Sony DVD Changer Only $300
A friend at Microsoft pointed out that the Sony DVD Changer is now in the top 10 list for computer hardware on Amazon. Most likely because it’s dipped down to $300. A price now competitive with traditional CE DVD changers. The funny thing is that we originally paid $3000/each for PowerFile R200DL units to develop the software side of this changer :).
I see it at $400 :(
My mistake… didn’t see the rebate for $100.
True..on the other hand, 1.2TB of storage (200disks@~6GB/disk) will run under $400 (4 400GB drives @ $115/drive at Fry).
And, unlike the current broken implementation of MCE2005/Vista/Xbox360 MCE, I can actually stream my ripped DVDs, to my Xbox360.
Sure, its not perfect, there are legal questions, etc. But then again, Microsoft and the MPAA don’t seem to want to provide legal “approved” options, so we have to resort to this.
Or..perhaps Kalaidescope and the other high-end AV installers are wary of an MCE2005+DVD changer system being able to completely replace their proprietary $20k solutions?
Its certainly not a technical issue, nor would it take significant resources to add to Xbox360 MCE…
It’s not a technical issue but there are legal issues. And trust me, Microsoft would love to be able to build this feature. And while it’s not significant resources it is some amount of resources and those resources are required for higher priority feature work.
Dan, can you share how you are playing ripped DVDs to your Xbox 360? Are you just ripping the movies to WMV files or are you actually able to play the whole DVD?
Lots of ways to do this actually.
Easiest is just convert DVD to a single VOB file (many programs available to do this), then run VOB2MPG on it. It can then be viewed through My Videos. Stability has been an issue though..
My movies plug works well too (www.mymovies.name).
Another method is to use Transcode360, or convert to WMV. Both have quality loss unfortunately (converting from one compressed format to another always does).
Note that any of the above methods mean you loose extra features, additional soundtracks, director comments. etc. The good news is you also loose the mandatory studio screens, advertising, and other BS that studios make you watch. Its wonderful to play the movie and have it start INSTANTLY.
Matt..
Can you perhaps go into how “Managed Copy” will work? seems like this might be an alternate solution.
In any case, DVD changers will quickly go the way of large 200 disk CD changers (remember those?)…With 750GB drives available now (100 DVDs per drive), the day of the little spinning shiny disk is almost dead and gone…
I must say I too use transcode 360 as to save the single vob file problem i was having and also use my movies. I also have a dvd changed and I am dissapointed the ice vault has come up with a solution to stream their changer to extenders and microsoft has not. I know you don’t work at microsoft any more matt but this is very frustrating. I for one like the changer over a hard drive because I have had hard drive failures then you have to re-load all of your movies back onto the drive unless you can afford and expensive raid solution. but I hate not being able to stream them.
After looking into one of these for ages, I finally bought one. All I can say so far (as one day of use) is that the changer is loud (and I mean LOUD!). The CD ripping ability always seems to crash on me, but that’s probably because of what I’m running as opposed to the Sony software. Other than that, it seems a decent product. I’ll only be using it for DVDs, so it shouldn’t be a problem.
Also, does anyone know the difference between the XL1B and the XL1B2? I was sent the XL1B when I thought I ordered the XL1B2…
Hi,
I just bought a XL1B. I am though a little disappointed with “My DVDs” functionality! I live in Brazil, so my dvds are region 4. Unfortunately “My DVDs” is not capable of finding the cover images and rich information for most of them. Is there a way to manually force MCE to display the rich information in “My DVDs” for the discs it could not find in the AMG database? My idea is to manually assign a DVDID/CRC64 number of a known region 1 release of the unknown DVD. The DVDID/CRC64 I can get from DVD Profiler, for instance. So, “My DVDs” would look for the information of the new DVDID/CRC64 number, and not the original DVDID/CRC64 number of the unknown disc.
Or is there another way to have “My DVDs” show rich information of unknown discs in the XL1B?
Any suggestion will be heartly appreciated.
Thanks,
Manuel
Hi Matt,
I have Vista Ultimate and want to use my changer with it, but its not being recognized (and shows up as a ! in the hardware profiles). also, i had to kill the installation routine with the software that came with the changer (made for XP, of course), so although it installed the Program group, it actually never completed successfully… any advice would be helpful!
Hi, matt, I just bought a Sony DVD changer (VGP-Xl1B3and I have a HP PC pavillion with windows vista home premium. I tried to install the CD that came with the changer for Vista OS and the cd does not recognize the OS….I called Sony support and their answer was “it is a Media Center issue, not Sony” is it true?. I see all my DVD’s is DVD Library; what I can’t do is to see “My changer” menu…is there a way to activate it?. Thanks
“In any case, DVD changers will quickly go the way of large 200 disk CD changers (remember those?)…With 750GB drives available now (100 DVDs per drive), the day of the little spinning shiny disk is almost dead and gone… ”
I’m not quite sure I believe this statement. First lets just assume you keep your standard DVD format and it is only 6 gig per disk. I have better things to do with my time than sit around ripping DVD’s or devoting all my PC time to this task.
Now consider BlueRay and HD DVD and being conservative at 25 gig per disk, Blue Ray or HD DVD changers are definitely preferable
This product is capable of ripping 200 CDs, while I sleep. It works with Vista or MCE 2005 to gather album art and liner notes for both CDs and DVDs. It can house, and catalog 200 DVDs and (with Vista) act as a dvd jukebox with a really cool interface.
I don’t mind if it is loud, or if it takes time to locate one DVD in a 200 disc carousel. In fact I think that would be kinda cool… like a through-back to a 1950’s style jukebox.
Is there a downside to buying one of these? I know that disk space is cheap, but I don’t want to waste time ripping DVDs. To me… this product sounds too good to be true. If there is a downside, please let me know.
Marshall