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Sony Blu-ray Media Center 122

Posted by CmdrTaco from the insane-hardware dept.
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."
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Sony Blu-ray Media Center More

Sony Blu-ray Media Center

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  • I wonder if... (Score:3, Funny)

    by skrew ( 111096 ) on Wednesday October 18, 2006 @09:12AM (#16483627)
    the inclusion of blu-ray in this PC (despite its limited production quantity) affects or has effected PS3 production, and if so, what are sony's priorities?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Vaakku ( 698260 )
      Bigger profits from mediacenter ? =)
    • it's OK, they're only going to sell a total of twelve of these media centers worldwide. That shouldn't affect PS3 production too significantly; but now the European PS3 launch is pushed back to 2008...

  • Okay, I still say the Wii is going to be THE runaway gaming machine, but as far as a Blu-Ray player goes, Sony wins if this is included in the PS3.

    Reason? Porn.

    No, I'm not joking. A lot of guys in the porn industry are switching to online distribution, which, while I'm sure a lot of guys won't mind jerking off at the desktop, will likely want to take it to the TV. A Blu-Ray re-writer/burner makes that possible.

    Even if the PS3 doesn't include this particular kit, as long as it's easier to write to Blu-Ra

    • No doubt, a lesson learned from Betamax
    • So tell me again why exactly a Blu-Ray burner will let me get pr0n to my TV in a way that...oh, I don't know, a DVD burner won't? Or MythTV box. Or a modded XBox. Or Windows MCE / Xbox360 combination. Or any video card with TV Out.
      Blank Hi-Def media is going to be insanely expensive for the forseeable future - hell, even DL-DVD is way over-priced, and the extra resolution on your pr0n isn't going to warrant you wasting 50x the download in order to get it (compare 25 gigs to a 700 meg divx).

      If anything the p
      • If its MCE/Xbox360 you better hope to god its in WMA format. . . Last time I tried that combo none of my divx/xvid/ogm/mkv files played. Hell, even the DRM'd demo of an h264 wma that came with my laptop wouldn't even play. On top of that I spent about 3 hours looking for a way to add more playable codecs to MCE or Xbox360 brought me to the conclusion that it is not possible.

        DRM and Proprietary formats for the win!
        • Heh - yeah...I kinda mentioned MCE/X360 as the lowest of the low (well....apart from the Sony combo, of course ;-) ). You might find a certain amount of assistance on xbox-scene.com> [xbox-scene.com] if you still want to do some more flexible media streaming to the 360. FWICR there's some on-the-fly format conversion trickery you can do with the streaming. Don't use it myself as I (a) don't have MCE, and (b) have a perfectly adequate XBMC set-up for getting my pr0n on the big-screen ;-) .

          I would go in search of a more d

          • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

            by AcidLacedPenguiN ( 835552 )
            This is your boss, please come to my office to receive your bonus for helping me with my pr0n/X360/MCE troubles.

            This sillyness is brought to you by: Company policy and that creepy stocky fellow in HR, he's coming for your children!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ncc74656 ( 45571 ) *
        Blank Hi-Def media is going to be insanely expensive for the forseeable future

        It's not just the media, either. In among all of the CD and DVD burners, Fry's has a Blu-Ray burner on the shelf. At $750 each, I suspect most of them will stay on the shelf. I can make HD movies fit on DVDs (single-layer in many cases, dual-layer for the rest) with either MPEG-4 or H.264 that'll be nearly indistinguishable from the original sources.

    • But only if they get the fuckin' console out by Christmas, dammit. We're impatient.

      This is another one of those mind-warping contexts -- after the porn post, I read this as "We're impotent".
    • I'm sure people are going to put their tiny 1 gig porn files on an expensive blu ray to transfer them. Actually, there is this other technology called Ethernet... and if you don't want a computer on your TV, there are still many options. For the price of 2-4 blu ray discs you could have a wireless media extender, or for the price of a few more discs, and Xbox 360, or for still a few more discs, a PS3. All better options than "Burn Pr0n", Carry to other really expensive player, watch".

      Especially when all t

  • Blu-ray (Sony propietary, DRMd), HDMI (DRMd), Windows (DRM)?<br>
    <br>
    No thanks. I'll stick with my Mythbox, thank you very much

    • Re:No thanks (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Rob T Firefly ( 844560 ) on Wednesday October 18, 2006 @09:24AM (#16483755) Homepage Journal
      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: (Score:1)

        by suntac ( 252438 )
        Build it yourself is still a good and cheap solution ;-)

        • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Even cheaper if like me you're upgrading the crap out of your main box anyway, and use the leftovers to build a Mythbox. I didn't need to buy anything specifically for the mythbox except a cheapo DVD drive and a TV capable video card.
    • Dont forget HDCP(HIGH DEFINITION CONTENT PROTECTION)(DRM'd) I refuse to buy these bad design implementations on principal. But its only a matter of time before someone come up with a filter for HDCP, so until then....

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by be-fan ( 61476 )
      Do you, by any chance, use DVDs? Because by your reasoning, they're just as proprietary as Blu-Ray.
      • Yes, DVDs are proprietary. However, unlike Blu-ray, it is a fully established standard, has no single corporation's intrests behind it, and is easily broken down into a more usable format, without being a constantly moving target

        Note: DMCA does not apply to Fair Use

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by be-fan ( 61476 )
          What does "fully established standard" mean? Both DVD and Blu-Ray have official specifications that you can license on a non-discriminatory basis. DVD's standard is older than Blu-Ray's, but Blu-Ray is new technology, so that's trivially true. Neither Blu-Ray nor DVD have a single corporation behind them, both are backed by a consortium (the DVD Forum, and the Blu-Ray Disc Association, respectively). Both organizations have open membership with lots of members (230 for the DVD forum, and 170 for the BDA). I

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by jZnat ( 793348 ) *
            Sony has historically failed when it came to new formats.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by be-fan ( 61476 )
              This sub-thread is about why the original poster insisted that Blu-Ray is more proprietary than DVD. Whether Sony has been historically successful with new formats is neither here nor there.

              Moreover, Sony's track record with consortium-backed formats is quite good. Sony and Philips were part of the original consortium that created the CD, and both were founding members of the DVD Forum.

              Regarding non-consortium-backed formats, the record is substantially worse. MiniDisc and Memory Stick never achieved ubiqtu

  • Die in a fire (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Yfrwlf ( 998822 )
    Blue ray can die in a fire. It's expensive because it's proprietary crap. Wake me up when a technology comes out that is allowed by the U.S. government to have some competition with it instead of creating an "intellectual property" monopoly. Maybe after it's patent expires? Maybe in five years it will actually be an affordable alternative?

    • Blue ray can die in a fire. It's expensive because it's proprietary crap.

      Whoa there, Silver! Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water. At least not yet.

      We all have a lot of reasons to be displeased with Sony, and the debacle that is the PS3 probably isn't helping anything. But that doesn't mean that Bluray is a bad technology. In fact, it's superior to HD-DVD in many ways; not the least of which is greater storage capacity over HD-DVD. It also has greater capabilities for interactivity and better su

      • The only difference at the moment is that HD-DVD has a slight edge in media cost. An edge which could disappear as production ramps up.

        Actually, you're forgetting that the players are much less expensive for HD-DVD (Toshiba HD-DVD: under $500, Samsung Blu-Ray: $720, Sony Blu-Ray: $999)... that doesn't take into account the PS3 yet, but at best it will be the same price as the Toshiba HD-DVD player, and will have limited availability for a while. Also, production costs for pressing the discs are much che

        • Toshiba HD-DVD: under $500, Samsung Blu-Ray: $720, Sony Blu-Ray: $999

          M$ Xbox HD-DVD - IIRC - $200. Enjoy.

          • M$ Xbox HD-DVD - IIRC - $200. Enjoy.

            That would be a good point, but you still need the $300 - $400 XBox 360 to be able to use it (as far as I know it won't work with a PC, but I could be wrong?), and is that drive available yet? I'd say it's at best the same cost/benefit as a PS3, except that the drive is a bulky add-on to the XBox, and it can't be used for game content.

            Maybe I shouldn't be disagreeing with someone who was supporting my original point, but I'm just trying to look at things realistic
          • It was revealed earlier this week that the Xbox 360 HD DVD external drive will work via USB on any PC. Since Toshiba really makes these drives, it is only a matter of time before drivers will show up.

            http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/17/xbox-hd-dvd-dri ve-to-connect-to-pcs-via-usb/ [engadget.com]

    • Re:Die in a fire (Score:5, Informative)

      by be-fan ( 61476 ) on Wednesday October 18, 2006 @11:22AM (#16485633)
      Blu-Ray isn't any more proprietary than DVD. Both are patented, and both require a license to implement.
  • I can't imagine many people would run out to buy one of these when they could buy a fully loaded PS3 and a separate media center PC for less than half the price, then have plenty leftover for games they could never play on the Vaio. I realize that a Vaio commands a premium, but it appears like they are charging almost $2000 extra just for the blu-ray ...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ivan256 ( 17499 )
      You can buy the Sony branded BluRay re-writer that is in this machine all by itself for $499. I'm guessing they're charging $2000 extra because they have some idea they can get people to pay that.
  • couldn't they make better design, this machine remind me of p2 computers

  • VGX-XL202 (Score:5, Funny)

    by czarangelus ( 805501 ) <iapetus@@@gmail...com> on Wednesday October 18, 2006 @09:18AM (#16483699)
    VGX-XL202... what a memorable name! What a clearly distinctive product. I mean, it's got 2 Xes!

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by stretchsje ( 999497 )
      Sony thought a second X sounded better than DRM. It was originally going to be the VGDRM-XL202, for "Very Good Digital Rights Management, model XL202."

  • The most important part of the article... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dster76 ( 877693 ) on Wednesday October 18, 2006 @09:18AM (#16483701)
    ...and the most depressing:

    I actually used the Sony to finally answer a question that I've been wondering about for a while. What happens what you try and watch an HDCP encrypted movie on a display without HDCP? I hooked up a bog standard 17in, 1,280 x 1,024 display and tried to play a movie. The supplied InterVideo WinDVD BD software started to play and then stopped - and that was that. So there you go - the disc won't even play.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by zero_offset ( 200586 )
      It's supposed to downgrade to a standard-definition resolution when some part of the chain fails the HDCP handshaking operation.
      • It's supposed to downgrade to a standard-definition resolution when some part of the chain fails the HDCP handshaking operation.
        Hmmmmm. So there's more to go wrong basically (as if there wasn't already with technology), so discs can stop working for no apparent reason, or people will have downgraded video without even realising it and will be getting ripped off?

      • Image Constraint Token... (Score:4, Informative)

        by norminator ( 784674 ) on Wednesday October 18, 2006 @10:41AM (#16484893)
        It's supposed to downgrade to a standard-definition resolution when some part of the chain fails the HDCP handshaking operation.

        Actually, it's supposed to be capable of supporting that, but supposedly none of the studios are implementing that on current discs... yet.

        I'd say this is just a case of the media PC being a pile of crap. "Watch our awesome Blue-Rayz movies on this awesome computer... " *hiccup* *crash* *smoke*
        • In this case, I'd probably blame InterVideo. I've never been too impressed with them or PowerDVD.

          As I understand it, the hardware is supposed to be capable of downgrading any HDCP signal.

          There is something called the ICF (Image Control Flag, or something like that) which applies to Blu-Ray discs (I'm not sure about HD-DVD) which the pigopolist-types have announced will not be used until 2010. Other HDCP-encoded sources should already be affected by the SDTV downgrade if a filthy-nasty-pirate ("analog") devi

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Ant P. ( 974313 )
      Good thing they warned us - now we have proof that pirating will get you a more reliable product.

  • Strange type of review (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ledow ( 319597 ) * on Wednesday October 18, 2006 @09:18AM (#16483703) Homepage
    It seemed to me that this reviewer wanted to give this product a "good" review in face of a lot of evidence against.

    - The extremely high price, yes, we can set that to one side for "new" technology.
    - Then you have the "No output at all without HDCP" problem (although early adopters should know this already)
    - Then you have the software problems related to Blu-Ray which stop you using the built-in software that plays EVERYTHING else (and only Vista will support Blu-Ray properly, it seems).
    - Then the right-handed-only keyboard/mouse combo (instantly denying comfortable use by a fair percentage of the population)
    - Then the spurious errors and crashes
    - The Keyboard's high power usage (4AA's)
    - No SCART/DVI-I ports *at all*
    - Single TV Tuner preventing simultaneous viewing/recording
    - Frame-rate issues (Possibly the most worrying problem)
    - Possible minor quality issues on the playback

    But yet the summary of the article is almost 100% positive about it.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by LotsOfPhil ( 982823 )
      It says it may be "the ultimate media center" but only has one tuner. This is a massive pitfall. A Tivo-like system that has only one tuner isn't Tivo-like at all. It is a VCR that records to a hard drive. The difference between 1 tuner and 2 is immense.

      I was very surprised to discover that there's only a single TV Tuner supplied. It's DVB-T and unlike the Acer Idea 500 Media Center I recently reviewed, it managed to find a good number of channels first time off but it means you can only watch the channe

    • - Then you have the "No output at all without HDCP" problem (although early adopters should know this already)

      That does raise some eyebrows - but to be fair you need to detail the rest. There are Component, FireWire (!) and S-Video out ports, and you could adapt the HDMI to DVI cheaply and easily. The supplied BD-ROM had HDMI copyprotection on it, but how many of these are really out there yet?

      The fact that the hardware can throw a snit about this is bothersome. Sony has 'promised' (whatever that means)

    • How does only one tuner prevent simultaneous viewing/recording? My first TiVo had only one tuner and yet I could simultaneously view and record on it.

      And 4AAs in the keyboard doesn't mean high power usage. My Apple Bluetooth keyboard uses 4AAs and yet the batteries lasted two years.

      You can adapt HDMI to DVI-I with a simple cable that you can get for $5 at monoprice.com. No SCART is an interesting point. Although I know SCART is popular in Europe, if you want to watch a HD-DVD or Blu-Ray disc you're gonna wa

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jZnat ( 793348 ) *
        Right, 4 AA's only means that the keyboard uses 6 V (DC) and doesn't imply anything about current (A).
    • Note to self: disregard "TrustedReviews". Prone to swallowing marketing BS whole, values style over substance, can't reason coherently about own opinions, apparently does no research on comparable products.

  • 8 out of 10? Sounds more like 2 out of 10 to me. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by KingSkippus ( 799657 ) * on Wednesday October 18, 2006 @09:19AM (#16483713) Homepage Journal

    You've got to be kidding me. Keep in mind while you read this that this device costs around $3,360 USD.

    If this thing gets an overall 8 out of 10, I can't help but wonder how a device can possibly get dinged for less. I mean, really, from TFA:

    What happens what you try and watch an HDCP encrypted movie on a display without HDCP? I hooked up a bog standard 17in, 1,280 x 1,024 display and tried to play a movie. The supplied InterVideo WinDVD BD software started to play and then stopped - and that was that. So there you go - the disc won't even play.

    So your fancy expensive toy won't let you watch your movies.

    Storage comes courtesy of a couple of 250GB 7,200rpm Seagate Barracuda hard disks

    All that money, and it stores less than one of my desktop's hard drives

    Being a Sony, there's plenty of preinstalled software on the system, highlights of which are Adobe Photoshop Elements and Premier Elements, along with Norton Internet Security. There's also a trial version of Microsoft Office.

    Ooh, around $150 worth of software, which they've undoubtedly OEMed for probably less than $20.

    I was very surprised to discover that there's only a single TV Tuner supplied.

    So you can only record one television station at a time. I hope you don't have two favorite shows that happen to come on back-to-back, or you're just SOL. Even my five-year-old TiVo has dual tuners, and it's not you can't get a dual-tuner component [amazon.com] for less than $70.

    To play a Blu-ray disc you need to use dedicated software that can handle the HDCP part of the AACS encryption standard and Media Center can't do this at present.

    This extra bit of complication brought to you courtesy of the letters D, R, and M.

    I contacted Microsoft about this and it confirmed to me that there will be a plug-in for Vista that at the very least will let you launch an external application, such as InterVideo when you try to play a Blu-ray disc from inside MCE... For now though, to play the movie from the sofa you'll have to pick up the keyboard—although at least it's wireless.

    Oh, so to play our movies, we'll have to actually upgrade to Vista when it comes out. Good, because it's not like you've already spent enough to buy the box itself, right? And I'm sorry, I'm not going to use a frickin' keyboard to play a frickin' movie from my frickin' DVD player on my frickin' tv.

    The software supplied is InterVideo WinDVD BD for VAIO, a rather convoluted title. On first attempt we got a region code error message. I then went into the software and selected Region B.

    Yet more hoops to jump through to play a movie, again brought to you by the letters D, R, and M.

    There was again a step up but the overall experience was marred by grain and noise. In terms of immediacy the quality was not as impressive as the lush samples you see demoed in stores with super detailed close ups of flowers. There was also a hint of the system struggling with the frame rate at times.

    Oh, now we see why it earned an 8 out of 10! Oh, wait, those are bad things, aren't they? Well, all of that is worth it if we get image quality that knocks our socks off, so let's get to the bottom line:

    It was as clear as day to me, but actually not everyone in the office could make this out or was impressed by it. In fact many were as under-whelmed as I was when I first saw Blu-ray at the launch of the Samsung player last month.

    I then hooked up a Dell 2407 24in screen that let me see the full 1080 lines of resolution. There w

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by CaymanIslandCarpedie ( 868408 )
      Agree with all you are saying, just thought I'd point out:

      Even my five-year-old TiVo has dual tuners, and it's not you can't get a dual-tuner component for less than $70.

      You linked to the 150 model which also only has one tuner. Here [amazon.com] is the 500 model which has dual tuner support.
      • Just thouth I'd point out:
        your link is not to a tivo, and is not to something available 5 years ago
        "Date first available at Amazon.com: October 28, 2004 "

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Amouth ( 879122 )
      While your right i just wanted to correct one thing

      "The software supplied is InterVideo WinDVD BD for VAIO, a rather convoluted title. On first attempt we got a region code error message. I then went into the software and selected Region B.
      Yet more hoops to jump through to play a movie, again brought to you by the letters D, R, and M."

      This isn't a DRM issue this is a method of "price discrimination" which all companies do.. it is annoying as crap - but alteast the player lets you change the region.. but i a

      • It is price discrimination, but it's also a form of DRM, at least as I define it: Anything that keeps you from doing what is reasonably technically possible due to legal or administrative reasons.

        There is no technical reason why I shouldn't be able to watch a movie I buy in Japan on a player I buy in the U.S. In fact, they had to add stuff to the discs and players to ensure that I can't. That's stupid, it's a form of "managing" my digital rights, and it's why I don't feel the least amount of guilt abou

    • Less? You have a single harddrive over 500GB? .... *checks internet* shit they are selling 750GB drives now.. when did this happen.. I'm so behind the curve... :(

      • Yup. And while they're still pretty expensive, (around $360 [amazon.com]), they're well worth it. The really sucky thing is that 2 250GB hard drives will set you back around $220 [amazon.com]. For $3,360, they weren't even willing to spend the extra $140 (probably less as a vendor) to bump you up to 750GB.

        How many ways are there to say it: Sony sucks, and this device is crap.

        • Its possible that the dual drives was needed for performance reasons as they could have put a single 500GB drive in their cheaper than dual 250GB drives. Either way yep completly silly, with the PS3 coming out soon and the blue-ray computer recorders on the horizon I don't see many buying this thing anytime soon. Hell first generation home DVD recorders were only $1500.
    • I think the irony is that the site is named "TrustedReviews." I'm glad that the review itself was, as far as I can tell, relatively honest, but these scores grossly overstate what the actual rating


      Never heard of the site before and will never use it now. Never heard of the product before and will never buy it now.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ilgaz ( 86384 )
      People having $3160 to pay for a media centre has already bought a high end LCD/Plasma and considering even SD plasmas/lcds come with HDMI, there is no reason to whine about HDMI compatibility.

      Studios doesn't want you to watch unencrypted content which would be in a secure safe as "master" just 5 years ago. That is the deal. Think the Blu-Ray, HD-DVD like "source" of a commercial computer program. They got amazing specs including sound.

      $3160 is considered "cheap" in high end stuff. I know people paying $200

  • Missing features (Score:3, Funny)

    by crunch_ca ( 972937 ) on Wednesday October 18, 2006 @09:25AM (#16483771)
    Blu-Ray, USB2.0, CompactFlash, firewire. But where's the betamax slot?

  • Doesn't jive... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dmayle ( 200765 ) on Wednesday October 18, 2006 @09:27AM (#16483795) Homepage Journal

    I'm sorry, but HDMI and HDCP enabled and ultimate media center just don't go together in the same sentence.

    Any media center PC that's designed to keep me from recording the TV shows I'm receiving does not qualify as ultimate

  • 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.
    No, really? I'd think that all that stuff would be so cheap! BD-RW drive, HD enabled graphics cards, integrated wireless, gigabit ethernet, digital tuner, and two hard drives are soooo cheap.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Xugumad ( 39311 )
      Frankly, most of it is cheap. For price comparison, my Mac Mini has wireless and gigabit ethernet, for £400. I bought a digital tuner for a further £80. Lets call the drives £60 each, taking us up to £600, leaving £1,200 to cover the Blu-Ray drive, and DRMing your content.

  • I keep wondering who's buying this crap (Score:3)

    by blueZ3 ( 744446 ) on Wednesday October 18, 2006 @09:31AM (#16483847) Homepage

    From TFA:

    What happens what you try and watch an HDCP encrypted movie on a display without HDCP? I hooked up a bog standard 17in, 1,280 x 1,024 display and tried to play a movie. The supplied InterVideo WinDVD BD software started to play and then stopped - and that was that. So there you go - the disc won't even play

    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 hope that this "wired DRM" will seriously backfire on all the cretins supporting it: Sony, Microsoft, the studios, etc. I don't understand how they expect to get people to switch over to their new DRM scheme when the massive downside is that for most consumers, right now, anything they buy that uses this scheme is going to fail to play. It's either going to fail because they don't know which movie format to buy, or fail to play because their media is now tied to their player, or fail to play because the player will refuse to send data to a non-DRM'd display.

    Two or three failures of this sort will be all it takes for most people to give up on the technology. DVDs (and iTunes, and other similar schemes) succeeded because the DRM is mostly transparent. Yes, there's no way to skip through the FBI warning at the beginning of the movie, but most folks don't care because eventually the movie plays and the 10 second wait isn't that frustrating. But when the system won't play a BlueRay disk and they can't figure out why (and it's happened twice before) I think a lot of folks are going to shrug and say "Well, I guess I'll stick with DVDs"

    • But when the system won't play a BlueRay disk and they can't figure out why (and it's happened twice before) I think a lot of folks are going to shrug and say "Well, I guess I'll stick with DVDs"

      I concur. Somehow I get the feeling this is going to be a slightly bigger hurdle for Joe User than the last time when he tried playing a DVD in a standalone CD player.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by thatguywhoiam ( 524290 )

      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

  • does it run MythTV? If it does, then it may be a nice box.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DrXym ( 126579 )
      The PS3 might since it supports Linux - Yellow Dog Linux in fact. The big question is can you have Linux on your console without disrupting your ability to play games. If the answer is yes, the PS3 will kick ass.
  • I'm haven't read the article yet. I'm going to list questions I have, which, if the answers are all "yes," would make this interesting to me.

    1) Can I use this just like a standalone DVD recorder, i.e. can I record any program I'm watching on my TV, whether broadcast or cable, and then burn a DVD from it that will play in an ordinary DVD player?

    2) Will it play (just play, not record) HD-DVDs, just in case the movies I want to buy aren't released in Blu-Ray format (or just in case the local video store happen

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Fezmid ( 774255 )
      > producing an image that was not enough better
      > than a DVD to be obvious to everyone?

      That's because most Blu-ray movies aren't that much better than standard DVD. HD-DVD, on the other hand, has a consistently better picture (due to a better codec and more space - 30G vs 25G, although there's now one 50G BD disk available that has average PQ as well :) ).

      To answer your HD-DVD question, it doesn't play them. There's no dual players (yet?), and Sony wouldn't produce something that plays the rival form
  • But does it come with the new Sony rootkit? Boycot ALL Sony products!
  • I don't know about the US, but here in the UK I've noticed a number of articles in the popular press about the launch of Blu-ray and HD-DVD over the past few days, and I heard someone talking about it on a radio news program yesterday. I suppose the manufacturers are having a marketing blitz.

    Every single article said "don't buy it". Everyone is being told that it is Betamax-versus-VHS all over again. If that's the message from the popular media (who usually just regurgitate marketing hype without thinkin
  • Still needs a Cablecard 2.0 card slot. A media PC without Cablecard is kind of useless unless you never watch TV or have no plans to use it as a PVR.
  • If I can't rip the content and stick in on the hard drive in a library, then it isn't a media center... it's a fancy disc player.
  • While this box is definitely expensive for what it is, it wouldn't cost anywhere near what you Americans are making out. Electronics are generally more expensive in the UK. Case in point: the PS2 (and probably the PS3) launched at the same numerical price despite our currency's higher value.
  • Someone please tell me there are non-proprietary alternatives for larger storage on a "CD". Yeah, it's still a compact disc, no matter how much info it holds =P If HD and Blu-ray are both locked down, where's the user-friendly media that I can actually, you know, USE, that has a higher capacity than a DVD? Don't say hard drive, I'm talking about for backing stuff up or transporting stuff. Sure, thumbdrives can hold quite a bit, but not as much as a "CD" could hold. Maybe hard drives will just become ev
  • ...the PS3 was supposed make "media center" PCs obsolete? WTF Sony?
  • ... Or you can get the 20GB PS3 w/ HDMI for $500, and install Yellow Dog Linux 5.0 on it with Myth TV, and you basically have almost the same thing. A Blu-ray media center , Nvidia graphics, USB ports, HDMI 1.3 with HDCP, etc. on the cheap.

    http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/16/ 1342243 [slashdot.org]

    • 20GB is not ideal for a DVR but Sony will let you put a bigger HD in there and using USB for TV can work also Sony did say something about be able to running Mac osx on the ps3.

  • PS3? (Score:1)

    by Seto89 ( 986727 )
    Didn't Sony claim that PS3 is the ultimate media player and the ONLY media player you will ever need?

  • This looks like it could be the ultimate media center PC with a Blu-ray re-writer

    With a SONY product in it? Wait, lemme guess - it comes pre-rooted from the factory, right? No need to purchase any audio CD's from Sony? Yeah, this is the ultimate media center PC - if, by ultimate you mean "Ultimately pwned by the *AA"!

    Not that HD-DVD is much better at this point, except that I don't recall anybody having their machine rooted (administered? pwned?) by a HD-DVD manufacturer. The DRM being built into HD

  • Over US$3,000 for this thing? I could buy SIX Playstation 3's for that price!

    I wonder if that's why this thing exists in the first place: to make the PS3 look like an absolute bargain in comparison.
  • Spend $10,000 on a wall-mount 50 inch flat screen high end HDTV and a Sony Vaio VGX-XL202 and all the speakers and other things that go with it, and support DRM

    - or -

    Invest that money in getting a PhD so I can earn three times my salary and buy the exact same hardware for only $2000 in three years time.

    Hmmm.

    I think I'll go with option B.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jZnat ( 793348 ) *
      So, that $10k pays for, what, 1/3 a year? Tuition is expensive. :(
      • Nah, tuition's way cheaper when you're professional staff.

        But still, even though one could try to get along just with the Media Center, in reality you'd want all the goodies that add on to it. It's like when you buy a house, you think "Oh, it only costs $465,000" and later you realize it was $465,000 plus 6 percent commission plus 2 percent closing costs and taxes plus you now have to buy drapes, tables, lights, and all the other things.
  • OOOH, it comes with a Blu-Ray RW drive... except of course, you aren't actually allowed to burn ANYTHING to it EVER.

    Okay, maybe that's a bit far from reality, but with Sony's strong support of DRM, (and you KNOW they will support any broadcast flag and macrovision stuff that comes out), wouldn't that make the blu-ray burner kind of useless?

    I can see it now:
    * Cool! A great big DVR... Sure, but you can only fast-forward when it's not at a commercial

    * I can make a Blu-Ray copies of TV shows the same way I use

  • HDMI and HDCP enabled NVidia graphics

    I think you mean HDMI and HDCP DISabled Nvidia graphics. These technologies prevent usage, not enable it.

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