Sony multidisk Blu-ray player hits the shops

my 1.5tb media player will hold more junk than that rip off device at a fraction of the cost!

Err... 50GB per disc * 400 discs gives 2TB. Add to that that your 1.5TB media player probably has about 1.25TB of usable space and you get to just over half the capacity of the box.

Add to that the time taken to rip the 200 or so discs (let's be generous and say 1hr per disc) you get 5 man weeks work. I don't know about you but I value my time at a lot more than $380.

Add to that the cost of equipment you need to rip the blurays and you get down to a saving of what? $800? Over the 5 weeks you need to spend filling it = $160 per week.

Add to that the audio / video quality of a media box compared to a high end blu-ray player - and to the kit that it's likely to be attached to (think Cyrus / Tag Mclaren / Quad / B&W etc) - and I think the comparison is not looking good.

Media players are fine for bad quality MP3/4's for a little conveniance but for the people serious about AV and movies (the kind who will spent this type of money) they are worthless...

After all these years, who actually buys this crap? Ok, I get the 400 disk CD Changer, simply because you might want a truly random sampling of your selection. But seriously, 400 movies at your disposal? Who needs that sort of random, automated access? Get up, friggen hit eject, and put in the new DVD.

Direct connect to display makes its cheap baroom item, cause less to steal. cleaner for advertising floor mentality, of course, 1.600h. of single play IS Large, thats how compact data has become.

Can Heb play DATA in computer, might be HOT Data Player, maybe NOT as above, skim needs puter, its its own lifeforce.

vondrashek

Err... 50GB per disc * 400 discs gives 2TB.

Really? In my part of the world it's 20TB.

do you guys know how much of a 50gb disc is used by a bluray movie?

its a single figure fraction - i'll tell you that!

p.s. how much room does a 400-disc multichanger take up not to mention the power consumption

but then, sony market these things at people who dont consider things for themselves - their target consumers rely on advertising for their 'factual' input and then slowly reach for their wallet...

i personally don't own any BR movies so the device is of little interest to me, but i still think it is a nice idea. less hanlding of the disc will also prolong its life. basically a convenient movie library.

however the issue that nothing but crap movies are made today still remains. nice device, but nothing to watch with it.

400 bluray disks, =20tb however 2tb from a media player will most likely contain mkv movies @ 5-8gb (downloaded from torrents)

Yes its not the same quality!!!, but even on a good TV its hard to tell the difference.

Cost of SONY
$2000+(400*$24) = $11600
@ $24 average Blueray cost, which is optimistic.

Cost of Media Player (mkv)
(200-350) +
4 drive NAS with 1.5TB drives ($700)=$1000 for 6TB

Each additionaly Network player (xbox360,ps3,popcorhour...) (anywhere in the house) will be able to access the NAS, unlike SONY...and you wont be limited to just 400 movies

for a 1/10 of the cost

Most people, do go with Networked Media players w/NAS, even rich people, where money doesn't matter, just because you can access your data anywhere in the house, be it movies, photos, music...

...is funny

Oops - blond moment :) This is why you shouldn't try to write comments in the middle of work..

Mind you, I'm glad I was out on the good side! 20 TB doesn't fit into 1.5 the last time I tried.

As for the people with the small downloads. Yes you can tell the difference - even on a cheap 720P Samsung that I have I can see the difference between a good quality DVD upscaled on the BluRay and download. Once you step from DVD to BluRay the difference is even greater.

And as to downloading for free... I don't go in for thay - ergo I'd be buying the movies either way.

epic fail...

I was referring to the quality difference between a 5-8gb MKV and a BlueRay Disk

not between a 700mb DVDrip and BlueRay which ...is a big difference on any LCD.

I have 2 HD-Tv's

one 43" 4x3, 800x480 internal resolution Toshiba Rear Projection
second 40" 16x9, 1920x1280 internal resolution Toshiba LCD

On the 40 LCD a 8gb MKV looks better then my Sony PS3 playing the same BlueRay Disk movie, difference being that the BlueRay on the PS3 looks more grainy especially in dark areas, where as the same movie as MKV the color is smooth throughout, even in dark areas, probably due to the codec that was encoded with and the compression algorithm.

I personally like the color being smooth with no grainy effects as opposed to the image being sharper, which the PS3 has, and a grainier effect

However on the 2001 Toshiba 43" Rear Projection with small internal resolution of 800x480
a 700mb DVDrip looks just as good as a 8gb MKV or a BLueRay Disk

Meaning I am limited to the capability of the TV, which for me its still good enough.

Anyone who forks out for one of these is really clueless, as is anyone who belives that computers are for low quality video.

Computers far exceed the output of BD (4x at quadHD and higher, yes there are QHD displays available at a premium of course) as well as the features available.

I'm not sure how one is going to access media on that jukebox, but how do you know what's on disc 356, vs 373? Paper list? perhaps it has an onboard management system, i'm not sure, but let's hope it does!

Are there 400BD's available today? Do you own 400? Computers allow you to scale your storage up. Lets say you own 100 BD's today, buy 5TB of stoarge. Add storage as you get more BD's. Prices on HD's drop anyways. Far better than shelling out 1900 and watching it depreciate as you get your way out to 66% capacity.

Instant access and media change on PCs. More services, flexibility, and the ability to export media to any format (ipod touch, dvd, etc etc) and share that media with multiple appliances in your home make the PC a slam dunk - unless you have very limited techinical know how, and very deep pockets. Obviously there is a fair percentage of the populous that lives in this world or Sony would not have made this box.. Unless they too, are "Without a Clue"

Err, the @me I was refering to was myself for making the stupid mistake :)

Have you seen BluRay on a real player (the PS3 isn't 'bad', but from what I have read it isn't up to the quality of a good quality player (the reason I went for a player and didn't add a PS3 to my console collection).

On the 480 screen I would expect a DVD (@500 lines) to look just as good as any other format as they all have to downscale to fit the screen.

As for the others - having not seen the MKV I have to take your word for it. The issue I have is that every downloader I know says the exact same thing about downloaded and shrunk DVD images - where I see the world of difference between a DVD and a torrent download.

Of course it's also all down to personal preference... But just because I like the discs doesn't mean I don't have a clue. As far as I care PC's are not the convergence of everything - they are ugly annoying things that take space and power. I'll stick to the dedicated machines that do one job very well, then one computer that does everything a little bit badly - but hey that's just my preference

"But seriously, 400 movies at your disposal? Who needs that sort of random, automated access?"

I DO ! the automated access isn't actually the need. It's nice but not a necessity. What is great about these units is a) security - I have had several disks just vanish from my house. That stopped when I got Sony's standard DVD changer. b) space. Making the room and buying the storage to make 400 DVD cases accessible is a PITA. Having them all in one compact space is very conventient and I wouldn't want to have it any other way. I have witheld getting any Blu-Ray disks until a product of this nature is available and I am very glad to see that it finally will be.

@Giz.
It is mentioned in the article that this device can be connected to the Internet to access Gracenote to obtain, video and music details. It is likely a sure thing that these devices have a nice GUI which perhaps resembles the XMB of the PS3 and PSP and would have a pretty easy to use interface for accessing media.

In addition for those people who don't know, blu-ray players already have Internet features in the form of BD-Live and Java apps on blu-ray titles. By the sounds of it, there isn't much that this device can't do in terms of playback. It really just seems to lack recording functons.

While it is also true that not all blu-ray titles are 50GB, as some are only on single layer discs, the main movie file still takes up about 20GB minimum for most movies which is still an awful lot of space when you are talking about lots of movies. 2TB drives may be available now, but are still very expensive for what they are. Their price per gigabyte is lots more than a 1Tb or 1.5TB drive.

Those people saying that high quality mkv files aren't much different to blu-rays are obviously people who don't have good sound systems to match their full HD screen. DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD are far superior to standard Dolby Digital or DTS audio on the right sound equipment. Also, it is typically only older movies that haven't been properly digitally restored that have lots of grain on them.

I myself have over 400 DVDs, and about 60 Blu-rays at the moment so something like this probably would be good. Especially as I have a constant issue in finding good shelving to house them all neatly. But the price is too much for me now, and I already have a media PC which plays everything and can also record so for now it isn't quite good enough. It's also a shame that it's Sony, I would much prefer it if it were a Pioneer or something...

What I would like to know is how big this device is?

This is Sony kit, connected to the Internet. From the makers of all kinds of dumb DRM ideas, we now have a Blu-Ray jukebox of enormous capacity.
Blu-Ray is already the epicenter of the greatest DRM scam ever to have been foisted on the public.
I find the idea fun, but since it is Sony I will not take the chance that all I watch be reported back to the mothership for approval.
Nor am I interested in putting in a commercially-purchased DVD and find myself with a $1900 brick because somebody at Sony does not like the title.

Its just like this. Someday that Sony changer will stop working and all your discs will be gone, looked inside :P. Freaks you better keep them on a shelf and make it look like a good fool's library of 400 BR Discs and geeks can keep downloading HD movies whenever they require (Even legally its not that expensive ;) and hopefully it will keep becoming cheaper)
Probably for $2000 you can get something like a lifetime BD rental plan :D

for the past 7 years i have had a 300 disc dvd player an dit has been great. i can play cds, my dvds are orgainized i don't have to touch them unless i lend them out to friends. i like not having to touch them. think of when you rent from the video store then having to go back because the disc is so scratched up it wont play. i been waiting for sony to make a high capacity player for blu-ray but the price is way too high. but it's a great thing to have. and i would be using it for my 200 + dvd colection in it and start on blu but not till then.