I know this page still gets some hits, so
I apologize for the fact that most of the pictures are missing.
The hosting service that I use lost my pictures and
unfortunately, I did not have the pictures backed up properly.
I am hoping that I have them on one of my hard drives, but I
have not had time to hunt them down. I will update the
page if I am able to find the pics.
Media Center PC Nirvana!!
If you have never
read this review, proceed to the
article below. However, I have added a few new
features since the writing of the first review. One is the
Playlist section in the "My
Music" category below and an update on
Vbox recording in the "helpful
add-on" section. The other is the fact that I just added
512mb of memory to the machine. I picked up the memory on
MemoryTen
for around $50. This really helps
out. The Sony was capable with the 512mb that came
preinstalled, but there was some lag time when pulling up the
WMC program and switching between different interfaces (My
Music, My TV, etc..). Since I have a ton of songs on my
hard drive, I thought some extra memory would help and it did.
It is very easy to install the memory and I had no compatibility
problems between the new memory card and the old cards. I
will probably fill the last slot with another 512mb, since it
can only help the speed even more.
Note:
Since writing this review TigerDirect has
run out of stock at the price I mentioned. As of May 26th,
Amazon has a link to JRWorld with a price of $1699. I am
not sure the computer is the same bargain at that price. I
am leaving my link to
Amazon
because they often have price changes through different vendors,
so you may get lucky if someone else decides to clear their
inventory.
As many of you know, I have
been trying to integrate media files on my computer into my
living room system for years now. My
Linkplayer and
UHDL reviews should give you an idea about how dedicated I
have been to this project. In the past, I have not wanted a
computer in the process because of the many anticipated
downfalls that are too numerous to mention. Well, this was
until I heard about the
Sony VAIO VGX-XL1 Digital Living System.
One of the many reasons I
never integrated my computer into my home theater was related to
the loud fans on my Dell XPS Gen 2 computer. In an effort to
leave the computer on all the time, I actually switched out the
fan on my video card, but apparently it was not the only noisy
fan in my PC. After a lot of research, I found out that nearly
every fan had to be replaced. This was just too much work. I
researched computers for a while because the Linkplayer even
needs a PC running to live up to its potential, but nothing
really caught my eye. That was until I read about the very
quiet Sony VAIO. It has the looks that fit in perfectly with
my living room system, but more importantly, it has a DVD
changer that makes it more useful than any media PC that I have
seen.
200-disc DVD/CD changer/recorder
My Music
First, lets begin with a
discussion of the DVD changer. This thing is just incredible.
It will allow you to load up 200 CDs and then burn them onto
your hard drive in a batch process. It does take a long time
for the computer to look up the album information and then burn
it to the hard drive, so you may want to get it started and
check back in 12 hours or so. It works amazingly well and the
only drawback is the occasional album missing individual song
information. You can always update the missing information
later using Windows Media Player (WMP – a program that
can play on nearly any Windows computer) or Music Match
Jukebox. Once everything is on your hard drive, you can go to
the Windows Media Center (WMC – A type of operating
system) and sort by numerous options (See Below):
Notice "Arista:15 Year"
is missing a photo (thumb). This can be fixed by getting
the "tag" information using a different program or by saving a
photo of the album into a specified format in the album's
folder.
The "94 of 1241" tells
you where you are at in the album directory. These albums
start with the 94th entry and there are 1241 albums to choose
from.
The photo below shows the
album information for "Abby Road" and shows the playback
information in the bottom left corner. The user can add to
the "Queue"/playlist while a song is playing. The
"Visualize" selection works like a screensaver and gives you
many different animated choices (an equalizer view is just one
example) to view while the music is playing.
One thing to keep in mind is
that the WMP and WMC use the same library. As a result, adding
new music and the burning/ripping options need to be setup in
WMP instead of WMC. My main goal was to burn my entire CD
collection (over 1200 CDs) into a “lossless” format. “Lossless”
means that it will sound every bit as good as the original CD,
if not better. See
here for more information on the benefits of listening
to music on a computer versus playing it on a CD player.
After two weeks of filling
up the changer and letting it run overnight, I had every CD I
own in WMA Lossless format on my hard drive. This does take up
an incredible amount of hard drive space and that is why a lot
of people choose a lossy format like mp3 to save their files.
In the past, I spent months burning my music to mp3 format, but
this time around I wanted great sound quality for the living
room and the 128kbps mp3s did not qualify. Converting WMA
Lossless to mp3 or other formats can be done using many
different programs. I will save that discussion for
another day. If you are really curious, you can find a lot of
information on the subject at
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org.
One other thing I should
mention is that the "My Music" directory will include Yahoo
Music files if you are a subscriber. This is convenient
because you can play anything from the Yahoo Subscription
service that you have in your Yahoo "Library" using the "My
Music" interface.
Since writing this
review, I have had a few questions related to Playlist creation.
It is very easy to create Playlists in the WMC interface.
Below is an album I chose to play from "My
Music". I then clicked on the "Add to Queue" button:
After pulling up the albums I wanted to put
in the Playlist and adding them to the Queue, I then clicked on
"View Queue".
This did require me to pull up the album
that was currently playing to see the "View Queue" button.
As you can see, I am able to view all of
the songs in my Queue. I have to "Edit Queue" to get to
the Playlist creation option.
The choices in the Queue are to delete
individual songs and/or move them up and down in the order you
prefer.
When you click on "Save as Playlist", you
can now name the songs in the Queue for future reference.
The final result is that your new Playlist
now shows up in the listing of "My Playlists" for future use.
My
DVDs:
Now that I have all my music
at my fingertips, I wanted to load up my DVDs into my DVD
changer. This was a fairly simple task. The changer makes
loading and unloading about as easy as you could imagine. You
can eject an individual disc via the WMC program or by using the
eject button on the front of the changer. The changer also has
a load button on the front. The cool part is that hitting the
button twice will allow you to load the first disc and the
changer will automatically rotate to the next slot so you can
load the next disc, and so on. It works pretty much the same
way for ejecting the disc. It will eject one disc if you hit
the button once and rotate and auto eject the next disc (until
it is empty) after you pull the current disc out of the slot.
I loaded up my DVDs using
the auto-load feature until the unit was completely full. I then
setup the WMC program to find all of the movie information
automatically. This results in a photo thumbnail of each movie
(occasionally, you will have a movie that is missing a thumbnail
and I have not figured out how to add one at this point) . When
you choose a movie from WMC, the next screen will usually give
you more information about the movie, similar to the back of a
DVD box. Once I found out I had over 200 DVDs, I decided to hold
out the un-encrypted DVDs (I have some instructional DVDs that
were made by independent companies) and burn them to my hard
drive. When hitting “My DVDs” in WMC, it integrated the hard
drive movies into the changer movies. You have to add a
thumbnail photo yourself unless the program recognizes the name
of a movie and pulls it over (which is unlikely for training
video). Not a big deal, you just save whatever pic you want to
use in the movie's folder as "folder.jpg". Re-sizing to 240x240
seemed to work for me.
Below is a screen capture of
the movie directory. As you can see, I typed in "mag" to
find "The Magnificent Seven [Special Edition]" DVD. This
search capability makes it very easy to find a movie very
quickly. You can also see that I am listening to "Abby
Road" while searching for a movie by looking in the bottom left
corner of the screen.
Below is an example of the descriptive information that is
available on selected movies. As you can see, there are two
pages of information on this particular title:
One thing that should be mentioned is that the movies in the
changer are not easily accessibly using other devices (Xbox360,
WMC Extender, Etc..). In some cases, people will prefer
burning movies to their hard drive/NAS to access them all over
the house. I do not have that need, which is why I am
happy with this setup. Because of copyright issues, there is no
way that I know of to "batch burn" DVDS like you can with CDs.
It is possible to burn them directly from the changer using
software available on the internet, but it does require you to
burn them individually. This would a least allow you to
move from movie to movie without having to load and unload the
burner.
My Pictures
Another feature of the computer is the picture gallery.
Since I love photography (as
demonstrated on my Pbase site), I believe I will be using
this section of the computer a lot. I do have a lot of
organizing to do of my older pictures, but now I know I will
have the ability to pull up any shot from my couch in very
little time using the software. From what I understand,
the program allows the user to start a song playing in the "My
Music" section and then you can go to the "My Picture" area and
start a slideshow. I am hoping to find a way to drop a mp3
or WMA lossless file in the folder and have it play
automatically with the slideshow, but I have not had time to
research this feature. In any case, the picture quality is
outstanding on my 61 inch HDTV.
The shot below is from my mostly unorganized picture folders.
It will allow the user to select any folder and start an
automatic slideshow. It has several choices in the general
setup menu for how to transition from one photo to the next.
Online
Spotlight
There is also an area with several internet websites. I
have not inspected all of them, but it appears that there are
several sites with pre-recorded video to entertain you if you do
not already have enough ideas with your movies and music
available at the touch of a remote.
The one feature I do like was the way that XM radio is
integrated into the system. Since I already have an
account, I was able to type in my password and access all of my
favorite channels in a matter of seconds. The sound
quality is a little lacking and may be better via a program like
Xamp Desktop. However, I have not had time to do a direct
comparison. For uncritical listening, this setup is good
enough.
I was also able to add a Weather icon to my Online Spotlight.
This program has a lot of choices for radars, but I usually
leave it on this screen.
Helpful Add-On
Products:
A
couple things are needed to get the most out of this computer.
If you want Dolby Digital surround sound (DD5.1) or DTS, you
have to buy an additional soundcard. I found this out by
reading the always informative posts at
AVSforum. As a result, I purchased a
Turtle Beach Audio Advantage Roadie.
This inexpensive little (fits in the palm of my hand) USB add-on
worked like a charm and made it possible to watch movies and
television in the best possible format. It took a few minutes
to get it to work properly, but once I got it up and running I
was very pleased with the results. The unit also has other
features for recording via optical input and listening to movies
over a set of headphones, but I have not tested those features.
Another major oversight was
the lack of an HDTV tuner as part of this package. When I
consider that they charged $2000 for this computer a year ago,
I cannot think of an excuse for missing such an important
feature. A while ago, I found out about the Vbox Catseye USB HDTV Tunerthat
will give the user the ability to integrate HDTV pulled in over
the air via an antenna to be integrated into WMC. This was a
very easy setup and took less than 5 minutes to install the
software. I did have to reconfigure the “TV” setup in WMC to
recognize the new digital tuner, but that was easy to do. The
Vbox is not a perfect product or my WMC computer is not the best
match for it. It usually works great, but watching a basketball
game in HD is next to impossible because the tuner seems to have
problems keeping a steady image. Other than that and other
action packed programs, it usually does work well, but to get
the best out of it, I had to run it through a powered USB hub.
I have not tested the recording aspect of this process, so I
will update this review later for that addition.
Since adding the USB
powered hub, I have recorded several programs from ABC.
Most of them are Disney animation in HD format from their
Saturday night lineup. The program works great for
recording and playback of these movies. The problems I had
with the NBA games may have had to do with a bad signal because
I have had no break up at all in the Disney movie recordings.
I have two programs that I have been using to delete
commercials. The first thing I use is a program that
converts .dvr-ms files into mpeg. It is called
DVRMS Toolbox (free) and works like a charm. I have a
problem with the auto-commercial skip function, so I also use
VideoRedo (free to try, $50 to purchase) to remove commercials.
I have tested the auto commercial removal tool in VideoRedo with
"Bug's Life" and it seemed to work perfectly. You can also
manually delete commercials using the program if you do not
trust the auto-delete feature.
I also recorded concerts
from our local PBS-HD channel and had no problems with those
either. I am very happy with the Vbox now that I have had
more time to mess around with it and grab new recordings.
I also needed a
HDMI switch since my TV only has one HDMI input and I was
using it for my cable box. I ended up buying a 5 port
switch from www.monoprice.com
for a very reasonable price. This computer does not have a VGA
output,
so
that could make it a “no-go” for those people that have a TV
without a DVI or HDMI path. If you do have HDMI, you will
be very impressed by the picture quality of this unit. It
is fantastic! I programmed my
Harmony remote to auto-select the correct input for each
HDMI product (I have three) and it makes it all work without a
hitch. On the subject of remotes, the computer comes with
its own remote and a wireless keyboard. They work great,
but the remote and keyboard are not backlit, so I programmed
each button's behavior from the PC remote into my Harmony
remote.
There has only been one
downside to this system and probably will be important for
people with a different setup than mine. The DVD changer is
HUGE and can be very loud. As a result, I put it in my guest
room and ran a
long firewire cable to it. I am not even sure where I
would have put this behemoth if I did not have a closet in a
spare bedroom behind my system. Therefore, having a
very long firewire cord is a necessity if you want to put the
DVD changer out of the way.
My TV
The computer is already
equipped with an analog tuner that will accept a coaxial cable
directly from your cable TV company. However, I also added
the Vbox that I described above. This gives me the option
of watching a show live or recording a show and watching it
later. It is fairly simple using the guide and it offers a
lot of the same features as Tivo. One of my favorite
features from Tivo is the 30 second skip button. This is
probably the most used button on my Tivo remote because I can
skip through commercials or huddles in football games with just
a touch of a button. Luckily, the "My TV" interface has
this skip feature along with fast forward and rewind.
Below is a shot of the
guide. This shot shows some of the HDTV stations (1241 and
higher) available via the Vbox and the analog channels that are
picked up from my cable company.
Here is an example of the
screen that comes up when you select an item from the guide.
I like the way it gives the information related to the program,
including the actors, whether it is in analog or HD, and a brief
description of the movie.
The interface also allows the user to search for a title and
find movies:
When you select "Movies", the program will find all movies that
are currently available in your area. It will then match
it with the DVD cover art and provide some information on the
title:
If you select "Genre", you will then be able to view specific
type of movies that are going to be on throughout the two week
period that the guide covers:
Once you select a "Genre", you will see the movies that are
going to be on that are in that genre of movies. I
selected "Action and Adventure" and had the following
programs to choose from (Note: In the bottom left corner,
you can see the TV show (Seinfeld) that I am currently
watching):
There are several other options in the "My TV" section, but the
above photos show just how flexible and informative this
software can be.
There is a program that
is supposed to allow HDTV recordings from several digital cable
boxes via firewire. I tested this feature and I was able
to change channels and view programming available in HD via
firewire, but when I started a recording it would make my
computer crash. The reason I mention this feature, even
though I was unable to get it to work, is because other more
advanced users may not have my problems with trying to find the
appropriate drivers and fixing those that are having the
conflict. I just did not have the patience to figure it
out, so your mileage may vary.
As you can tell, there are
too many aspects of this computer to put into one review and
there are still a lot of features that I have not even tested. I
will edit, amend, or write a new review for each new feature
that I test on this computer. It is an amazing product for
$1,099.99 and even more amazing when you consider the fact that
the changer sales for $799 on its own. I give this unit a high
recommendation and I would recommend it to anyone with a similar
setup (see Oct 9th notes below - I would now give it a somewhat
reserved recommendation depending on what you are using it for).
You may want to act soon because Sony no longer has it listed on
their site. It has been replaced by a $2699.99 model, which from
what I can tell, is not much different from this model.
UPSIDE:
Batch CD burning makes a
difficult task easy
DVD changer integration
Ultimate Media PC
Downside:
Have to add on HD tuner
Need to buy a soundcard to
get DD5.1
Some incompatibility/bug
issues have arisen since this review (see below)
As a side note, I wanted
to commend Sony on their fantastic customer service. The second
day I owned this unit, the DVD changer broke. As you can
imagine, this scared me because I did not even know how or if
they would fix it, since I got it at such a deep discount.
Anyway, I called Sony and was immediately put through to an
agent. I was only put on hold for about 10 seconds, which was
impressive to say the least. They told me they would have a
tech person come to my house and the person would call me back
in three business days or less. Three days passed and I had to
call Sony again! The agent was very apologetic and said the
tech would definitely call me the next day. The next day came
and I had a message waiting for me when I got to work. I called
the guy back and he made an appointment to fix it that evening
at 5:45 PM, so I did not even have to miss a minute of work!
Sony had sent him every moving piece inside the changer, so he
changed out everything. I have since copied 1230 CDs using the
changer without one problem. Bravo Sony!
UPDATE: October 9,
2006
I still highly recommend the machine for most people, but I have
had issues with the DVD changer. In fact, it seems to disappear
from view quite often. I am not sure if it is my Norton
Anti-virus causing the problem, but I never had a problem with
the changer until I updated Norton. Your results may vary, but
if you want this computer for mainly DVDs, you may be
disappointed if this is a Sony bug/problem.
Also, I have had problems with restarting the computer and
"standby." It is probably a driver issue, but it is hard to
troubleshoot computer issues on a 61 inch screen. I am having to
re-power the computer several times to get a picture out on the
HDMI after restart/standby.
UPDATE: February 8,
2007
I now have only about
50 DVDs in the changer and have not seen the problem above in
months. To get around the problem, I reinstalled the DVD
changer firmware update (let me know if you want to know the
name of the update) and then recycled my changer. It has
fixed the problem every time.
I never put the
machine in hibernation mode anymore. I discussed this with
a tech guy at work and he keeps his Gateway computer running all
the time without issue. Therefore, I have done the same
with this machine.
MORE PICTURES BELOW:
Disclaimer: I only speak for my
own personal experience and, as with all of my reviews, they are
aimed at my individual needs using the model I own for the test.
Your results may vary. Also, this review is related to ONLY the
features I have had time to use and/or test. This review is far
from being all inclusive, so I will update the review when I get
time.
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