overtime at Seattle on April 6, 2008.

Said Phoenix coach Alvin Gentry: "You can't win a game where you don't guard anybody. You got to guard one person. Even if we guard George Karl, we got to guard somebody."

The Suns are giving up 111.9 PPG. Yes, that's a league-worst.

Chauncey Billups, dubious compliment machine: "Without him, we're not as predictable. When Melo's in you go to him, let him orchestrate. I'm sure not having him out there made it difficult for [the Suns] to know what we were going to do."

The Portland Frail Blazers: Talk about your rough weekends. The Frail Blazers got Brandon Roy back in time to get dumped on their asses at home 97-78 by the Hornets. Portland shot only 39.5 percent and those 78 points were a season-low.

More Turkey Coma.

Apparently, Portland was still Turkey Coma-ized on Sunday night when they lost 98-96 to the Nyets in New Jersey. The Nyets shot 52 percent from the field. Now the Blazers -- that young, up-and-coming team that's been supposed to take over the league for, what, the last three or four seasons? -- is .500.

Said Wesley Matthews: "We don't feel like we're an 8-8 team."

And I don't feel drunk. But...

Avery Johnson, quote machine: Regarding the extra morning practice session he called between back-to-back games: "DON'T MAKE TOO MUCH OFIT OR IN THE MANNER OF HOW I CALLED IT. THEY KNEW I WAS DISAPPOINTED AND JUST NEEDED TO SEE THEIR FACES THIS MORNING. I COULDN'T SLEEP ANYWAY. I DIDN'T WANT TO RAISE MY VOICE TNIGHT. THEY GOT ENOUGH OF THAT THIS MORNING."

The Minnesota Timberwolves: During his first six seasons in the NBA -- all with the Miami Heat -- Dorell Wright averaged 6.3 PPG. And Pat Riley didn't even consider hanging onto him.

Now Wright is feeling "The Golden State Effect." And on Saturday, he drilled nine three-pointers on his way to a career-high 30 points against the Timberpoops, who apparently forgot the Warriors like to run 'n gun.

Regarding his team's defensive apathy, Minny coach Kurt Rambis said: "You could see that blank look on their face for the majority of the ballgame."

Way to inspire the troops, coach!

By the way, Wright and fellow Heat refugee Michael Beasley combined for 58 points. Riles needed role players to support the Nazgul. Little did he know he was actually sitting right on top of them. Speaking of which...

The Miami Heat: When the Heat played the Mavericks in Dallas on Saturday night, Zydrunas Ilgauskas started at center and scored zero points. Carlos Arroyo started at the point and finished with zero assists. The Miami bench was outscored 39-22. And here are the point totals for the four Heat centers: Big Z (0), Erick Dampier (0), Joel Anthony (0), Jamaal Magloire (DNP-CD).

Huh. I thought great players were supposed to make their teammates better. The Heat have two and a half great players. Something's fishy here, don't you think?

Here's some more Heat-themed vomit from ESPN Stats and Information:

The Heat are 0-4 on the road against opponents with winning records.

Miami's Big 3 combined for 67 of the Heat's 95 points as they each scored 20-plus for the second time this season. However, they also combined for 13 of the Heat's 15 turnovers.

The Mavericks outscored the Heat 48-26 in the paint. Coming into the game, the Mavericks were the only team in the NBA averaging fewer points per game in the paint than the Heat.

The Heat are 2-7 against teams with a .500 record or better this season and have dropped four straight road games.

The bottom line is: Dallas put Miami into a 19-point hole. The Heat almost climbed out, but almost only counts in horseshoes and Stan Van Gundy fitting into his pants.

The Heat are now 9-8. Last season, without King Crab or Chris Bosh, they were 10-7 after 17 games. Cue Countdown to Failure.

After the game, Miami held a players-only meeting. Regarding that meeting, D-Wade said: "We felt like we needed it. Sometimes it's a feel. We haven't had a team-only meeting. We're playing like 9-8 and we needed it. This is a new team, a new group of guys. Guys need to understand each other and hear each other talk. We all feel better after the talk we had. It's tough because I know the potential of this team, the vision I had when this team was put together."

Added LeBron: "It was a well-needed team meeting where everybody had a chance to get off whatever they had on their chest or in their head about us figuring things out. Right now we are a 9-8 team and we have to own up to that. Does our record speak of the quality of team we can become? I don't think so. But right now we're 9-8 and we're playing like that."

Speaking of owning up to stuff...

LeBron James: As many of you aleady know, he bumped coach 'Spo.


As Basketbawful Original pointed out, that wasn't exactly a first:


Now, the obvious question is: Did His Supreme Crabbiness do it on purpose? I have to agree with SPORTSbyBROOKS...it didn't happen by accident. Forget just walking off a basketball court. LeBron James walks through crowds just to reach his own bathroom. He knows how to avoid bumping into people when he needs to. And this time he didn't. The reason why he did it is something that's harder to ascertain.

Is he searching for a fall guy to explain away why his presence has actually made the Heat worse than they were without him last season? Maybe. As Adrian Wojnarowski put it a couple weeks ago:

When things don’t go well for the Heat, there's one guarantee: James will never take responsibility. Here’s a man who quit in the middle of Game 5 to the Celtics a season ago, stopped playing in a conference semifinal and still wanted Brown and his supporting cast blamed like in the past. Here's a man who needed Nike to make some kind of half-baked commercial apology that only came within the context of pushing his shoes. James knows only how to be about James, and he'll sacrifice anyone to protect himself.

It's true. And now, LeBron doesn't have anywhere to hide. Before, he could hide behind a historically bawful franchise and "bad" teammates. Now he has to explain why he -- last season's ordained Best Basketball Player in the World -- can't win with D-Wade and Chris Bosh backing him up. This isn't the easy way out he had in mind. Which makes this a perfect time to run Michael Jordan's supposed "response" to LeBron (which is in reality just a commercial mashup...but totally on the money):


The Sacramento Kings: Facing a Bulls team that was 1) dealing with various injuries to key players, 2) playing on the second night of back-to-backs, 3) on their fourth game in five nights, and 4) finishing up their seven-game circus trip of horrors, the Purple Paupers built a 57-44 lead after two quarters -- the team's very first halftime lead of the season! -- and then lost 96-85.

Their 28-point second half included a 9-point fourth quarter.

Said Paupers coach Paul Westphal: "I thought that in the second half our defense was good enough for us to win the game, but our offense was something that was out of some horror book. Two turnovers in the first half and 16 in the second half, it's just unbelievable. Running the same plays, only not executing them."

The Kings have now lost four straight and 10 of 11.

Tyreke Evans: The ankles be broken.


The New Orleans Hornets: They went up by 17. They fell behind by 17. They lost 109-95. At home. To the Spurs. Can you say "exposed"?

No offense to the Hornets. They're a great early season story. But after starting the season 8-0, they've gone 4-4, including three losses in their last four games, to the Clippers, Jazz and Spurs. Don't get me wrong. The Hornets are good. Just not as good as everybody was starting to think.

And you know, some of that may be coaching...

Monty Williams: At halftime, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich made adjustments, which included some defensive switching and a small lineup. Then, over the final two quarters, the Spurs shot 60 percent, drilled seven treys, and outscored the Hornets 65-34.

Said New Orleans coach Monty Williams: "The bottom line is I got outcoached. Coach Popovich made a great move, going small, and I didn't make the immediate adjustments to put us in position to hang on. ... It was just an old-school whipping from a coaching standpoint."

Chris's Mega Weekend Lacktion Report:

Rockets-Bobcats: Jared Jeffries jacked apart a treasure chest for a 1.25 trillion (1:15).

For Charlotte, Sherron Collins brought home a Castlevania cartridge to His Airness in just 24 seconds for a Mario, while THE Kwame Brown provided the man who picked him #1 overall with four bricks (twice from the charity stripe) in 6:08 for a +4 suck differential!!!

Raptors-Celtics: Von Wafer can now afford the toll in the Ted Williams Tunnel after a 2.2 trillion (2:13)!

Bucks-Pistons: Yep. KNEE-MAC gave the Motor City a mediocre +1 in 6:09 via brick. I think my work is done here.

...but I can't stop keeping track of lacktivity, so on we go...

Sixers-Heat: Philly's Andres Nocioni notched three bricks in 7:20 (twice from Biscayne Boulevard) and a foul and giveaway each for a +5!

Thunder-Pacers: Nick Collison smashed into the ledger a bit tonight by countering two boards in 9:25 with 3 bricks and 4 fouls for a 4:2 Voskuhl. BJ Mullens mired himself in two fouls and a turnover in 5:03 for a +3 and a 3:0 Voskuhl, and Royal Ivey was declared King Koopa after just 8 seconds in a SUPER MARIO!

Lakers-Jazz: Derrick Caracter once again revealed his true colors with a one-foul +1 and 1:0 Madsen-level Voskuhl in 3:06.

Warriors-Grizzlies: Despite an assist in 7:54, Dan Gadzuric returns to the world of Voskuhl ratios with a 4:0 via two fouls and two giveaways; fellow Warrio Charlie Bell barely rang up a Mario in 59 seconds which included a brick from the Peabody Motel.

Hornets-Blazers: Luke Babbitt bricked once from the US Bancorp Tower in 1:16 for a +1.

Hawks-Knicks: A. Rautins will now be able to put a deposit on some MSG seats after a 1.85 trillion (1:52).

Warriors-Wolves: Rodney Carney raised up a pair of bricks (once from the Mary Tyler Moore statue) in 6:49 for a +2, while Kosta Koufos lost the rock once and tossed up his own piece of masonry in 1:54 for a +2 and a 1:0 Madsen-level Voskuhl.

Heat-Mavs: In the Highly Unanticipated Rematch of the 2006 Association Finals, Brian Cardinal flew into 8-bit territory with a 2-second Super Mario! Also lacking it up for Dallas was Ian Mahinmi, who fouled and lost the rock once each for a +2 in 3:28, and a 2:0 Voskuhl.

Brendan Haywood put Mark Cuban's team on the ledger a third time (appropriate, as the South Beach Three incurred ANOTHER loss) by countering two boards in 7:58 with four fouls for a 4:2 Voskuhl.

Bobcats-Bucks: Sherron Collins took a rejection as well as a brick (from downtown Milwaukee) in 3:03 for a +2, while fellow Air Jordan purveyor Derrick Brown also bricked once from (downtown) and fouled twice for a +3 in 5:34.

For Wisconsin's team, Earl Boykins turned on his NES for 38 seconds for a Mario.

Bulls-Kings: Omer Asik banished an assist away in 9:04 with two fouls for a 2:1 Voskuhl.

Bobcats-Bucks: Sherron Collins took a rejection as well as a brick from the Pabst Theater in 3:03 for a +2, while fellow Air Jordan purveyor Derrick Brown also bricked once from Schlitz Park and fouled twice for a +3 in 5:34.

Knicks-Pistons: Timofey Mozgov made the most of another appearance for Mike D'Antoni, downing a pair of boards in 8:22 with a brick, three fouls, and three turnovers for a 6:2 Voskuhl. Roger Mason Jr. joined the ledger with a brick from the Ren Center in 8:10 for a +1.

Jazz-Clippers: Jarron Collins constructed a Voskuhl ratio of 5:1 in a 13:35 stint by negating a board with four fouls and a turnover.

Frail Blazers-Nyets: Luke Babbitt bobbled a brick in 2:35 for a +1.

Pacers-Lakers: Derrick Caracter coined 2.4 trillion (2:24) in pure gold!

I’m a movie buff, and love getting excited for upcoming releases by checking out trailers on YouTube. It’s easy and convenient to watch the trailers online, but I’ve often wished I could get closer to the theater experience in my browser. So I did some research, and found a few really handy Chrome extensions that can make your YouTube viewing experience bigger and better.

For example, Window Expander for YouTube maximizes YouTube videos to fill your entire browser. With Turn Off the Lights, you can make the entire page outside the video fade to dark like you’re in a movie theater. Not sure whether a video is worth viewing? The OpinionCloud extension summarizes comments on YouTube (and Flickr!), so you can quickly get the crowd’s overall opinion.

And just recently the Google team released YouTube Feed, which notifies you whenever new videos are available in your YouTube homepage feed. You can directly access videos that your friends upload, rate and like right in your browser.


There are many other useful extensions in the gallery to make your YouTube experience more customized. Find out more about Google Chrome extensions here, or by checking out the video below.



Koh Kim, Associate Product Marketing Manager, recently watched “Rymdreglage - 8-bit trip”.

The bigger they are, the harder they fall. This time Riiser tackles the world known 8-bit Theater, a spawn from the brand he hate the most, 8-bit comics! ?2001-2010 Brian Clevinger | Some images are property of Square-Enix. Music loop by Malk De Koijn

The entire Back to the Future trilogy is out on Blu-ray today, and when you couple that with the news that Telltale will be releasing the first episode of their own Back to the Future game for free when it's ready ... in the future. Honestly, the film has never looked this good. Besides the crystal-clear picture, there are a ton of extra features like the alternate nuclear test site ending, footage with Eric Stolz as Marty McFly (!) and new interviews with the cast. 

We spoke with screenwriter / producer Bob Gale, who is also working on Telltale's Back to the Future game, which is heartening, given both his hatred for the last BTTF games, and his history with the series. Read on for the full 1.21 gigawatt interview, and see what he really thought about those original games, and where things are going. If you haven't seen Interstate 60, which he wrote and directed, I highly recommend picking it up. It's even on Netflix Watch Instantly, so you don't have any excuses.

Bob Gale: Sorry I’m running behind schedule here, but I tend to talk a lot.

G4: And you don’t have a real time machine, unfortunately.

I do not. [laughter]

I know you’re working on the upcoming Back to the Future video game that Telltale Games has announced and is working on. Is Bob Zemeckis working on that as well or is it just you?

No, Bob doesn’t do video games. He’s not into that. [laughs] But there’s some other things that Bob and I have been working on over the years. So it’s not like I don’t work with Bob. I do. Nobody I’d rather work with than Bob Zemeckis. It’s just that, as they say, the tender of Hollywood is so different now that some of the projects that we’ve had that we’d like to get made, the studios don’t get.

Did you work on the original game that came out back in the day?

Oh, God no. God no. That game … oh, that was such a f*cking travesty.  That was one of the worst 8-bit games ever made. And when I saw it, I was so outraged. I actually gave interviews to some video game magazines and some fan publications telling the fans, “I’m embarrassed by this game. Don’t buy it. It’s got the Back to the Future logo on it, but it’s the one product that does not deserve to be associated with our movies.” So neither that one nor the sequels. Those were just terrible.

And again, I wanted to be involved and they wouldn’t let me. “Oh, you’re a movie guy. You don’t know anything about games.” “Yeah, well I know a good one from a sh*tty one, and these are sh*tty.” [laughs] So the folks at Telltale, what’s great about what they’re doing is that they’re all fans of the movie. They love these movies. They want to get it right. I told Universal, I said, “Look, if somebody’s doing a game,” I said, “You gotta keep me in the loop on this, because I am not going to sit idly back and let more sh*tty games get made.” And they were thrilled that I wanted to be involved.  I’m a consultant, I’m not doing the day-to-day. That’s not what I do. But again, I can tell them when something is Back to the Future-esque or not; if it feels right or if it doesn’t. And their instincts are very, very good, I’m happy to say. They’ve all watched these movies over and over again. So I have high hopes that they are going to be able to capture the spirit and essence of Back to the Future in this game.

So what's next for you besides working on the games?

Yeah, I want to get another movie made. There’s a television idea that I’m toying around with I haven’t written yet, and I’m gonna take a stab at that. But there are scripts that I already have that I’m trying to figure out how to get them made, and a couple ideas for new ones. You know, movies are my first love, so I’m gonna be working on a movie even if I’m not getting paid for it. 

You did Mr. Payback fifteen years ago, which was the first foray into interactive cinema. It’s 2010 now, and we haven’t really gotten any more interactive with filmmaking. It’s still just pretty linear storytelling. Do you think that’s going to change at any point, given the popularity of the internet since 1995?

Well, look, I think that the version of interactive storytelling is what people are doing on the internet when they get together with their friends and they play World of Warcraft or Farmville, or whatever the hell they’re doing. I don’t do Facebook. I would never do something like Farmville. It sounds  so stupid to me. [laughter]

There’s a lot of people here who would agree with you. 

[laughter] I mean World of Warcraft I get. Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network, I get that. The other stuff, not so much. I think maybe the reason Mr. Payback didn’t work is that it didn’t really belong in a movie theater. It belonged in a specialized venue, like at a Dave & Buster’s, at Citywalk at Universal, or Disneyland, or Six Flags or someplace where people go specifically to have a different experience. Because people go to a movie and they want to sit back and let the filmmaker tell the story. You’re sitting around a campfire and letting the storyteller tell it as opposed to going around the campfire and everybody throwing in their version of what’s going to happen next. Which is a perfectly fun game to do, but it’s not why people go to the movies.

You’ve worked in film, you’ve worked in television, you’ve worked in comic books, video games, and you’ve directed as well. Is there anything that you’re kind of partial to these days? Where are you going in the future, so to speak?

Movies are still my first love. I love movies.  It’s getting harder and harder to get an original screenplay in front of the cameras these days, so I’ve written a lot of scripts that I’m still trying to get off the ground, and I'm always working on something new. You know, the comic book thing is fun. I’ve loved comic books ever since I was eight or nine years old, and the idea that I’ve gotten to like Batman and Spider-Man in my life is pretty damn awesome.

I can imagine. A lot of us here are big fans of Interstate 60, so I hope you direct again soon.

Oh, great.  Thank you very much. 

Well, it’s a great movie. Studios have just the formula they like to stick to, and when you deviate, they sort of freak out.

Exactly. Back to the Future probably couldn’t get made today. 

Really?

We had a hard enough time getting it made when we did!

I know that for four years you guys were kind of knocking it back and forth. 

The thing about Back to the Future is they still don’t know what section of the video aisle to put it in. You know, is it science fiction, is it fantasy, is it comedy, is it family, is it adventure? And these days more than ever, the studios want things that really fit neatly in a little pigeonhole. And yet, for my money, as a filmgoer, to me, that’s the biggest problem that we have today. I remember sitting in a theater back in the spring watching the trailers, and I saw back to back trailers for The Losers,The Expendables, and The A-Team.  It was like I was watching the same movie three times in the trailer. They were, like, the same movie.

Well with Back to the Future, how much did the original script change?

Well, the core story of a kid interfering in his parents first meeting and having to get them back together, that never changed. You know, we were constantly writing, rewriting, and rewriting up until the moment we shot it. So that’s the normal process of filmmaking. But if you read one of these early drafts, you would still recognize it as Back to the Future. It didn’t change that much. The logistics changed. The time machine changed from being a time chamber into the DeLorean.

The ending, which is, I think, one of the cool features on the new DVD, to see the animatic of the nuclear test site ending that was originally in the script when we started production, we ended up having to cut out and change because it was too expensive. Which, again, has an interesting little ironic twist to a blessing in disguise that thank god we didn’t have enough money to make the movie that way. [laughs] The clock tower ending is so much better than the nuclear test site would have been.

Yeah, and it’s so circular, it brings you back to the whole beginning.

Of course, yeah. It deals with time, literally, and it’s just so visual and so cool.

The Blu-ray that's coming out has a lot of new features, like that alternate ending, and for the first time ever, we see footage of Eric Stolz as Marty McFly. You guys filmed with him for awhile...

Five weeks, yeah.

Then you went back and recast. Did the writing change during that period? Because you had a chance to see scenes actively on film.

We changed a couple things, but it wasn’t so much because of the actor, it was because of the budget, because now every dime really counted. And so there were some things like the actual opening of the movie, that long shot with all the clocks and all that? That wasn’t in the script when we first started with Eric. The opening of the movie was … actually, it was written to set up what happens at a nuclear test site in a classroom. And Bob Zemeckis and I were trying to figure out, “How are we going to save money? How can we not build sets?” It required a classroom set that we were going to build. “Where can we save money on sets?” We realized we don’t need that scene to set up the nuclear test site that we’re no longer going to do. “What can we do with the set that already exists?” And here again, we came up with this new scene that was just a perfect way to start the movie. And it’s almost iconic now. And that was a byproduct of the casting change, because we had less money.

So that set already existed, Doc Brown’s workshop…

Yeah, Doc Brown’s lab already existed. We knew we had to have that. And then in terms of what changed acting-wise, Michael J. Fox, you know, he would throw in an adlib now and then, and he would revise the dialogue to fit the way that he would say it and that it came out more naturally out of his mouth. And we always would encourage our actors to do that. We’d do rehearsals and tell the actors that If this doesn’t sound right to you, you know, we’ll change it.  We’ll make it work.

Michael said, “Well could I change this?” And we might say, “Well no, you can’t change that because we absolutely need to have that piece of information out there.” But he just has this natural comic sensibility that is so good. And the little extra things that he would just throw in in all three movies, just really nice little touches. Like in part three, the telescope scene, when Mary Steenburgen brings a telescope to be repaired. That last line when Marty looked at him and said, “That’s a nice telescope.” Michael J. Fox just threw that in. It was just perfect.

Bob, it's been a real pleasure, and we look forward to the game ... in the future.

Thanks very much. Good talking to you.

[Pixels On Stage is a new not-so-regular GameSetWatch column by Matt 'Fort90' Hawkins that will highlight the ever-increasing convergence of video games and performance art. This first entry takes a look at a unique 8-bit specific stage production that has just wrapped up its first run in New York City, called The Dudleys!]

Reaching the end of its very first limited engagement run in Manhattan later this evening is the off-Broadway play The Dudleys! Subtitled "A Family Game", The Dudleys! is the brainchild of Leegrid Stevens and has been described as a look at the adolescent memories of a young man through a glitchy 8-bit game.

In fact, before the play even begins, Stevens inserts a cartridge into the NES that's placed at the foot of the stage, to "start" the proceedings. And the memories in question are centered around the death of devoted husband and father Tom Dudley, along with the effect it has on the rest of the family.

First we have the two Dudley boys: Derek, who suffers from a classic case of youngest child syndrome, and Vic, the eldest son whose memories fuel the game. There's also middle sister Sylvia, who has the most promising future but is accident prone. And rounding out the immediate family is Clara, Tom's wife and mother of the aforementioned children, who ends up exhibiting the most pronounced aftereffect of her husband's death.

The entire family was devoted to the Mormon faith, but Tom's passing causes her to look for spiritual fulfillment elsewhere, specifically Judaism. A decision that sends shockwaves throughout the rest of the clan.

Derek ends up taking it the hardest, since he was forced to become a missionary in South America. Something that his other siblings also had to engage in, but his stint in particular ended prematurely due to an injury. And his inability to fulfill the obligation, despite the circumstances surrounding it, is something his mother constantly gave him grief about, so for her to nonchalantly give up the faith is practically the straw that breaks the camel's back. Which manifests itself as acts of vandalism. Not doing much better is Sylvia, who is willingly involved with an abusive boyfriend, despite the fact that she is adamant about women's issues and exhibiting other traits are that are "not typical" to battered women according to Vic. All due to the fear of losing someone else in her life. As for Vic, even after his father's death, he must contend to what a disappointment his father was. In addition to being "too soft", he was also extremely gullible.

Case in point: it's revealed that the real reason why there was no money to send Derek to college, despite the other kids being able to attend school, was due to because the set-aside funds was squandered on a failed business venture. One that everyone but Tom could have seen was fraud miles away. Hence Tom's sister, Aunt Meg's theory that the family practically wanted their head of the household to perish, due to embarrassment and shame. She tried curing Tom of his cancer via non-traditional means, at the makeshift clinic at her home where she looks after others with similar life-threatening ailments, via the power of positive thinking. Which obviously did not work, and the blame once again is placed on the family for impending her efforts, by "poisoning" Tom's mind, leading to even more family drama. Meg also has a daughter, Onna, who is also angry at mother, but for completely different reasons.

To a certain extent, The Dudleys is your typical family melodrama, one that deals with familiar territory: along with the aforementioned crisis of faith are ones relating to identity, unfulfilled expectations, as well as misguided ones, coping with the ugly truth, and loss of course. The key difference here being that everything is wrapped in a NES-like package. Every scene is presented as a different level of a game, with game-like elements liberally applied (much of it iconic; there's random flashing boxes with question marks, a la Super Mario Bros, littered about).

These environments on stage are actual 8-bit graphics, projected behind the actors. For the most part they simply help set-up the action; before each scene we get a notification ("Level 4-2: Dinner World") along with a score and life count. Yet they are somewhat interactive, such as when Derek and Onna ride around town, smashing mailboxes; when Derek's real bat swings around, when it makes "contact" with a pixilated mailbox, we get a little explosion.

Virtually every one of these elements are called up on the spot, according to the actors’ performances and not the other way around (which among other things, could have been a disaster). They also help to punctuate the dance numbers, which are primarily driven by an original soundtrack composed via a Game Boy, Commodore 64, and NES.

For the most part, all the game-like elements are original, with the exception of the aforementioned references, though actual NES games play a minor role as well, such as the original Final Fantasy and Mike Tyson's Punch Out. Often because that's what Derek and Vic are playing at the time of some pivotal moment of their lives. Though we are regularly reminded that we are watching a game being played and which the participants are somewhat controlling the action.

At one point, in order to spare themselves yet another boring dissertation from their mother, the guys erroneously use the Konami code to grant her 30 lives, which she loses spiritually during the course of the play. Again, the game we are watching is supposed to be out of whack; at another point, the action becomes so glitchy up that the director is forced to interrupt the action and blow air into the cartridge before hitting restart. Ultimately, the video game motif is somewhat unclear and inconsistent, but never to an offensive degree. In fact, my biggest fear, that it being just a simple story with video games needlessly overlaid is not the case here, thankfully.

Another relief is that the story is never preachy or heavy-handed, despite the topics touched upon being so. I literally breathed a sigh of relief when the show was over with and I was spared the clichéd examination of what the Mormon faith was all about; we get only bits and pieces that matter, at least for someone in the middle of the events portrayed. Though what makes the play so enjoyable is the stellar cast; everyone, primarily the core family members, do a wonderful job of breathing life into their characters.

Stand outs include Brandon Bales as Derek, who demonstrates the kind of frustrations that is universally relatable, Dianna Ruppe as Sylvia, whose goofy demeanor is impossible not to fall in love with, and Erin Treadway who delivers the most touching performance of all as a wife who tried her best to stand by her undeniably flawed man till the very end. Eric Slater, who is credited as Dead Tom deserves a special note; for the most part he's constantly hovering each scene, as an undead soul, and acting appropriately ghoulish. Which makes the latter moments of the play, in comes alive (literally) as the world's nicest guy and seemingly the perfect father all the more poignant.

Overall, the production is exceptionally tight; the 8-bit aesthetic is utilized sensibly, to the point of become an effective method of addressing a primary issue consistent with all off-Broadway productions, that being the usual strained resources as it relates to sets in general. Certain elements could have been pushed further, but they would have been too distracting perhaps. I suppose it's also worth mentioning that I originally saw The Dudleys! late last year, during a dress rehearsal.

And over that time, the play has been clearly workshopped and streamlined, though to a fault in certain aspects. Perhaps my memory serves me wrong, but I recall events being even more out of order. In the end, the current iteration makes the action easier to process, but my attitude is, if you're going to have something be out of order, go for the gusto. Though this is hardly a concern for anyone seeing the Dudleys! for the first time.

Yet, there is still room for some improvements: the aforementioned occasional dance numbers were cute and all, but still a tad bit too long and too in love with the form, and could definitely be either shortened or simply featured stronger choreography. A somewhat related issue is how Meg's inability to cure her patients nets zombies, that she must constantly blow away with a shotgun in most scenes she’s in. The symbolism is cute (i.e. constantly being reminded of and tormented by her failures) and certainly fits within the narrative structure, but the joke eventually wears out its welcome.

With the burgeoning intersecting between the world of performance art and video games (hence the reason why this column has been established in the first place), I can easily see traditional theater goers going ga-ga over this easy to swallow and easy to process introduction to the world of game culture (there's even a section on the homepage that explains chiptunes).

But will gamers be enthralled? Yes, provided it’s the same ones who are open to new forms of expression and interpretations of what they love. And as evidenced by the ever increasingly popularity of chiptunes and the much heralded (well, at least my some, not everyone) Scott Pilgrim movie, I'm willing to bet that we're going to see more and more examples of video game theater, with The Dudleys! going down as one the first best examples.

(The Dudleys! was playing at the Theater for the New City in New York, as part of the Dream Up Festival. Check out the play's official website for more information on it and any subsequent plans for it.)

[Matt Hawkins is a New York-based freelance journalist and Gamasutra contributor. He also designs games, makes comics, and does assorted “other things.” To find out more, check out Fort90.com.]

From September 3rd to the 22nd, art collective The Autumn Society and Gallery 1988's Los Angeles location will host "The 3G Show", an exhibit dedicated to three unforgettable '80s film series: Ghostbusters, The Goonies, and Gremlins.

Jude Buffum, whose 8-bit works we've featured here many, many times before, is contributing three pieces for each of the three properties, recreating pivotal moments where "one of the characters makes a crucial discovery (or error)" as a video game scene.

For the above art, Buffum explains, "I always wondered what would have gone down had ghostbuster Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd) answered 'Yes!' to Gozer’s inquiry 'Are you a god?' Would he have averted Stay-Puft peril? Sadly, we will never know."

You can see his other two artworks for The 3G Show after the break:

"I’ve probably watched the film Gremlins at least two dozen times, but it was only upon my most recent viewing that I realized that Billy’s girlfriend Kate is probably the most successful survivor of the film.

Sure, Billy racks up the highest body count, but only because he [SPOILER ALERT] blows up the town movie theater. Even Billy’s mom kills more Gremlins in hand-to-claw combat in one of the most unforgettable mother-kicking-ass scenes of all time.

But the fact that Kate survives who knows how many hours behind the bar at Dorry’s Tavern with barely a scratch and discovers (without any knowledge of Mogwai and Gremlin lore) that bright light is their weakness, and uses a Polaroid camera to escape to safety, is a testament to how much of a badass she is."

"In The Goonies, I often wondered what Sloth and Chunk were doing right before they swoop in to save the rest of the Goonies from the Fratellis.

Were they spying from afar? Was seeing his mother make a pre-pubescent girl walk the plank at sword-point the impetus he needed to rebel against his own flesh and blood? Or had he simply watched too many Errol Flynn movies while chained up in the basement of their hideout?"

[Via .tiff]

NYC playwright Leegrid Stevens is working on a play that uses 8-bit game aesthetics and chip tune music to create a unique play about an imaginary classic 8-bit videogame about the trials and travails of life. Working with the Theater for New City and manager Danielle Karliner, Stevens is creating a play called The Dudleys! to begin in August at the Joyce and Seward Johnson Theater.

According to the description of the play on Leegrid Stevens' website, "THE DUDLEYS! takes the adolescent memories of a man and translates them into a malfunctioning 8-bit video game, the kind he used to play as a young adult." But instead of imagining some classic game, the man plays "The Dudleys," a game about the man's family of fifteen years ago, during the aftermath of his father’s death and funeral. Besides the trippy setting, the play will be complimented with original music composed on vintage video game systems - Atari, Gameboy, Commodore 64 - and 8-bit video .

The play will have a run time of 1hr., 40 minutes. Tickets are available at the aformentioned link for $15. Read More

read more

NYC playwright Leegrid Stevens is working on a play that uses 8-bit game aesthetics and chip tune music to create a unique play about an imaginary classic 8-bit videogame about the trials and travails of life. Working with the Theater for New City and manager Danielle Karliner, Stevens is creating a play called The Dudleys! to begin in August at the Joyce and Seward Johnson Theater.

According to the description of the play on Leegrid Stevens' website, "THE DUDLEYS! takes the adolescent memories of a man and translates them into a malfunctioning 8-bit video game, the kind he used to play as a young adult." But instead of imagining some classic game, the man plays "The Dudleys," a game about the man's family of fifteen years ago, during the aftermath of his father’s death and funeral. Besides the trippy setting, the play will be complimented with original music composed on vintage video game systems - Atari, Gameboy, Commodore 64 - and 8-bit video .

The play will have a run time of 1hr., 40 minutes. Tickets are available at the aformentioned link for $15. Read More

read more

Image: http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2010/07/dudleysheaderimg530px.jpg (http://www.joystiq.com/2010/07/26/nyc-play-employs-chiptune-and-8-bit-art/) New York City playwright Leegrid Stevens, working with the Theater for New City and manager Danielle Karliner, will debut a new play...

Patrick Jean's amazing short film Pixels, which documents the 8-bit destruction of New York City by Donkey Kong, Frogger, Space Invader and Vaus from Arkanoid, may be coming to a theater near you, thanks to Adam Sandler. More »

OVERVIEW The MVP-8400 is a clean, seamless, unobtrusive touch panel that combines Wall/Flush Mount flexibility, table top functionality and wireless mobility that gives users the ability to take control from anywhere, at any time. A fully compatible standard 802.11 Wi-Fi Card provides additional wireless control features and eliminates the inconvenience of installing and using cables. Additionally both 38 kHz and 455 kHz 1-way IR are also built in. COMMON APPLICATION A clear favorite for residential or commercial control such as automating a home theater or 802.11b/g wireless A/V, lighting and HVAC control of churches or network operating centers. FEATURES 8.4” color active-matrix TFT with 4 x 3 Aspect Ratio Screen Resolution (HV): 800 x 600 pixels with Anti-glare Overlay Display colors: 262 K (18 bit color depth) Built-in speakers (2) and microphone 128 MB RAM/512 MB CompactFlash Memory or more (upgradeable) 802.11g WiFi for two-way network communications Wireless communications remain secure using WEP, WPA, WPA2, EAP-TLS, EAP-TTLS and PEAP network security standards 38 kHz and 455 kHz 1-way IR Nine programmable hard buttons Operates with two MVP-BP Battery Packs 12 VDC Power Supply for recharging batteries Specifications Diagram Training Recommended Accessories SPECIFICATIONS DIMENSIONS (HWD) 7 3/16” x 10 1/2” x 1 1/4” (18.2 cm x 26.6 cm x 3.1 cm) WEIGHT 2.0 lbs (0.91 kg) Panel with one battery: 2.25 lbs (1.02 kg) Panel with two batteries: 2.65 lbs (1.20 kg) SCREEN PROPERTIES Screen resolution: 800 x 600 pixels (HV) @ 60 Hz frame frequency Aspect ratio: 4 x 3 Brightness (luminance): 180 cd/m2 Channel transparency: 8-bit Alpha blending Contrast ratio: 350:1 Display colors: 256K colors (18-bit color depth) Dot/pixel pitch: 0.21 mm Panel type: TFT Color Active-Matrix VIEWING ANGLE Vertical: + 60° (up from center) and - 40° (down from center) POWER REQUIREMENT (WITHOUT CHARGING) Panel with batteries fully charged or with no batteries: Constant current draw: 1.2 A @ 12 VDC Startup current draw: 1.8 A @ 12 VDC If panel is mounted onto a TDS or WDS, add 0.1 A to the above figures POWER REQUIREMENT (WHILE CHARGING) Panel while charging batteries: Constant current draw: 3.2 A @ 12 VDC Startup current draw: 3.8 A @ 12 VDC If panel is mounted onto a TDS or WDS, add 0.1 A to the above figures MINIMUM POWER SUPPLY REQUIRED PS4.4 Power Supply (FG423-44) -All MVP models are shipped with this power supply POWER MODES Panel with batteries fully charged or with no batteries: ON: Panel is fully functional. STANDBY: Panel uses low power, the LCD/backlight is shutdown, LEDs still function. Panel resumes the ON mode in ~ 1 second. OFF: On-board programs not running, touch screen still powered, LED not functional. Panel resumes the ON mode in ~ 30 seconds. CERTIFICATIONS FCC Part 15 Class B and CE IEC 60950 BATTERY DURATION (using 2 batteries) Eight hours of normal use (25% On state, 25% Standby, and 50% Off) Four hours of continuous use (continuous On state). The MVP-8400 panel is shipped with two MVP-BP batteries. You must use both batteries to obtain the duration times given above. MEMORY 128 MB SDRAM 512 MB Compact Flash (upgradeable to 1 GB) – factory programmed ENVIRONMENTAL Operating Temperature: 0° C (32° F) to 40° C (104° F) Operating Humidity: 20% - 85% RH Storage Temperature: -20° C (-4° F) to 60° C (140° F) Storage Humidity: 5% - 85% RH INCLUDED ACESSORIES Wireless Interface Compact Flash card (CF Type 1) (pre-installed into MVP) PS4.4 Power Supply (FG423-44) Stylus (pre-installed onto the left side of the unit) Two MVP-BP Power Packs (FG5965-20)

MTV.com (blog)

What If Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog Were A Nintendo Game? io9 This absurdly fun fan video reimagines Joss Whedon's supervillain musical as an 8-bit RPG in the vein of the original Final Fantasy. ... Dr Octoroc pays tribute to Dr. Horrible with 8-bit 'game'Destructoid Dr. Horrible In An 8-Bit Theater Near YouGeekosystem 'Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog' Goes 8-BitComics Alliance MTV.com (blog) -Technabob (blog) -Wired News all 7 news articles »

Our Pick: Smith Westerns, Young Veins, Michael Runion, Pearl Harbor @ The Echo (Early Show; 5 PM)

Tonight the City of Brotherly Love's own dream pop sextet A Sunny Day in Glasgow will be headlining the Mint with none other than local act Pollyn in tow. Prolific San Franciscan psych-infused rock outfit the Fresh & Onlys are poised to take over Spaceland. Extra Life, a Brooklyn-bred experimental rock act who bear loose associations with the Dirty Projectors, will be performing down the street at Echo Curio. But we strongly suggest heading over to the Echo early this afternoon to catch Chicago-bred garage rock outfit Smith Westerns (LAist Review). LAist favorites, local "retro-leaning" pop rock quintet the Young Veins, which of course features not one, but two former members of Panic! At The Disco, are slated to kick things off.

You can find these listings as well as the rest of the week's in our weekly Week In Rock post, which goes up every Sunday.

The Young Veins - "Change"

Saturday Nights at the Getty w/ The Living Sisters @ Getty Center
Vinicio Capossela, Sara Lov @ El Rey Theatre
The Fresh and Onlys, Wounded Lion, Surf City, Pivot @ Spaceland
Choir of Young Believers, Great Northern @ Bootleg Theater
A Sunny Day in Glasgow, Pollyn @ The Mint
Smith Westerns, Young Veins, Michael Runion, Pearl Harbor @ The Echo (Early Show; 5 PM)
You Say Party We Say Die, White Arrows @ Echoplex
Fake Blood, Boy 8-Bit, Destructo, Jack Beats @ Club Nokia
Sasha, Kazell @ Avalon
Matthew Good, Automatic Loveletter @ Troubadour
Crystal Antlers' 7" release @ Origami Vinyl (FREE! Early Show; 4 PM)
The Franks @ Origami Vinyl (Free! Late Show; 7 PM)
Saint Motel, Tijuana Panthers, Seven Saturdays @ The Strange (4316 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles)
Extra Life, Jesus Makes the Shotgun Sound, Halloween Swim Team @ Echo Curio
Karin Jancuk artist's reception w/ La Ghost, The Health Club, Cosmonauts, Black Elephant @ Pehrspace
Death Sentence: PANDA!, Auto Da Fe, David Scott Stone, The Urxed @ The Smell
The Lincoln Bedroom, The Hereafter @ Molly Malone's Irish Pub
The Lindsay Erin Band @ On The Rox
Lucy Kaplansky @ McCabe's Guitar Shop
The Watson Twins @ Fingerprints (FREE! Early Show; 5 PM)
Seaspin, Repeater, Useless Keys, Dietra Kruschev @ The Prospector
Tim Barry @ Alex's Bar
Quasi, Explode Into Colors @ Detroit Bar

This week Broken Bells—the brainchild of the Shins front man James Mercer and producer/musician extraordinaire Danger Mouse—will be performing to a sold-out crowd (don't say we didn't warn ya!) at the Troubadour. Local psych-infused indie rockers Black Rebel Motorcycle Club are poised to ring in their first full length in over two years—2010's Beat The Devil's Tattoo—by way of not one, not two, but three shows at the Echoplex. Melbourne-based indie rock buzz band the Temper Trap will be headlining the Henry Fonda Music Box with none other than local psych rockers Darker My Love (LAist Review) in tow. And, lastly, beloved Beulah front man, Portland-based singer-songwriter Miles Kurosky will be performing in-store at Amoeba Music in Hollyweird.

Miles Kurosky - "Dog In the Burning Building"

Wednesday

Travis x A-Trak @ The Roxy
Manchester Orchestra, The Features, Biffy Clyro, O'Brother @ Troubadour
Little Boots, Dragonette, Class Actress @ El Rey Theatre
The Temper Trap, Darker My Love @ Henry Fonda Music Box
Cary Brothers, Meiko, Shane Walsh, Mighty Kate, Girl Problems @ The Hotel Café
Abe Vigoda, Lovvers, The Black Apples @ The Echo
Club NME w/ Olin and the Moon, Correatown, Finn Riggins, Jared Mees and the Grown Children @ Spaceland
Agent Ribbons, Wet & Reckless, Kissing Cousins @ Silver Lake Lounge
Delta Spirit, We Barbarians, Jonny Corndawg @ Bootleg Theater
Learning Music, Cassorla, Boy Eats Drum Machine, Dylan Trees @ Echo Curio

Thursday

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Whigs @ Echoplex
Dawes, Cory Chisel and the Wandering Sons, Jason Boesel @ Troubadour
The Watson Twins @ Largo at the Coronet
Miles Kurosky @ Amoeba Music (FREE! Early Show; 7 PM)
The Cave Singers, The Dutchess & The Duke, The Moondoggies @ The Echo
Slow Club @ Spaceland
So Cow, Battlehooch, Christmas Island, Judgement Day @ The Smell
Kevin Earnest, Alex Kemp @ Silver Lake lounge
Jim Bianco, Joey Ryan, Melissa Ferrick w/ special guests, Crosby, Skills and Nash (Jay Nash & Caitlin Crosby) @ The Hotel Café
Amanda Jo Williams, Ora Cogan, Fort King, Beliss @ Echo Curio
Cue the Moon, Marjorie Fair, Seswoo, Nopal, It's Gonna Crash @ Mr. T's Bowl
Spider Problem, NASA Space Universe, Narwhal Party, Peg Leg Love @ L'KEG Gallery
Felix Cartal, Classixx, PaparazzI @ V20 (81 Aquarium Way, Long Beach)
On Blast, Jail Weddings, Johnny Odonnell @ Alex's Bar
Toad the Wet Sprocket @ Brixton

Friday

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Whigs, Mini Mansions @ Echoplex
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club @ Amoeba Music (FREE! Early Show; 6 PM)
The Happy Hollows, The Veils, Twilight Sleep @ Troubadour
Sleepy Sun, Slang Chickens @ The Echo
Quasi, Explode Into Colors, The French Semester @ Spaceland
Truth & Salvage Co., The Parsons Red Heads, Brother Sal, Basia Bulat, Suzie Brown @ The Hotel Café
Holly Miranda, Yellow Red Sparks, Big Moves @ Bootleg Theater
Kenneth Pattengale @ Molly Malone's Irish Pub
'Classical Geek Theatre' Mouse's birthday party w/ Stoned at Heart, Jack Wilson Jr., Downtown/Union @ Pehrspace
Anna Oxygen, Broken Water, Happy Prescriptions, Dunes @ The Smell
Amps For Christ, Cabeza de Vaca Arkestra, Parallax @ Echo Curio
Carrie Newcomer @ McCabe's Guitar Shop
Little Boots, Dragonette, Fan Death @ Glass House
Agent Orange, The Gears, Viva Hate, Werewolf @ Alex's Bar

Saturday

Saturday Nights at the Getty w/ The Living Sisters @ Getty Center
Vinicio Capossela, Sara Lov @ El Rey Theatre
The Fresh and Onlys, Wounded Lion, Surf City, Pivot @ Spaceland
Choir of Young Believers, Great Northern @ Bootleg Theater
A Sunny Day in Glasgow, Pollyn @ The Mint
Smith Westerns, Young Veins, Michael Runion, Pearl Harbor @ The Echo (Early Show; 5 PM)
You Say Party We Say Die, White Arrows @ Echoplex
Fake Blood, Boy 8-Bit, Destructo, Jack Beats @ Club Nokia
Sasha, Kazell @ Avalon
Matthew Good, Automatic Loveletter @ Troubadour
Crystal Antlers' 7" release @ Origami Vinyl (FREE! Early Show; 4 PM)
The Franks @ Origami Vinyl (Free! Late Show; 7 PM)
Saint Motel, Tijuana Panthers, Seven Saturdays @ The Strange (4316 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles)
Extra Life, Jesus Makes the Shotgun Sound, Halloween Swim Team @ Echo Curio
Karin Jancuk artist's reception w/ La Ghost, The Health Club, Cosmonauts, Black Elephant @ Pehrspace
Death Sentence: PANDA!, Auto Da Fe, David Scott Stone, The Urxed @ The Smell
The Lincoln Bedroom, The Hereafter @ Molly Malone's Irish Pub
The Lindsay Erin Band @ On The Rox
Lucy Kaplansky @ McCabe's Guitar Shop
The Watson Twins @ Fingerprints (FREE! Early Show; 5 PM)
Seaspin, Repeater, Useless Keys, Dietra Kruschev @ The Prospector
Tim Barry @ Alex's Bar
Quasi, Explode Into Colors @ Detroit Bar

Sunday

Broken Bells @ Troubadour (SOLD-OUT)
The Swell Season @ McCabe's Guitar Shop
Kidrockers w/ The Watson Twins, Choir of Young Believers @ The Echo (Early Show; 12 PM)
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Thousand Dozen Gloves @ Echoplex
Part Time Punks w/ Blessure Grave, Twin Crystals, Random Cuts @ The Echo (Late Show; 10 PM)
Crystal Antlers, Beaches, Love Of Diagrams, Sun Araw @ The Smell
Gun Outfit, Dunes, Residual Echoes, So Many Wizards @ Echo Curio
Sabertooth Tiger, Memory, Tremellow @ Spaceland
Aussie BBQ w/ Henry Wagons, Pets With Pets, Sherlock’s Daughter, Cassette Kids, Washington, Dappled Cities, Oh Mercy, Paul Dempsey, Children Collide, Goons Of Doom, City Riots, The Chevelles @ The Echo (Early Show; 12 PM)
Planet Asia @ The Airliner
Real Vocal String Quartet @ Bootleg Theater
Kat Parsons, Kristen Ward, Emily Elbert, Drifwood Reunion Band, Whispering Pines @ The Hotel Café

ZOTAC was among the OEMs named in NVIDIA’s second-gen Ion launch earlier today, and the company has wasted no time getting a new nettop out in the open.  The ZOTAC ZBOX HD-ID11 pairs Ion with 512MB of its own dedicated DDR3 memory and an Intel Atom D510 1.66GHz dual core processor, all in something compact enough to hang off the back of your LCD display.

There’s also a DDR2 RAM slot, 2.5-inch HDD bay and integrated WiFi 802.11n, while other connectivity includes HDMI and eSATA.  Altogether there are six USB 2.0 ports, together with DVI, gigabit ethernet, a 6-in-1 memory card reader and an optical digital audio output.

The Ion GPU itself is the 16 CUDA core chip, rather than the cut-down 8 core version intended for 10-inch netbooks.  No word on when we might see it launch nor for how much, however.

Press Release:

Next-Generation ZOTAC ZBOX Redefines Mini-PCs
New ZOTAC ZBOX HD-ID11 redefines mini-PC with next-generation NVIDIA® ION™ technology

HONG KONG – Mar. 2, 2010 – ZOTAC International, the world’s largest channel manufacturer, today redefines the mini-PC experience with a new generation of eco friendly small form factor platform powered by next-generation NVIDIA® ION™ technology – the new ZOTAC ZBOX HD-ID11 mini-PC. The new ZOTAC ZBOX HD-ID11 mini-PC supercharges the eco friendly computing experience with premium graphics processing, complete high definition playback capabilities and a premium Windows® 7 experience with Aero® user interface.

Premium graphics processing power forms the heart of the ZOTAC ZBOX HD-ID11 mini-PC with a new Next-Generation NVIDIA® ION™ graphics processor with 16 unified shaders and 512MB of DDR3 graphics memory complete with NVIDIA® CUDA™ and NVIDIA® PureVideo™ HD technologies for a superior eco friendly computing experience that goes well beyond simple web browsing.

NVIDIA® CUDA™ technology harnesses the power of the NVIDIA® ION™ graphics processor in the ZOTAC ZBOX HD-ID11 to energize popular video processing and image editing applications for performance that dominates traditional CPUs. CUDA™ technology also enables support for DirectCompute and OpenCL powered applications on the ZOTAC ZBOX HD-ID11 for complete compatibility with general purpose GPU computing applications.

“Software companies took a big step in the last year to enable GPU-acceleration in their applications. Users can edit movies using Super LoiLoScope, enhance the quality of low-quality videos using vReveal and convert video files for use with portable media players using Badaboom with CUDA™ technology and our new ZOTAC ZBOX HD-ID11 mini-PC using just the graphics processor,” said Carsten Berger, marketing director, ZOTAC International. “Just because the ZOTAC ZBOX HD-ID11 mini-PC is small in size doesn’t mean it can’t deliver big system performance.

The ZOTAC ZBOX HD-ID11 mini-PC offers robust high definition playback capabilities with GPU accelerated decoding of popular formats such as AVC, VC-1 and Blu-ray movie titles, dual-stream hardware acceleration for Blu-ray picture-in-picture extra features, dynamic contrast and color stretch for spectacular picture clarity, and other visual enhancing post-processing and features thanks to NVIDIA® PureVideo™ HD technology. GPU acceleration is just the beginning of the high definition playback capabilities of the ZOTAC ZBOX HD-ID11 mini-PC.

Streaming high definition Internet video on popular sites such as YouTube™, Vimeo™ and Hulu™ render smoothly and flawlessly in full screen with the ZOTAC ZBOX HD-ID11 and Adobe® Flash® Player 10.1. Video stuttering is a faint thought of the past with the ZOTAC ZBOX HD-ID11 with NVIDIA® ION™ graphics technology.

HDMI 1.3a connectivity ensures the ZOTAC ZBOX HD-ID11 can connect to the latest monitors and televisions with the best visual quality available and support the latest technologies such as xvYCC Color, Deep color and high-resolution 7.1-channel digital surround sound. New xvYCC Color and Deep color technologies enable a wider range of colors and higher bit depths up to 48-bit color when connecting the ZOTAC ZBOX HD-ID11 to compatible displays for richer colors and greater details.

“The ZOTAC ZBOX HD-ID11 mini-PC is perfect for home theater PC use as well daily usage. Watching high-definition movies with premium audio tracks is a rewarding experience with the ZOTAC ZBOX HD-ID11 mini-PC.” Mr. Berger said. “The amount of clarity high-resolution 7.1-channel digital surround sound audio brings to the experience is phenomenal and can’t be put into words.”

The ZOTAC ZBOX HD-ID11 mini-PCs deliver a premium Windows® 7 experience with Aero® user interface with the NVIDIA® ION™ graphics processor. Windows® 7 features such as Aero® peek, Aero® shake and GPU accelerated media transcoding is fully supported by the ZOTAC ZBOX HD-ID11 for a fully featured premium eco friendly computing experience.

Behind the powerful NVIDIA® ION™ graphics in the ZOTAC ZBOX HD-ID11 and is an energy-efficient Intel® Atom™ processor with Intel® HyperThreading technology. A dual-core Intel® Atom D510 powers the ZOTAC ZBOX HD-ID11 for a powerful combination that delivers unrivaled performance and energy-efficiency.

Customizing the internals of the ZOTAC ZBOX HD-ID11 mini-PC is quick and easy for end users with a new tool-less case design. Users can simply remove two thumb screws to access the internals of the ZOTAC ZBOX HD-ID11 mini-PC and master the mini-PC with ease.

“We designed the ZOTAC ZBOX HD-ID11 with our end users in mind. With the new ZOTAC ZBOX HD-ID11 and HD-IS11, users can equip the mini-PC with components of their choice,” Mr. Berger said.

Internal expansion inside the ZOTAC ZBOX HD-ID11 include space for a single 2.5-inch hard drive and one 200-pin DDR2 SODIMM slot. Greater expansion is achievable externally via six USB 2.0 ports, one eSATA 3.0 Gb/s port and a 6-in-1 memory card reader capable of reading SD, SDHC, MMC, MS, MS Pro and xD memory cards for limitless expansion capabilities.

It’s time to play with the ZOTAC ZBOX HD-ID11 with Next-Generation NVIDIA® ION™ technology.

General details

New ZOTAC ZBOX HD-ID11
Next-Generation NVIDIA® ION™ platform
NVIDIA® CUDA™ technology
NVIDIA® PureVideo™ HD technology
Intel® NM10 Express chipset
Intel® HyperThreading technology
ZOTAC ZBOX HD-ID11
Intel® Atom™ D510
Dual-core
1.66 GHz (667 MHz front-side bus)
Tool-less case design
VESA monitor mount included
HDMI (1080p) & Dual-link DVI outputs
HDMI 1.3a compliant
xvYCC Color and Deep Color support
HDCP compliant
Microsoft® DirectCompute ready
Adobe® Flash® Player 10.1 decode acceleration
OpenCL compliant
Gigabit Ethernet
Onboard 802.11n WiFi
Microsoft® DirectX® 10.1 with Shader Model 4.1 compatible
OpenGL® 3.2 compatible
Microsoft® Windows® 7 with premium Aero® user interface ready

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NETGEAR^®, Inc. a worldwide provider of technologically innovative, branded networking solutions, today announced the addition of two next-generation HomePlug^®, AV-certified powerline kits to its award-winning family of powerline networking solutions: the compact Powerline AV 500 Adapter Kit (XAVB5001) and the Powerline AV+ 500 Adapter Kit (XAVB5501) with a filtered “pass-through” power socket. With revolutionary speeds of up to 500 Mbps, whole-home coverage and groundbreaking throughput, these new powerline kits offer performance that is unsurpassed by any consumer networking product on the market today.

The adapters incorporate the latest in technology innovations and are designed to be compatible with the draft international IEEE P1901 powerline standard. Thus, these solutions provide greater speeds for bandwidth-hungry applications such as lag-free Internet gaming, Voice over IP (VoIP), large file transfers to networked devices, and even simultaneous 1080p HD video streaming to multiple TVs throughout the home. NETGEAR will display these new products at the CeBIT trade show in Hannover, Germany, March 2-6, in the Wick Hill booth (Hall 11, Stand D03) of the Hannover Exhibition Hall. Related CeBIT announcements can be found here (http://www.netgear.com/About/PressReleases.aspx).

“With the dramatic increase in Internet-connected devices across the industry, such as TVs, Blu-ray™ players, DVRs, gaming consoles and set-top boxes, consumers now require networking solutions that enable multiple devices to be running simultaneously,” said Chris Geiser, product line manager for NETGEAR in-home distribution consumer products. “Until now, consumers haven’t been able to seamlessly stream multiple Blu-ray quality HD videos to different TVs in their homes. We are proud to be the first to market with a compelling new technology that will provide uncompromising performance, higher speeds and the greatest throughput for these applications.”

This latest generation of powerline technologies enables consumers to create a Gigabit Ethernet connection from any ordinary electrical outlet. NETGEAR has an unmatched track record of bringing the latest in powerline technologies to the market, offering a broad portfolio of powerline connectivity options optimized to deliver the highest performance, including single-port, pass-through, 4-port, and wireless extensions (http://www.netgear.com/Products/PowerlineNetworking/PowerlineEthernetAdapters.aspx). NETGEAR is the only networking company that offers the full range of in-home distribution technologies to the retail and service provider markets, including powerline, MoCA® coax and wireless.

“Today’s consumers are looking for networking technologies that offer speeds to support their abundance of Internet-connected home theater devices and ensure uninterrupted connectivity in wireless problem areas,” said Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at The NPD Group, a leading market research company. “Powerline technology operating effectively at 500 Mbps is not only an ideal solution to complement consumers existing wireless networks, but it’s also a terrific solution for small business owners who are looking for an easy and cost-effective way to expand their network without having to run additional Cat-5 cabling or install additional network nodes. Companies, like NETGEAR, that offer high-end networking solutions for these customer segments are well positioned to capitalize on a profitable market opportunity.”

Powerline AV 500 Adapter Kit (XAVB5001)
The NETGEAR Powerline AV 500 Adapter Kit (XAVB5001) is distinguished by its compact size, smaller than a deck of cards and up to 50 percent smaller than competing products. It is thus an excellent choice for consumers who are concerned that a powerline device might block an open power outlet.

 

Powerline AV+ 500 Adapter Kit (XAVB5501)
The HomePlug-certified NETGEAR Powerline AV+ 500 Adapter Kit (XAVB5501) shares the same performance and design benefits as the Powerline 500 AV Adapter Kit (XAVB5001), but differs from its sister product in offering a cutting-edge integrated filtered power socket for “pass-through” capability. This ensures that customers do not cannibalize an existing wall power socket with the adapter, which enables them to connect a wide range of power-hungry and electrically noisy devices while still maintaining the highest performance.

Revolutionary Speed, Unprecedented Performance, Industry-leading Design
Both new NETGEAR kits contain two adapters and are designed to provide customers with industry-leading features at an affordable price. Highlights include:

• Among the highest throughput of any consumer networking product available, with 500 Mbps PHY rates and Gigabit link rates, enabling greater coverage for every home outlet and making every room HD-capable.
• Backwards compatibility with other HomePlug AV products from NETGEAR, as well as the millions of installed HomePlug AV-certified products from other vendors.
• Designed for compatibility with the draft IEEE P1901 global standard for high-speed powerline communications (http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/1901/).
• Compliance with the stringent European Code of Conduct (CoC) on Energy Efficiency and the European Union’s Energy-using Products (EuP) Directive for low power, green energy operation.
• Ideal for use with Internet-connected devices that demand high bandwidth, such as the NETGEAR Digital Entertainer Express (EVA9100), Elite (EVA9150) and Live (EVA2000) digital media players, Blu-ray players, TiVo®, AppleTV®, Xbox 360™, PlayStation® 3, DVRs and network-enabled TVs.
• Multi-colored “pick-a-plug” LEDs indicate current network performance, so the customer can determine the strength of the powerline connection without having to look at a computer.
• Advanced energy management and standby capabilities provide wake-on-activity functionality to reduce overall energy usage.
• Prioritized Quality of Service (QoS).
• Simple “push-and-secure” functionality enables average users to easily install and secure the devices with 128-Bit AES encryption — no software configuration, no knowledge of networking, and no PC required, all with the push of a button.

Availability
Backed by 24/7 technical support from NETGEAR, both powerline kits will be available in Q3 of 2010 via leading retailers, direct marketers, e-commerce sites and value-added resellers. Single adapters will be sold separately for customers who want to further expand their powerline networks. Prices for the two-adapter kits and for single adapters will be announced at the time of market availability.

via Press Release

My system isn't the best or the highest end but it makes me happy. Everything calibrated via Radio Shack spl meter and Spears and Munsil High Def Benchmark Blu-Ray disc, I also have the AIX Records Audio Calibration Disc Blu-Ray, but haven't used it. Theatre: Samsung PN58B560 58" Plasma via HDMI Yamaha RX-V665/planning on upgrading Dish Network Vip 211 HD receiver via HDMI OPPO BDP-83 Blu-Ray player via HDMI Toshiba HD-A2 HD-DVD player via HDMI Klipsch RF-52 Home Theater System w/out sub SVS PB12–Plus/2 Auralex Great GRAMMA Monster Power Center AV800 Logitech Harmony 880 Maestro IR Lighting Dimmer via Logitech Harmony 60 Blu-Rays 45 HD-DVDs 476 DVDs HTPC: I really enjoy my HTPC, from building it to using it. It has AnyDVD HD, Microsoft Media Center, Media Center Classic, Windows 7, PowerDVD Pro 9, Virtual Clone Drive, Firefox, and OpenOffice. It will play Blu-Ray, Hulu Desktop, Netflix Media Center extension, mcShoutcast, mcWeather, and my music and picture collection all through Windows Media Center along with the Harmony remote to control it all. It is connected via HDMI so I get DTS-HD Master Audio, Dolby TrueHD, plus the usual codec’s. I bought a long range keyboard and laser mouse so I can use all this from either my recliner or bed, don't really use the keyboard in bed. :) Overall I really enjoy this system and with the HTPC, it meets all my needs. With this setup I only have one HDMI cable for the video and audio, the power cable and a usb dongle for the keyboard and mouse. With the HTPC I decided to go with a regular case due to the fact that it will hold more internal hard drives and it was cheaper. I built it as a media center but it plays games just as well as it plays movies. I did a bit of customization such as painting the interior of the case, added a remote control with a VFD, added some fans for hard drive cooling, a 12" blue led strip, and I cleaned the wires up as best as possible. I bought a small Acer monitor so I could keep an eye on the system without running my plasma. Kingston HyperX 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 Desktop Memory Model KHX8500D2K2/4G Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case GIGABYTE GA-EP43-UD3L LGA 775 Intel P43 ATX Intel Motherboard HIS H577FN1GD Radeon HD 5770 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 2.33GHz LGA 775 95W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80580Q8200 2 x Western Digital Caviar Green WD15EADS 1.5TB SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive An older 300gb SATA drive from another pc for the boot drive/going to upgrade to SSD when prices fall LG Black 8X BD-ROM 16X DVD-ROM 40X CD-ROM SATA Internal Combo LG Blu-ray Reader & 16X LightScribe DVD±R DVD Burner AZiO AWD102N PCI Wireless Adapter 12V Ultra-Flex 30 LED Light Strip - Blue 2 x Antec 761345-75121-6 120mm Case Fans Antec Mult-Station Elite Internal IR receiver w/ VFD and remote Acer X163W 16" wide format TFT Screen Like I said I didn't build this to play games but I wanted to see what it was capable of. Crysis with rendering settings set at max/on with AA off and 1024x768: Play Time: 43.48s, Average FPS: 46.00 Min FPS: 24.35 at frame 139, Max FPS: 65.63 at frame 1612 Average Tri/Sec: 46827048, Tri/Frame: 1018014 Recorded/Played Tris ratio: 0.90 !TimeDemo Run 1 Finished. Play Time: 38.19s, Average FPS: 52.36 Min FPS: 24.35 at frame 139, Max FPS: 71.46 at frame 69 Average Tri/Sec: 53940960, Tri/Frame: 1030102 Recorded/Played Tris ratio: 0.89 !TimeDemo Run 2 Finished. Play Time: 38.00s, Average FPS: 52.64 Min FPS: 24.35 at frame 139, Max FPS: 71.46 at frame 69 Average Tri/Sec: 54267156, Tri/Frame: 1031004 Recorded/Played Tris ratio: 0.89 !TimeDemo Run 3 Finished. Play Time: 39.80s, Average FPS: 50.26 Min FPS: 12.07 at frame 383, Max FPS: 74.26 at frame 78 Average Tri/Sec: 51782708, Tri/Frame: 1030365 Recorded/Played Tris ratio: 0.89 TimeDemo Play Ended, (4 Runs Performed) I dont have the stats but it will play Crysis 1920x1080 with 8x Anti Aliasing with max settings at 30fps. Enjoy..... Image: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2682/4339001900_34e0d7d2d8.jpg Image: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4007/4339000380_c121037d2c.jpg Image: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4054/4338996936_1267fae443.jpg Image: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4054/4338245521_4d5744d754.jpg Image: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4023/4338243925_bbdb11df37.jpg Image: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2784/4338984812_05c7bab056.jpg Image: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4018/4338240423_e7da7aab89.jpg Image: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2714/4338236839_495febd0d1.jpg Image: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4042/4338229047_de5c4181fa.jpg Image: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2732/4338216631_98f3101e88.jpg Image: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4017/4338212667_9da9ca85d2.jpg Image: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2786/4338949268_ce0a7ed9fa.jpg I am on the finishing stages of my living room. Here are a couple of blurry pics. 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If wireless is too much trouble for you, Netgear have also brought a pair of new Powerline networking devices to CES 2010.  The Netgear Powerline 200 AV Adapter Kit (XAVB2001) and the Powerline 200 AV+ Adapter Kit (XAVB2501) are both HomePlug compliant, and each offer up to 200Mbps connectivity.  The key difference between the two is that the AV+ system has filtered pass-through AC sockets, meaning you don’t have to entirely monopolize an outlet with the adapter.

If you’re trying to squeeze a Powerline connection into the already-overloaded outlets behind your A/V rack, then the AV+’s pass-through sockets will come in very handy.  The payoff is bulk: the XAVB2001 adapters are small, more compact than a deck of cards, while the XAVB2501 adapters are understandably larger given that they have to fit in an outlet.

The XAVB2001 AV adapters will be available in January 2010, priced at $149 for a pair and $79 individually.  The XAVB2501 AV+ adapters will follow on in February 2010, priced at $169 for the pair and $89 individually.  Since they’re compatible with each other, you could just add a socket-bearing AV+ unit to the basic system if you only need one extra outlet.

Press Release:

NETGEAR Plugs Two Powerful New HomePlug AV Powerline Networking Kits into Product Line-up at the Consumer Electronics Show

Advanced Design and Technology Improves Performance Up to 20 Percent Over Competing Powerline Home Theater Solutions

LAS VEGAS – January 6, 2010 – NETGEAR®, Inc. (NASDAQGM: NTGR), a worldwide provider of technologically innovative, branded networking solutions, today expanded its award-winning family of powerline networking solutions withtwo new devices incorporating HomePlug® AV-certified powerline technology: the diminutive Powerline 200 AV Adapter Kit (XAVB2001) and the Powerline 200 AV+ Adapter Kit (XAVB2501) with a filtered “pass-through” power socket. These networking kits incorporate the latest in design and technology innovations to support performance surpassing that of existing solutions by as much as 20 percent. These solutions enable high-performance applications such as HD video streaming, Voice over IP (VoIP), Internet gaming, and large file transfers to networked devicesover existing electrical wiring in environments where wireless network performance may be challenged.NETGEAR will introduce its new products at two press events today in conjunction with the opening of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. See today’s press release, “NETGEAR Introduces New Solutions at Consumer Electronics Show To Enable Any Media on Any Screen, Anywhere at Anytime” at http://www.netgear.com/About/PressReleases/en-US/2010/20100105a.aspx.

Powerline technology enables consumers to create a 10/100 Ethernet connection from any ordinary electrical outlet, thus eliminating the need to run new cables and lowering the overall cost to deploy a high-speed data network. Consumers can extend the range of their home network with these affordable, simple-to-install adapters, especially those consumerswho use Internet-connected devices that demand high bandwidth, such as the new NETGEAR Digital Entertainer Express (EVA9100), Elite (EVA9150)and Live (EVA2000) digital media players, Blu-ray™ players, TiVo®, AppleTV®, Xbox 360™, PlayStation® 3, DVRs, and network-enabled TVs. Moreover, because these new NETGEAR powerline kits are HomePlug AV-certified, they can easily and affordably extendany existing HomePlug AV network.

“Powerline has become an increasingly popular option for an always-on infrastructure because of the explosive growth in connected AV devices, and the high speeds and reliability required to support these demandingapplications,” said Chris Geiser, NETGEAR’s product line manager for in-home distribution consumer products. “Home theater products need constant, shared and faster access to the Internet and the home network. You might have wireless dead spots in your house. You probably don’t have Ethernet in your walls. But chances are, you’ve got at least one electrical outlet in every room in your house. Powerline can boldly go where no Internet connection has gone before. Besides, you can’t beat powerline adapters for simple set-up and ease-of-use.”

NETGEAR has a well-documented track record of bringing the latest in powerline technologies to the market, offering a broad portfolio of powerline connectivity options optimized to deliver the highest performance, including single-port, pass-through, 4-port, and wireless extensions. (http://www.netgear.com/Products/PowerlineNetworking/PowerlineEthernetAdapters.aspx) NETGEAR is the only networking company that offers the full range of in-home distribution technologies to the retail and service provider markets, including powerline, MoCA® coax and wireless.

“While wireless is becoming increasingly popular as the core technology for home networks and is often embedded into new products, its performance can be affected by many factors, including the construction materials of the building itself,” said Norm Bogen, vice president of digital entertainment research for In-Stat. “Powerline can be a great complementary solution for TVs, Blu-ray players, set-top boxes and other home theater devices that still require a wired connection.”

Powerline 200 AV Adapter Kit (XAVB2001)
The NETGEAR Powerline 200 AV Adapter Kit (XAVB2001) is HomePlug AV-certified, featuring up to 200 Mbps performance through powerline. Its performance surpasses that of competing solutions and even that of NETGEAR’s own award-winning Powerline AV Ethernet Adapter Kit (XAVB101) by up 20 percent. It’s distinguished by its compact size, smaller than a deck of cardsand up to 50 percent smaller than competing products. It is thus an excellent choice for consumers who are concerned that a powerline device might block an open power outlet.The NETGEAR Powerline 200 AV Adapter Kit (XAVB2001) containing two adapters will be available worldwide in January 2010 at an MSRP in the U.S. of $149.Single adapters (XAV2001) will have an MSRP in the U.S. of $79.Photos and other information are at http://www.netgear.com/Products/PowerlineNetworking/PowerlineEthernetAdapters/xavb2001.aspx.

Powerline 200 AV+ Adapter Kit (XAVB2501)
The HomePlug-certified NETGEAR Powerline 200 AV+ Adapter Kit (XAVB2501) shares the same performance and design benefits asthe Powerline 200 AV Adapter Kit (XAVB2001), but differs from its sister product in offering a unique integrated filtered power socket for “pass-through” capability. This ensures that customers don’t cannibalize an existing wall power socket with the adapter, which means they can connect a wider range of power-hungry devices than competing solutions while still maintaining the highest performance.The NETGEAR Powerline 200 AV+ Adapter Kit (XAVB2501) containing two adapters will be available worldwide in February 2010 at an MSRP in the U.S. of $169.Single adapters (XAV2501) will have an MSRP in the U.S. of $89.Photos and other information are at http://www.netgear.com/Products/PowerlineNetworking/PowerlineEthernetAdapters/xavb2501.aspx.

Improved Performance, Improved Design
Both new NETGEAR products are designed to provide customers with industry-leading features at an affordable price. For example:

Effective throughput and speeds up to 20 percent better than competing solutions over extended locations; a typical coverage area is up to a 5,000-square-foot home.
Multi-colored “pick-a-plug” LEDs indicate current network performance, so the customer can determine the strength of the powerline connection without having to look at a computer.
Advanced energy management and standby capabilities provide wake-on-activity functionality to reduce overall energy usage.
Prioritized Quality of Service (QoS).
Simple “push-and-secure” functionality enables average users to easily install and secure the devices with 128-Bit AES encryption- no software configuration, no knowledge of networking, and no PC required, all with the push of a button.
Compatibility with other HomePlug AV products from NETGEAR, as well as HomePlug AV-certified products from other vendors.
Backed by a one-year warranty and 24/7 technical support from NETGEAR, the Powerline 200 AV Adapter Kit (XAVB2001) and the Powerline 200 AV+ Adapter Kit (XAVB2501)will be available worldwide via leading retailers, direct marketers, e-commerce sites, and value-added resellers. For a fun look at the evolution of gaming enabled by NETGEAR powerline products, visit http://www.agamer4life.com.

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