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 :).
The Sony VGP-XL1B2 Media Changer is only $399 at Amazon (after $100 rebate). Its sales rank is currently #17 in computers. Wow!
To get your DVD changer to work with Windows Vista Beta 2 you need to be running Media Center ‘elevated. To do this:
If you don’t want to do this every time you run MCE you can disable ‘UAC’ by launching the control panel and type ‘UAC’ into search and it will bring up the setting to turn it off.
Yes, we’re fixing this for RTM :).
PC Magazine has a review of the Sony XL2 system + changer and gives it 4 out of 5 stars, plus an Editors Choice award.
The Sony VAIO XL2 Digital Living System ($2,699.99 direct) is an update to the slickly designed and unique VAIO XL1 system I looked at last year. It continues the company’s path toward Media Center nirvana. Like the XL1, the new XL2 is a MCE PC that easily replaces your TiVo, CD changer, DVD player, and more. It’s perfect addition to your home theater, particularly if you own an HDTV with an HDMI port.
I haven’t played with this system but was glad to read that:
This media changer is noticeably quieter than the first edition. It still makes noises when accessing discs but is much less disturbing in a living-room environment.
CEPro, First Install! Sony Vaio XL1B2 DVD Changer with 3rd-Party MCE:
But the best feature was the compatible 200-disc DVD changer with seamless MCE integration.
Julie talks to Kevin Buchanan about his experience with a standalone Sony XL1B2 changer and I’m glad to hear that they think the DVD changer is the best feature of MCE 2005 UR2!
…I agree the My DVDs and My Changer menu items are a little confusing. The My DVDs is a Media Center category, and My Changer is Sony’s category. To simplify things we were going to implement a navigateToPage function so that the My Changer category could link to My DVDs, but we ran out of time.
I’m a little baffled about the hard drive expandability issue. You should be able to swap out the two 160GB drive and put in up to three 500 GB drives which would give you more than enough internal storage (because the unit has 3 internal 3.5″ drive bays). And likewise, I’m confused about the Extender support issue, since the Extender should work with the XL2 just like it does with any other MCE on the market (maybe they’re hit a firewall or anti-virus issue?).
And streaming DVDs… We’d love to do it but the number of our customers who own DVD changers is a very small and a decreasing percentage of our install base. Plus, it’s only a matter of time before HD DVD and managed copy surpasses traditional DVDs.
Mammoth Software has release, PowerExplorer, that lets you view attached PowerFile DVD changers and perform some basic changer operations on them. I wonder if it works with derivative changers like the Sony XL1B2 and the Niveus Ice Vault?
For those of you who have the Sony DVP-CX777ES changer, which is not supported by Media Center, Brian has added supported to his My Movies plugin.
A few weeks ago Sony released an update for their changer’s firmware as well as for Microsoft’s 1394 driver. This update should improve standby and hiberation performance as well as any other connectivity issues you might have been experiencing.
Sony has just released their standalone 1394 (iLink) DVD changer for $799, Sony® VAIO® VGP-XL1B2 Media changerVGP-XL1B2 that works with Windows Media Center Edition 2005 (Update Rollup2).
It’s also available on Amazon for $699 (with a mail in rebate) (thanks ChrisL).
Tim’s got a post up with steps from the Green Button on adding metadata to your local DVDs in My DVDs by going from DVD Profiler to DVDID, Get the MetaData Including Cover Art for My DVD in Media Center.
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