Sony's new MegaChanger and ES Blu-ray players in the flesh

While nothing here solves Blu-ray's number one problem, price, there's no denying Sony's got some fun tech on display in its new 400 disc Blu-ray MegaChanger and the new BDP-S1000ES single disc Blu-ray player with WiFi. The MegaChanger presents a lovable XMB-style, Gracenote-powered onscreen menu for sorting through all the media stashed in your MegaChanger, and the S1000ES packs in 802.11n for BD-Live, along with premium analog outs and some dashing good looks for the well-heeled enthusiasts. $1,900 and $700 of respective awesomeness? Well, that's up to you decide.

Sony's new MegaChanger and ES Blu-ray players in the flesh

[SebastianR Posted Jul 26th 2009 5:06AM]

Couldn't agree more. Who wants to have that big an ugly box wasting space in the living room anyways?

I have a 300 (or so, can't remember) CD player in my living room. Big waste of space and computers moved faster than the disc technology so its useless now.

If you buy this Sony monster now, how fast will it be obsolete? And who is interested in Glu-Rays anyways (glue = that's how they BDs stick to the shelf in the best buys)

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 25th 2009 5:03AM]

I would buy it if it was from Apple and charged with 3000$

[Lalu Posted Jul 25th 2009 9:27AM]

This is so 1999.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 26th 2009 5:05AM]

Yes, it is "so 1999" That is because sony already owns the designs and plans for many of their previous disc changers.

So all they are doing is recycling 12cm disc changers into the latest format.

[richb93 Posted Jul 25th 2009 9:36AM]

The XMB is pretty beautiful on that. Slap a TB hdd in there, and UPnP sharing and thats a pretty damned awesome media centre. Still the price isn't right :/

[unaninanomous Posted Jul 25th 2009 5:38PM]

austin @ Jul 24th 2009 8:19PM
sony... so, no

+1

I don't think I will ever buy another sony product again if I can go with a competitor. Besides considering the size of this beast you can go with a server and a 2TB drive for the same footprint and it does a hell of a lot more more a smaller price. A special thanks to SONY for being a douche all these years

[thejumbo Posted Jul 26th 2009 11:35PM]

What everyone is missing is the potential distribution applications of this device.

Put it in the rack in your home, centrally located, and attach it to a video matrix switcher. Then, with a system like Control4, you have flawless cover art browsing and no need to change discs. It is robust, reliable, and does not require that you crack any sort of copy protection to use your Blurays.

It will also upconvert your DVDs, playback all CDs, and automatically scan itself when a new disc is inserted, going out to the internet through Control4 to get the cover art.

Sweet piece. Anyone who has owned the DVP-777ES can attest to how good they work.

[horseradish Posted Jul 27th 2009 12:30PM]

I'm one of those DVP-777ES owners, and there are only two drawbacks: the menuing software is a bit dated (would be very nice if Sony came out with a firmware update that could be applied via CD-R or DVD-R) and the "robot" can only work on one side of the media. While most discs are single sided, I've got some stuff that is double-sided for one reason or another.

Didn't see anything about handling the double-sided media, but the menu update would be a VERY welcome change.

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 1st 2009 8:00PM]

Common stupid complaints regarding the mega changer
1. It’s sooo big! This is something those that make this complaint are very sensitive to as they have never heard this comment applied to them self. Actually its dimensions are 9.5”X22”x17” or 3,553 cubic inches. A DVD case is approximately 7.5”X5.5”X.5” or 20.625 cubic inches. In other words, 172 DVDs in a box would take up the same space. So the Mega Changer takes up much less space. Of course you could only display 34 DVDs and actually see the titles in the same space this item takes. So what is the problem, the extra foot and a half of depth? This product is not intended for people who live in a van down by the river.
2. It’s too expensive! At 50 GB per Blue Ray RW, 400 disks, that is 20,000 GB or 20 TB of storage. Assuming you want a safe internal hard drive to hold your movie collection, the Western Digital WD RE3 [RAID EDITION] 3.5in Enterprise SATA Hard Drive, 1TB, is currently on sale for $160. That’s $3,200. Let’s say you can find one with the safety you are comfortable with for $100 each. That’s still 2 grand. The mega changer not only stores but plays just about any disk out there. Even DVD-R (DL), remember those? Even if a non compressed Blue Ray is only currently 35GB, it still doesn’t make sense to put Blue Ray’s on hard drives. This can be done but is illegal. If you cannot afford to pay attention let alone are complaining about the cost of an $800 Blue Ray player that has these specifications, you are not in the market for this device. Shut the door on your van down by the river.
3. Are there even 400 Blue Ray disks available? Yes, there are thousands of Blue Ray disks available and more coming out every week. You are missing the point though; it plays Blue Ray disks and regular DVDs. It upscales via its HDMI jack regular DVDs to 1080p. If you have ever seen this bit of techno magic it is worth the $400 difference between a good DVD player and one that will upscale to HD quality.
4. Blue Rays will be replaced by movies being downloaded off the internet soon. Yeah, like books were completely replaced when we had the ability to download the written word 2 decades ago. Yet 20 plus years later, we still have giant book stores in every town. The only media successfully converted to digital to date was music. That was because of the uniqueness of music listening. Most of us are satisfied listening to a few tracks while we are going to and fro in our cars. Not so with books or movies. Most of us attempt to watch a movie uninterrupted. A DVD is smaller than a hard drive if you want to take it somewhere. The quality of a Blue Ray is superior to anything that can be legally downloaded at this time. Most of us own TVs that provide bigger screens and more convenience than our computers do. Some technophiles are even talking a Blue Ray light (Blur Ray) which is “almost as good as” Blue Ray. Yeah, I imagine there will be a lot of support for this format from the motion picture industry so illegal downloading is made easier. It is also easy to take high speed internet for granted when you live in a city. Unlike Japan, much of America geographically does not have access to high speed internet, but most have a DVD player. Blue-ray stats.com quotes Nielson Videoscan that for the week of July 12th, Blue Ray sales rose to 13% of all DVD sales, $16.6 million dollars in sales that week alone. Up 149% from this week in 2008. Not too bad for a dying format. Unfortunately adult movies are now rapidly being released in Blue Ray, I wonder if those might increase sales? I think it is more likely the 480i movies on your hard drive will end up being overwritten when your kids find them in a few years. Expect to hear: “HAHAHA, look at Pops old movies, look how big the pixels are, way to go Pack-Man.”
5. This machine is just so you don’t have to get up to change the disk. I guess you don’t own an MP3 player then, because everyone knows the only people who own those are lazy folks who don’t want to put a new CD in the slot. Maybe it has something to do with the ability to access, organize, oh why bother, if you actually think this way go back to playing Mario brothers. In your van, down by the river.
If you really like movies and have a good steady job, you love Blue Ray. It is the best home movie technology ever created. Have you seen Pinocchio in Blue Ray? Gold finger? This Mega Changer in addition to holding 400 of any kind of discs leaves nothing out. It even outs in 24p True Cinema, 7.1 audio, Gracenote Metadata, you name it, and it has it. If you really love movies, you should organize a parade in the Mega Changer’s honor. If unwilling to do so, please consider stop bashing the commitment this company has made to those of us who really like movies by providing us this no-holds barred product.