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."

Comments

I wonder if...

[skrew]

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?

Die in a fire

[Yfrwlf]

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?

Re:Die in a fire

[be-fan]

Blu-Ray isn't any more proprietary than DVD. Both are patented, and both require a license to implement.

VGX-XL202

[czarangelus]

VGX-XL202... what a memorable name! What a clearly distinctive product. I mean, it's got 2 Xes!

Re:VGX-XL202

[stretchsje]

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...

[Dster76]

...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:The most important part of the article...

[zero_offset]

It's supposed to downgrade to a standard-definition resolution when some part of the chain fails the HDCP handshaking operation.

Re:The most important part of the article...

[Ant P.]

Good thing they warned us - now we have proof that pirating will get you a more reliable product.

Strange type of review

[ledow]

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:Strange type of review

[LotsOfPhil]

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 channel being recorded - very frustrating. That said, anyone considering a machine like this with the high price premium of the Blu-ray drive probably has a Sky HD box at home.

8 out of 10? Sounds more like 2 out of 10 to me.

[KingSkippus]

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 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: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.

Missing features

[crunch_ca]

Blu-Ray, USB2.0, CompactFlash, firewire. But where's the betamax slot?

Re:Nothing But Good News For Sony

[pandrijeczko]

Hadn't you better get back to work??? Lunchtime is over in the Sony Marketing department now, isn't it?

Doesn't jive...

[dmayle]

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

Re:8 out of 10? Sounds more like 2 out of 10 to me

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

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 is the 500 model which has dual tuner support.

I keep wondering who's buying this crap

[blueZ3]

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"

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).

Re:8 out of 10? Sounds more like 2 out of 10 to me

[MindStalker]

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... :(

Re:Friends dont let friends buy Sony

[Reapman]

I presume your boycotting Toshiba, Panasonic, Microsoft, Apple, and pretty much every other main stream electronics / hardware company as well right? I'd hate to think your just bandwagon jumping, and since you've held out since 04, I imagine that's a safe bet.

Image Constraint Token...

[norminator]

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*

Re:And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why Sony win

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

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!