Sony Blu-ray Media Center

An anonymous reader writes "Sony announced its Blu-ray equipped VGX-XL202 media center box a while back and a full review has finally appeared. This looks like it could be the ultimate media center PC with a Blu-ray re-writer, HDMI and HDCP enabled NVidia graphics, integrated wireless, gigabit ethernet, digital TV tuner and twin hard disks. Unfortunately it doesn't come cheap."

Re:No thanks

[Rob T Firefly]

Not to mention, this (£1531.06=US$2,858.79) vs MythTV box (adaptable to your budget, a quite decent box can be built for a few hundred.) Turns out, my wallet hates the proprietary DRM'd stuff as much as I do.

Re:I keep wondering who's buying this crap

[thatguywhoiam]

So a paid-for movie on BlueRay, combined with a Sony "root-kit-o-matic" Vaio, and a non-HDCP display (which is most displays in homes... heck most displays on the market right now) is going to fail to play. Apparently without an error message. Just craps out.

I share your ambivalence over this thing, but be fair. The supplied disc was HDCP-protected. So it didn't play on an HDCP-monitor. We know how this works (and yeah we don't like it). But that is a far cry from 'can't watch my movies' or 'can't record my TV'. Wait and See is the right attitude here, as we have no idea if the market will accept HDCP-protected content or not. I actually happen to think it won't; people are sick of this crap, but more importantly the displays with HDMI/HDCP are simply not out there in anything resembling a critical mass. I think HDCP is stillborn (in content) due to simple market forces. HDMI will just become 'DVI with audio', just another plug. (IMHO)

And one other nitpick - let's put the rootkit blame where it belongs, shall we? Boycott Sony-BMG, that's where it came from. You can boycott Sony Electronics if you think their quality has gone downhill (and its a fair argument, I'm looking at you laptop batteries). I've personally written off all the hydra heads of Sony except SCEA, who - if I'm fair - has provided me with hundreds of hours of entertainment very cheaply, with one bad PS2 laser being the only fly in the ointment (and they fixed it very quickly).