Sony intros the HES-V1000 media server and 200 disc Blu-ray player

Sony is making some interesting announcements at CEDIA today, not the least of which is the new HES-V1000, a "home entertainment center" / massive Blue-ray disc-changer meant to keep all your media in one place... Sony style! Imagine if you will a small tower, stacked with a 500GB hard drive and the outrageous room for 200 discs from your personal Blu-ray collection. That's right, if you've purchased almost every single disc available on Blu-ray right now (or as we like to call it, the Sony Movie Library), you can cram them all into this tall, black, polished drink of water. Of course you can store your other music and movies on the internal drive, and play it all back in 1080p wherever it seems appropriate (living room, family room... boudoir). Stream your hot action wirelessly using the oddball DLNA "standard," allowing connections with ten devices, and four independent audio streams. The HES-V1000 also boasts Sony's x-Pict Story HD and x-ScrapBook, two slide show utilities that probably make your family photos seem more compelling than they actually are. Get one in October for the terrifically low price of $3,500.

[Daniel @ Sep 5th 2007 9:52PM]

i think ill pre-order one?

[Typhoid Mary @ Sep 5th 2007 9:52PM]

I didnt know shit could stack so high.

[Zwilnik @ Sep 5th 2007 10:01PM]

There are 200 Blue Ray disks?

[Bevon Findley @ Sep 5th 2007 10:01PM]

Sony needs to stop being cheap. I mean come on, hd dvd players are going for $250 and up. Time to go low.

[Garrett @ Sep 5th 2007 10:07PM]

cool

[AJ @ Sep 5th 2007 10:13PM]

Sony has to be on crack. They're freaking trippin'.

[Cesar Gallardo @ Sep 5th 2007 10:13PM]

I would like it if sony won the modern format wars but lets be reasonable people HD-DVD has the upper hand. And besides it wouldn't be the first time they lost such a fight.

[kamm @ Sep 6th 2007 1:34AM]

Yep, they just discountinued another one of their proprietary shit collection, the ATRAC format.

Excellent news - another shitty format bites the dust, only 10+ more to go.

Sony needs to DIE before it can reborn - the only meaningful Sony division is SonyEricsson, thanks to the Ericsson influence they did not get drunk from the Blu-Ray and other lunatic KoolAid.

[Singh @ Sep 5th 2007 10:32PM]

This looks like a mini-refrigerator. But The Functions are totally smashing.

[Daniel N @ Sep 5th 2007 10:35PM]

If it doesn't play PS3 games it isn't worth s**t

[Daniel N @ Sep 5th 2007 10:36PM]

i meant soot

[Dave @ Sep 5th 2007 10:36PM]

Is it Blu-Ray profile 2.0 compatible?

[patsy @ Sep 5th 2007 10:40PM]

> oddball DLNA "standard"

OK, I don't care much for Sony's approach (carousels are so yesterdecade), but if this was an attempt at some sort of sarcasm or teh funiez on Josh's part, I don't get it. DLNA is nothing more than a branding label for UPnP/AV, and while certainly still in its infancy (and what AV streaming standard currently isn't?), it is a very decent standard and much better than no standard at all and with that a proliferation of individual vendors' own home cooked and proprietary streaming and discovery mechanisms. Of course, if you're in the market to sell comprehensive serving and playback infrastructure, proprietary may indeed be very worthwhile, and in fact I'm surprised that Sony--a company (in)famous for proliferating standards and formats of their own devising--has chosen to take an open standards approach here.

Growing support of UPnP/AV could lead to much simplified devices and considerable reduction in feature duplication. In an ideal world a TV set would contain a UPnP/AV client and nothing more, allowing it to pull any available content from local network resources. Ideally new device classes would be added to the standard to support server-based TV tuners and DVR functionality along with program guide information etc. Currently one could probably jimmy up a server that masquerades the program guide as a folder structure of available content for currently playing shows, but dealing with future shows would stretch this paradigm considerably, as would the notion of scheduling recordings. Still, the goal would be for all content to travel over the network, and all home theater devices to have just a network jack and nothing more.

[pc @ Sep 5th 2007 11:04PM]

id rather have 10 1tb hard drives throw in some netflix / anyhddvd/bluray no need for silly discs

[Bayard Michael @ Sep 5th 2007 11:13PM]

is that thing built in a filing cabinet?

[Anthony @ Sep 5th 2007 11:18PM]

I love it. Their prior 200 disc players haven't worked because they're too big for most entertainment centers. This one isn't ashamed to be big.

Their new black industrial design is winning me over too.

[bombos @ Sep 5th 2007 11:24PM]

I

[Rob @ Sep 5th 2007 11:33PM]

Sony's "Tower of Doom."
This whole "carousel" idea is so last decade. I keep on telling people that Sony needs to allow their engineers to come out of their labs once in a while, and enjoy a day at the beach so they can see how people actually live.

Sony can't be playing the silly game of "our stuff is expensive because is so good and you'll buy it." Sure Sony used to have a great reputation for quality. Today, well, it's debatable. But in any case, playing the expensive game is left to companies like Apple. Cuppertino can take such liberties because their products are selling like hot cakes. Yes, love it or hate it, the iPod has sold in millions.

If Sony continues on this path, I see Blu-ray following the path of the MiniDisc.

[fred @ Sep 6th 2007 4:42AM]

carousels are definetly last decade. who uses cd changers anymore with ipods and such. sony wants to sell overpriced locked down garbage to rich punters. they still haven't learned their lesson. forcing ungainly cr@p like this on customers shows their mentality

[daishi @ Sep 5th 2007 11:37PM]

Only 200????
It should be 500+ minimum
After 2 500 sony DVD systems for regular dvds, 200 is way too small, but better than having to manually bring out all my bluray dvds.
When and Who is making the HD version?

[roger_huston @ Sep 6th 2007 12:01AM]

Awesome! I will take two. I know Blue-Ray will win the war so lets just call it another victory for Sony. I will put this bad boy right next to be Betamax!!

Go Sony! Rule the world!

- Roger

[Dave @ Sep 6th 2007 12:55AM]

I don't suppose there's been any HD-DVD news recently? I only ask because I'm hearing things on other sites that aren't covered by Engadget or EngadgetHD--and Engadget's always been my primary source for gadget news. So, if you tell me they're liars, I'll believe you. Just tell me Blu-Ray's already won the format war and that all the HD-DVD news that's been announced today and this past week is bogus and I'll believe you. Just be honest with me, sweetie. I promise I won't get mad.

[Generic @ Sep 6th 2007 4:27AM]

I am going to get this to my crib, as soon as I get cash to the price :|

[Glyn @ Sep 6th 2007 5:58AM]

I'm a bit confused by this device... this is my impression:

-I have a PS3... that can store/play video files and play bluray discs.

-It sounds like Sony want to remove the 'Windows/Apple Computer' from the living room.

-This device acts as your media storage for video music etc.

-but for some reason it can also play the video files and Bluray discs stored inside it... and they're charging the handsome price (about £2000) for this functionality which is twice the price of a good Media Centre PC

-But my PS3 can play those things... and costs £400. Add a 250GB hdd for £100 and things are still very cheap.

-I just don't see the point in this device.

-I am very keen on making my PS3 the center of entertainment in my living room, it's quiet, reliable and the quality of picture/sound is great in my opinion.

-The PS3 should be able to Serve up files and stream to other DLNA devices (other than the PSP). this feature and the disc burning features are the only features lacking in the PS3... one can be added via firmware.

-I think sony should have more confidence in the PS3's position in the living room as an all-round entertainment hub. PlayTv is a step in the right direction (just wish it supported DVT-S2).

-At the moment i still need my Laptop running TVersity in order to convert and copy video files to the PS3, and even then I can't organise them into folders... until then I'll continue to need my laptop.

I could go on... but this post is long enough me thinks.

[ADR @ Sep 6th 2007 9:56AM]

This thing isn't meant for the average consumer. This is more like a B&O type of device, compared to that this thing is a massive bargain. Hell $3,500 is a drop in the bucket for big time A/V technophiles. Of course they won't buy the thing because its Sony. If it was Toshiba making this thing as a HD-DVD server there would probably be nothign but positive posts about it.

The only thing missing is Location Free or remote play. If it wa a real home server it should have the ability to cue up your entertainment collection from anywhere you have an internet connection. I've been using my PS3 as a media server to stream videos and music at work to my PSP. When they allow you to play more PS3 games over remote play it will be awesome indeed.

[Ken @ Sep 6th 2007 1:53PM]

cool looks

dumb product

[JDizzle @ Sep 6th 2007 3:48PM]

It seems like a pretty good idea, but the price just doesn't cut it. There would be no reason for the average consumer to buy one of those. If I wanted to keep my (non-existent) blu-ray disk collection in order for

[Glyn @ Sep 7th 2007 9:10AM]

"DVT-S2" should read DVB-S2

[tom.grounds @ Feb 19th 2008 11:35AM]

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.