Big Blu: Sony's 200-disc Blu-ray changer, plus Blu-ray burner and 500GB HDD
(Credit:
Sony)
Usually when we hear about mega-disc changers we're reminded of Sony's older behemoths, which always seemed like a great idea but were often more trouble than they were worth. Sony's been in the changer business for a long time, but the new HES-V1000 looks completely different than the company's previous offerings and offers some truly cutting-edge features. With its rectangular, tower-like design, the HES-V1000 is a 200-disc changer that can play and record to CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs. With only about 300 total Blu-ray discs on the market, that might be overkill, but you can fill the gaps with your existing CD and DVD collection. The Blu-ray changer is impressive enough as is--it's the first giant Blu-ray changer we've seen--but Sony has gone the extra step of including a 500GB internal hard drive that Sony claims can hold "137 hours of video, 40,000 songs, or 20,000 digital photos".
One of our biggest knocks against Sony's older DVD changers was that disc information usually had to be added manually, which involved connected a PC keyboard to the changer and tediously entering the disc title, song names, etc. The HES-V1000 avoids this by coming equipped with an Ethernet port that pulls CD, DVD, and Blu-ray disc information off the Internet, so you don't have to enter the info yourself. The Ethernet port also allows the HES-V1000 to communicate with other DLNA-certified devices on your network, so you can, for instance, stream music off the HES-V1000 to your PlayStation 3.
Another good sign for the HES-V1000 is the inclusion of Sony's XrossMediaBar (XMB) menu system, as seen on the PlayStation 3 and Sony STR-DA5300ES. Despite the annoying name, we've generally found the XMB menu system to be easy to use and easy on our eyes.
Rear panel of the HES-V1000
(Credit: Sony)Taking a look at the back panel, you'll note the standard connections for a Blu-ray player, with the addition of A/V inputs, which opens up the possibility of the HES-V1000 offering DVR functionality. Sony hasn't said anything about this yet, but it would be a great addition to this do-it-all media center. In addition to the connectivity on the back panel, the HES-V1000 also has Memory Stick, Secure Digital, CompactFlash, and xD-Picture Card readers, so you can easily load up your digital images.
As you might guess, the HES-V1000 won't be cheap when it comes out in October, with a retail price of about $3,500.
Top-down look at the HES-V1000
(Credit: Sony)
etc.) on the disc itself? I've thought it was a mistake not to do so on CDs, but
that was 20 years ago, so it's somewhat excusable. But surely there's enough
room on a 25GB disc for a couple hundred bytes of metadata.
To me, at the price I think it's ridiculous that it's not there. Unless the Firewire port is hiding under a front panel and the reviewer didn't see it.
Also as alredy mentioned, a firewire connector.
Will this have a SCART added for the European market? If yes can control signals (to start & stop recording) be used over this?
This has lots of potential, with these additions it would be an interesting system.
scenario, with the very same out come for thousand of dollars cheaper than
this crap.
1.) A Blu-Ray Drive -- $500
2.) A Computer -- $600 or free
3.) 2TB drive -- $650 - $700
4.) CSS unlocking software -- $25
Done.
(That's a saving of $2300 to $1600 dollars. Duh. Are Sony executives high
when they come-up with these ideas? Do they screen for intelligence during
the interview process, or do they just shave a bunch of monkey and put them
in business suits?)
- I would prefer a server I could place in closet...
- by tom.grounds September 14, 2007 12:07 PM PDT
- I agree with pretty much all of the other posts. I would prefer a server in my data closet with my other servers that would serve up my dvd's in my media room (or other rooms in the house). Now, that said... if I were to consider this beast... here is what I need to know -
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(8 Comments)Any further technical specs available?
I have been looking for a server to manage my DVD library - I have over 1000 DVD?s and would love to know if this is a viable solution for me. I have been looking at the kalidescape system but I?m not ready to spend $51,000 for a solution. This seems like a nice compomise.
Some of the questions that I have are:
01) Did they think through expansion and growth? This only holds 200 DVD?s - will they allow for daisy-chaining or add-on components to the server to accomodate more than 200 DVDs? (Sony missed the boat with their 400 DVD player by limiting the number that can be chained together) and 500gig isn?t much - will there be the ability to expand the HDD?
02) Does the DVD player do any upscaling of the image to 1080p? or will they leave this off so that people purchase blu-ray replacements for their existing movies?
03) What is the user experience like when browsing/searching for movies? Will I be able to search by actor, awards, genre, title, play time, etc? The indicate that they grab meta-data off of the internet for each movie in the player - is the UI easy enough to search based on that data?
04) Streaming Video? Will this eventually allow for the streaming of DVD?s and other video to other devices on the network? It?s great to have a place for all your DVD?s, but you don?t solve the problem of wanting to watch something in a different room than where this device is located. Also, watching multiple programs. The new Receivers allow for 2nd room streaming - will this do that as well?
05) Environmental sound - it looks like a tall tower - I hope that the fans and drives are silent - This deivce has to be near your audio equipment for cable connections - what is the sound level of the internal fans, drives, etc. and will it be distracting since you can?t put it off in a closet someplace.
06) Loading of DVD?s and gathering meta-data: Is this loaded and stored on the internal hard drive? or will will device always go to the internet each time you access a movie?
07) Meta-data management/Configuration management - is this done via a web page from anywhere on the network? will I be able to see if I own a movie from any PC on my netowrk (or externally) when I have them all loaded in the device, or will I have to search for it on the device to determine I own it or not?
Well, those are just a few of my initial questions
Tom.