Escient ships new FireBall DVDM-552

We kind of thought Escient was somehow taking things in a slightly more "cost effective" direction with their $1000 Escient SE-D1 media manager last year, but they've just gone quite a bit the other way with their new $6000 FireBall DVDM-552 which just started shipping. From the looks of things they're spending most of that $6000 on component video hookups, though there's plenty more to love here. The DVDM-552 can manage up to 2000 DVDs or CDs stored in Sony DVD changers, can send multiple video or digital audio streams to multiple rooms, holds a 500GB HDD, and can stream networked media. Everything can be operated through a web control panel, a PDA, or from a particularly brave remote. Sounds pretty exciting, though for the amount you'd be spending on this thing it seems like you could afford to put a WMCE PC in each room instead. But we're not going to try and stop you or anything.

[Via TRFJ]

[adam @ Apr 7th 2006 10:34AM]

all that video love and not a 1394 port to be found. just a shame...

[Fuzz @ Apr 7th 2006 10:38AM]

No HDMI either . . .

[I Want One @ Apr 7th 2006 10:40AM]

I dont think i would buy something that expensive without a HDMI out on it.

[Portable @ Apr 7th 2006 11:01AM]

That's a big fault not to arm it with 1394.

[Paul Gill @ Apr 7th 2006 11:09AM]

This blog was moaning about the aesthetics of the current crop of media centres/servers.
http://www.hightechhomemag.com/news/news.php?id=34
I have to agree, this one is no better either.
Someone please release a good looking case!

[TrikinCurt @ Apr 7th 2006 11:15AM]

Distributed video and HDMI don't go well together... In the custom installation world we rarely use HDMI do to HDCP. With HDCP you can't matrix switch, aka, send the same input to multiple HDMI sources. Add that to the cost differences of sending component 100+ feet and HDMI, and the benefits of HDMI go pretty fast.

[adam @ Apr 7th 2006 11:37AM]

TrikinCurt, that's why I mentioned 1394 - you should check out the tecStream solution if you are networking HD... http://www.tecstream.com

[Poopmaster @ Apr 7th 2006 1:09PM]

At least with hi-end audio, you get good sound and a good interface for your money! That's the beauty of dedicated design, vs. "every feature under the sun (except firewire)". This thing even suffers from buttonitis! Bleargh.

[VEGA @ Apr 7th 2006 7:49PM]

That's a rip off. Rip all your DVD's to a RAID running LINUX. Use the ROKU media player running VideoLan to play multicast streams. Or use a Mac mini with Delicious LIbrary. Tie the URL's in the description in DL to play local files on the RAID in DVD player. Front Row might even work. Control it with VNC, Phillips web remote or Aurora's WAKI NX. Escient needs to recoup all the fees they have to pay the MPAA, RIAA and CDDB. That's why their price is high. Has nothing to do with their technology. They are actually behind on specs usually.

[VEGA @ Apr 7th 2006 8:09PM]

Techstream is crippleware. It won't do HD. The highest it goes is 480i. It's useless. You can only run a max of 300 ft. of Cat5e. It's got low bandwidth. There are other solutions besides that junk.

[Ben Hobbs @ Apr 9th 2006 1:11PM]

This seems an expensive solution to me, I could buy seperate systems to run the audio, video etc... at a significantly cheaper price, with better performance and functionality.

Ben Hobbs
H3-Digital is a smart home automation company based in Phuket, Thailand http://www.h3-digital.com .