Sony's new MegaChanger and ES Blu-ray players in the flesh
By Paul Miller 
posted Jul 24th 2009 8:11PM
posted Jul 24th 2009 8:11PM
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It's not worth it.
this shows how FAT americans are getting that now they want to shove 400 disks in a BD player so they dont have to get up from the couch and switch disks...
It's only being released in the US?
They should have been smart about this and made it a streaming jukebox with RS-232 control so that your HTPC could control the jukebox and have it send the video to any room in the house. That's the only real use for a carousel of this magnitude.
Yes, might not be worth it, but price point still better than the Olive Opus music server for $1,799 and that URC Universal Remote with haptic feedback that's going for "less than $1,500". Wouldn't be surprised if Blu-ray becomes obsolete before anyone can fill this thing up with all Blu-ray titles.
I agree it's not worth it. That thing is moving past 'home electronics' into the 'straight up ugly' category.
Can't afford that many Blu ray
Yeah, I don’t really understand how this product may be utilized. Perhaps it’s intended for a photo studio, science lab or commercial enterprise. I really can’t imagine any average end user being able to justify this thing.
Regards,
Yes, but does it play HD-DVD as well?
;)
sony... so, no
uh.
moving on....
Why would we want to play HD-DVD?
I wouldn't.
I don't know why you would.
Wish it could play PS3 titles, or can be hooked up to a PS3... Or produce a PS3 disc changer somehow... Even a 200 disc would do nicely for those with large game collections.. /dream.
$1900 for the player, but $12,000 for the Blu Ray discs to go in it (400x$30)
Kind of like the price to fill up an iPod with iTunes bought songs.
Thank god for piracy.
Are there 400 BD titles in existence worth watching?
Or... $400 media PC with a couple 1.5TB HDDs and Boxee!
-Taylor
Dude, if I give you some money, will you buy me some of those 1.5TB drives that hold 6 or 7 TB?
Also, please tell me where to find a $400 PC that can output 1080/24p and bitstream over HDMI, as well as controll enough HDD's to hold 400 Blu-Rays worth of data.
I'd prefer a media server too, but the people pitching it as the cheap alternative don't know what they're talking about.
Look up XBMC for Linux and VDPAU. You're welcome.
Yeah, cause it was the $99 for windows that made this implausible.
Try again, with facts please.
Are there even 400 Blu-ray movies out yet?
Ha!
Even if there were, how many of em would you actually wanna watch?
the adult film industry got a contract to sell some titles in blu ray.
so yes. there are over 400 titles out. It's just that half are titles like "obama nails palin"
the players are quickly approaching a price that can and might dominate dvd, but the media is still too expensive, blank or otherwise they have to focus on bringing the price of the media down.
I just bought the changer. Woot.
sonys ui looks a lot like wmc
oh and sony sucks.
No SA-CD support?
Those 12 people are gonna be disappointed.
You can find me and the other 11 at ps3sacd.com.
Meh. I'll be in my living room listening to SACDs with my Yamaha B-2 and my Bozaks...
Would it really be XMB 'styled'? Shouldn't it just be the XMB since Sony stated a while ago that they were going to standardize the interfaces across their products? Nit picking I know but just wondering.
400 Blu-Rays x 35gb (Avg iso including all features)
/931 (1tb hd)
=15 1tb HD's
15*80 = 1200
+200(raid cards)
+250(mobo, proc, ram, etc)
+300(server case)
+netflix subscription
much better deal IMO
Is there a reliable blu-ray ripping program? I love the idea of saving my blu-rays to disc and stripping out the frigging commercials.
I see what you did there
400 Blu-Rays x 35gb
+ ripping time
+ waiting around while it happens
+ configuring the HTPC server
+ ... ah fuck it ...
I have $2000 to spend I'll just put the discs in a big electronic case.
Your CPU/MOBO/RAm might be $250.... But your PSU will be $500.
15 Drives. Sheesh
it would be a better device if it's a ps3... I can keep both my BD and ps3 game collection in the machine itself.
QUOTE:---------------------------------------------------
400 Blu-Rays x 35gb (Avg iso including all features)
/931 (1tb hd)
=15 1tb HD's
15*80 = 1200
+200(raid cards)
+250(mobo, proc, ram, etc)
+300(server case)
+netflix subscription
much better deal IMO
END QUOTE: ----------------------------------------
So you're advocating renting blu-ray movies from NetFlix and ripping them to your HTPC?
This is all about convenience and HTPC-Blu-Ray is not convenient, it take a lot of work and not everyone wants the hassle.
I have an HTPC myself and rip all my DVD's to a 20TB Raid, but I don't rip my Blu-Ray's.
I ordered one of these changers because it's CONVENIENT.
20TB RAID? Joe Average speaking there... and your RIPPING how many DVDs? Sounds like SBG's got more $ than __________ (you fill in your noun/adj)
Everyone has their hobbies and Home Theater is mine. I never said the my 20TB Raid was full, but it's there for when I add new DVD's to my collection.
Sounds like SBG's got more $ than _AniMill__
I'd like to get this 400 Disc Mega changer, but the price is to high for me. You don't have to fill it all with Blu-Ray's, but DVD's and CD's also. Of course when your spending 2K, DVD's and CD's seem like a waste of space. Why oh Why does the cost jump up so much?!?! It's just basically a large Plastic tray to hold 400 disc's sitting on top of a Disc player and some software.
I always thought, wouldn't it be nice if these things, you fill it up, and it goes though each disc and gets the info form the Internet and makes a nice Database of all the movies and Info and Pictures, kind of like DVD Profiler, and you look though, find what you like and it just loads it right up. If you needed more space, being able to Daisy chain up 2, 3, maybe 4 of these things together, imagine 1600 disc's, Blu-Ray, DVD's CD's, all together and easy access at anytime with a nice Database to see on the screen.
Yet the ones I've seen are so primitive. Bad Menu's, Manually having to enter names, etc. What a let down. This newest one looks much better, but I'm guessing some of the same Limitations?!?! Riping the Disc's onto some type of Media server is a Idea, but the COSTS, are pretty high I think. You need a halfway decent PC, but also a whole lot of HDD. A bunch of HDD running is also not very energy efficient. Oh, not to mention all the time your spending Riping DVD's and especially Blu-Ray's. Hours, and Hours, and Hours. Your going to need a Really, really fast PC to cut that time down a little bit. I know it's more flexible, more features, but a HDD takes a dump on you and your screwed also. For now, it's the Manual way. Run DVD Profiler on the PC or PDA, and look though and see what I feel like watching, then find the Disc, and Place it into the player, and when done, put it back.
Don't buy the ES then, get the standard one that is substantially less.
The Non-ES changer looks pretty damn good for $800 (this article says $700 which would be even better).
It's not like you have to fill the thing with Blu-Rays, it also accepts and upscales DVDs. I could easily fill over half of this thing with my current DVD/Blu-Ray collection and would give me an excuse to box up all the cases.
If this thing really sells for $700, then I will definitely get one. I would have liked to see some PS3 integration as mentioned by another poster, but I can imagine this being very handy. Not sure why everyone is calling it too expensive, it seems pretty damn reasonable to me. In fact it's about the same price as their 200 DVD changer they were selling a while back.
Thanks, I think I'll wait until Blu-ray folds in 3-4 years, and buy this thing used on eBay for $36 (including shipping).
Better yet, forget Blu-ray. Wait, I've already done that...
$2000 isn't bad at all for 400 discs, it'd be perfect for somewhere like a pub/bar instead of a jukebox even if they only used CD's in it. Bear in mind there are single disc players that will run you $2.5k+ and if you're running somewhere where you want live music this is a hell of a lot easier than getting someone to manually change it.
For a home setup, i don't know why people are moaning that people who use this are fat and lazy, a good lot of people are turning to hard drive options which is even lazier (you have effectively unlimited capacity) and you're sacrificing quality in most cases. With this at least if you have a home cinema you can simply pop all your discs in and forget about it. Note: people saying they can't afford 400 BDs, it also plays back normal DVDs as you'd expect.
Oh and price wise comparison to a PC, it's quite a bit cheaper. Assuming this costs £2000 in the UK... TB's are down to around £70 and you'll need 15 according to another post. So call that £1000 just for the drives. Now on top of that you're going to need a very good power supply - at least a kw and you don't want to skimp on quality, you'll need a good RAID controller, i'd probably get fully buffered RAM just to be sure and not to mention the size of the case and the ventilation. That cost is inching towards the £2k mark and i think for convenience i'd stick with the changer. Oh and lets not even begin to mention backup, with 15 drives?!
"$2000 isn't bad at all for 400 discs, it'd be perfect for somewhere like a pub/bar instead of a jukebox even if they only used CD's in it."
Except they could buy a CD-only changer for a tenth of the price?
I think these are all reasonable. Keep in mind that ES stuff comes with 5 years of warranty. I'm still having a hard time with why the 1000es gets the ES badge, it's like a bdps560 with analog outs...
Another boring product that no one asked for. Way to go Sony!