Sony STR-DA5200ES receiver adopts PSP/PS3-style interface
Sony's upcoming high end home theater receiver, the STR-DA5200ES features HDMI connections, 7.1 audio, video upconversion and everything else you would expect, will share something borrowed from the PSP. No, it's not a UMD-slot, it's the crossbar-style menu that will also be in use on the Playstation 3. You'll be able to access the menu as an overlay while still playing HD video playing behind it, picture-in-picture, and possibly be able to set up your A/V system without an engineering degree. This might be a bigger revolution in home theater than the Nintendo Wii controller is to gaming, a truly user-friendly UI would be a rare boon for users with complex systems. They'll be showing off this and many other components at CEDIA next week, if they really do have an interface that anyone can use the next challenge will be keeping your family away from it so they don't mess it up.
Filed under: Sony
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Dan @ Sep 7th 2006 1:29PM
Yea, this looks interesting, but quite frankly, how is this going to serve the consumer any better than a simple Harmony remote? I am sure this UI will come at a massive price premium anyways....
Jellodyne @ Sep 7th 2006 3:41PM
How does a harmony remote help you set up your stereo? You know, things like reassigning digital inputs to the correct video channel, renaming inputs, or calibrating speaker levels and that sort of thing. Most of the time with universal remotes, I'm lucky if most of the day-to-day functional buttons work off the bat, buch less esoteric setup menu choices. And then I've still got to use the cryptic LCD readouts on the stereo. I've got a STR-DA4ES and it was a real bear to get everything just so. If I could have done it all on a slick gui it would definatle have made things easier. Not sure whether I'd like to pay a ton mere for it, but I'm just sayin'.
alienclay @ Sep 8th 2006 3:24AM
if sony takes this to the next level then we could have something akin to panasonics shared control system over hdmi but in a user frendly manner that anyone can easily enjoy.
XMB is very intuitive. if you own a psp (i do) then you know how awesome this type of interface would be for those who may have a hard time pressing three buttons to change inputs on two or three devices to go from cable to mp3's on the PS3 to watching a BD with the right audio input selected. the XMB (and an automatic hdmi setup ap) would eleminate this and would be a huge selling point for me.