Entertainment
What Happened This Week?
It’s been a crazy week with so much going on. It’s been a challenge to try and keep up with it all.
Toy Fair
First, earlier in the week Toy Fair 2014 kicked off in New York. I covered a lot of NECA’s toy line ups for the year. I’ve completed my coverage of Toy Fair today. I’ve covered a large majority of NECA’s toy releases for this year. I also covered Hasbro’s Star Wars 6″ Black Series line, as well as Mezco Toyz’ Breaking Bad licensed merchandise. I added a Game of Thrones section because I saw some very cool stuff that’s coming to the market soon. Most of it is for the high-end collectors.
Titanfall Beta
There was a lot going on with Titanfall this week as well. I got into the beta last Friday, continued to play through Wednesday night, and captured a lot of in-game footage. We learned that Titanfall will have monsters and they can be a threat. I posted my first impressions of the beta and working on a final impressions with suggestions on how to improve the game.
Game of Thrones Blu-Ray Problem
On Tuesday this week, HBO’s original series Game of Thrones season 3 released on Blu-Ray and DVD. I posted an unboxing video of the Amazon collector’s set. I also found out that the Xbox One could not play the Game of Thrones Blu-Ray discs. I did some research and apparently these Blu-Ray discs have some DRM on them and may have affected more Blu-Ray players than just the Xbox One. Microsoft quickly corrected the problem and now Game of Thrones season 3 Blu-Ray discs work on your Xbox One machine.
Xbox One Dashboard Beta
This week Microsoft also began to send out invitations to random Xbox Live members to participate in the Xbox One Dashboard Preview Program. The next major Xbox One update will arrive March 4th. It will address the party and notification systems as well as a few other improvements to the system.
How Was Your Week?
What did you do? Put your week in review, and have a great weekend.
Xbox Blu-Ray Player is Buggy
[Update #3] I have figured it out. The Xbox One Blu-Ray player is clearly having issues for perhaps a multitude of reasons. This issue is no longer isolated to just Game of Thrones season 3. I’ve now tested more Blu-Ray movies and Step Brothers came up as one that wasn’t recognized by the system.
First, disable BD Live in your Settings if you have it enabled.
If for whatever reason this happens and your Xbox One can not recognize a Blu-Ray movie don’t worry because there is an easy solution.
- Load up the Blu-Ray player app on your Xbox One with no disc in the slot.
- You’ll be prompted that there is no disc in the drive.
- Insert your Blu-Ray movie
- Boom.
Also, for now if you’re having issues with audio sync, it’s because you have 24 Hz enabled. Disable that and you won’t have any audio issues. I think there is an issue with the user interface being 60 Hz and it confuses the television, or something to that effect.
There you have it. After trial and error I have solved this mystery. This could be a bug brought on by the February system update.
Has anyone experienced these issues before the February update?
Xbox One Still Can’t Play Game of Thrones
[Update #2:] Just as I was about to sit down and enjoy my weekend it turns out that Microsoft has not in-fact fixed the Game of Thrones Blu-Ray situation. The other day Microsoft released an update for the Blu-Ray player that was supposed to fix this issue. It did, temporarily, but the issue has come back, and there’s no solution on the horizon. Except of course for the work around that I’ve provided below.
The Work Around!
- Load up the Blu-Ray player app on your Xbox One with no disc in the slot.
- You’ll be prompted that there is no disc in the drive.
- Insert Game of Thrones season 3 disc (1, 2, 3, 4, or 5.)
- Boom.
Blu-Ray Player Updated
[Update:] Microsoft has issued an update that fixes a bug that was causing the Season 3 Game of Thrones Blu-Ray discs to not play on the Xbox One. Insert a season 3 Game of Thrones disc and the Blu-Ray player app will load up and prompt you to download an update.
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The Dragon Has Landed
February 18, season 3 of HBO’s original series Game of Thrones released on DVD and Blu-Ray. I ordered the collector’s set from Amazon, because I thought it looked cool. I was worried that it was going to be an inferior product. Watch this video and find out what I thought about the collector’s set.
Let The Toy Fair Begin!
Toy Fair 2014 has kicked off another year’s worth of toy reveals and teasers. I am not at Toy Fair and unfortunately have never gone, but there is already so much coverage of the event that it feels like you’re there anyway. In this post I am mostly, if not only, going to talk about NECA Toys and the products they have launching in the first half of this year. I’m a big toy collector and about 90% of my collection is from NECA. They have good price points on their products and I feel like their line ups just get better every year. I may talk about a few other toy companies that have some interesting stuff coming out this year. If I manage to neglect your favorite company or new hot toy that was just announced you can always head over to Figures.com for more in-depth coverage of Toy Fair 2014.
