Chris Lanier's Blog

Looks nice, but at $4 per disc this is not a good value. What we really need is a souped up version of DaemonTools that can emulate one of these things for MCE and just mount DVD images on hard drives as necessary.

Yeah I have never gotten the point of these on the market, bloated bulky hardware vs digital content... isn't that war over? Compared to simple ripping or making an ISO it seems pretty pointless to me. The Mom or grandparent's of the world that might find that to complex are no on MCE and even if they where they would not throw down that kind of cash or any things close to it ($100-199 maybe).

I disagree on the bloated price. I don't have to increase my power supply for more drives, I dont have more stuff in the case generating heat. I don't have to take the time to rip the dvds, put them in and instantly available. All my kids extra disney features are there. Its a burner, load it up with some blanks. move your mp3/music collection to a dvd and reduce your hd needs even more. Leave an rw in the thing and run nightly backups of important files (assuming this can be automated). Its not limited to movies, toss in games that need the original in the drive, audio cds.

a good external firewire burner runs around $200. a changer is a couple hundred but its video/cd only. Figure a couple hundred for inital get our developement cost back.

They easily could have sold it for twice the price and being that only 1 other manufacturer makes them for oems who is raping them on costs, this isn't a bad deal.

Actually I also think this is a fair price - one cannot argue that compared to harddrive storage, this is big (it's huge), ugly, noisy and very limited, but compared to having your kids destroy your DVD's, it's great.

I've ordered one to be able to support it in "My Movies", at the prices until now it has not been interesting, but I think this is a fair price.

If not anything else, it makes a great way of getting your DVD's stored on harddrives, 200 of them at a time.

Regards,

Brian Binnerup

I think it's a little expensive, but IMO it's a much better option than ripping. I'd rather not use so much hard drive space for movies.

So I can eliminate the whole shelf of DVD's sitting next to my TV stand by using this changer, which makes for a neat, open appearance.
But what do I do with the 200 empty DVD cases now? Throw them out?

MikeA,

I through my boxes out long ago. I have over 1000 DVDs and those boxes were taking up too much space. I use Discsox sleeves to store the DVDs and as well as the covers and inserts. Works great and saves space. (http://www.discsox.com/products/dvd_pro_sleeve.htm)

$800? @$@# That!

Price of HD space is < $1 per GB. Fall in love with a torrent or Alcohol/Daemon Tools and invest in a 500 GB drive for ~$400. Donate the other $400 to a worthy charity.

But 200 DVD's (at about 8GB/disc) is a 1.6TB storage capacity. So you'll not only need to get your $400 back from the charity for a second 500GB drive, you'll also have to shell out another $400 for a third 500GB drive just to match the storage space in this changer.

I am not sure that the question here is really about storage. The reason I say that is that if all you want to do is store the discs, then a Sony DVPCX995V is a much cheaper alternative (under $300) and holds twice as many discs. It however can not be controlled by your HTPC. The associated ES version can be controlled by your computer, but not directly by MCE and costs pretty much the same as the XL1B2. Either of those solutions work, but they have thier own dedicated output.

To me, question is all about time. This unit will appeal to the people that want to control and view DVD's through MCE and don't have the time to rip the discs. I know that I am currently sitting on the fence for this very reason. The idea of having everything digitized on a media server appeals to me until I think about the effort involved in getting there. This especially holds true when I consider all of the boxed sets of television shows I have. How often will I view them? Is it worth the drive space and rip time? Do I need remote access in a different room or portable viewing? The last thing I worry about is the actual storage.

Worst thing is it's a Sony. I have (or had) 11 of Sony's home entertainment components, including two 200 disc CD changers. Only 3 of the devices still work after 5 years. A few of them were malfunctioning at arrival, the rest died within 2 years.

Will not buy another Sony...

When I see this, I don't think about its digital theatre uses, it'd be better put to work as a 200 disc backup device. If Sony re-released it with a dual layer Blue-ray, then I'd consider it. Give it a three year warranty & make it optionally rack-mountable, and I'll get four of them.

Until then, I won't take a second glance at it. Also, as Roger Svensson pointed out, there's Sony's reputation for making things that look beautiful but are fragile and don't survive more than a year with regular use.

Even though it won't look nearly as good sitting next to your HTPC than the Vaios it was designed to complement, you can now pick up the Sony VGP-XL1B2 200 DVD changer that had previously limited to an optional add-on for the company's XL1 and XL2 Media C

Well, Sony decided to lower the price even further.  It now stands at $499.  I checked Amazon.com and they even offer $100 rebate.  So you can have this changer for $399 excluding s/h.

I already have the VGP-XL1 and most likely daisy-chain additional changer later in time.

Who knows, maybe the price will be even lower.

So can this unit be used as an individual stand-alone CD/DVD Changer, or will I also need to hook up my computer.  If I could just use this as a CD/DVD Changer that would play straight into my TV (and have connectivity to the internet to retrieve album art, ect), I think that would be ideal for me.

Has anyone here verified that this unit can rip DVDs to the Hard Drive? It says it rips CDs, but nothing about DVD ripping. I called Sony and they couldn't answer my question. They said it has Digital Rights Management so they don't think it's possible to rip DVDs.

Some support they have.

has there been any confirmation on extender support in either vista or versions of 2005? that's the dealbreaker for me. i don't want to load all of my disks only to have to fish one out when i want to watch it in another room...

too bad, i'd have bought one this afternoon. looks like xloby and a standard changer for me.

No support for Extenders???  If that is the case, how can you get a DVD to play in another room via an extender?  Are you back to ripping them and hacking something with Windows MC to make it work?  Any suggestions?

For all that were thinking as price to be "bloated" here is an update. Amazon dropped price on this changer to 299USD with 100USD mail in rebate. I dont think you can get 1.6TB of storage space for 299 USD considering cheapest HDD price for 500GB goes for 179USD. And on top of that you dont need to invest time in ripping things and dont need to worry about Hard disk crash and losing all your data and time invested in ripping. I think at 299 USD this makes a decent unit.

I think it is a great deal, but how do you get the DVDs to other rooms if they are not supporting it?  Does someone know how to extend the DVD player to a MCE device?

Well... is there an answer to the DVD/extender question or not?

I just bought one of these. I bought it to speed up ripping my 2500-disc CD collection. I was dissapointed that it only works with the media center and uses AMG guide. AMG has much worse information than cddb or freedb. Tracks get the wrong names, etc. Anyone know how to use freedb with Media Center?

Regarding the metadata, if you rip to mp3, is the metadata stored in the file? If so, I was thinking that maybe a little utility could be written to batch override the metadata using an alternate source such as cddb.

I'm trying to set up an HTPC in each room in my house since extenders aren't streaming the movies the way I want them to.  Does anyone know if this changer will be accessible on the network?  If so, I think it'll be a great solution.  Especially with the price under $400 now.

I read that the changer comes with software to control it.  If that sw is loaded on all of the HTPC's, and then the changer is mapped, do you think it may work?