Sony VGX-XL202 Blu-ray media center reviewed
TrustedReviews has their review of the Sony Blu-ray-equipped media center PC, with the usual compliment of card readers, wireless keyboards, wi-fi, and TV tuners. It has component and HDMI connectors, and is intended for the European market with its DVB-T tuner card. It sports a Core 2 Duo inside, and an HDCP-enabled nVidia video card, for outputting those Blu-ray discs to your display. While the case is quite large to fit all the computer and components inside, it does have a slot-loading rewritable BR drive, and 500gb of storage. It also has some quirks when playing the new media, as it has to launch a separate application outside of XP Media Center to play the Blu-ray discs. The cost of the drive pushes the total system above $2844 (£1531 before VAT taxes), although according to the review, only £800 above a normal media center PC with the same specs, apparently cheaper than a standalone BR player. It also has a quick standby mode using Intel's VIIV technology, which brings it up in 15 seconds, as opposed to the 50 with a normal player. So, if you live in Europe, can afford the extra cost of the unit, and are in the mood for some rewritable Blu-ray, then this may be the media center PC for you.
[Via Slashdot]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Dave @ Oct 18th 2006 12:41PM
More and more devices come to for Blu-Ray and none fo HD DVD.
[insert fanboy HD DVD IS GOING DOWN!!! comment here]
Jim @ Oct 18th 2006 4:24PM
Too much $$$ for that thing
HD-DVD is coming for xbox (which will work for the PC I hear) @ $199 and HP has HD-DVD internal and external drives set to launch by Christmas. They won't cost $750 like BD-ROM and I am certain I will pick one up.
bunny @ Oct 18th 2006 6:23PM
I like the keyboard.
pnorth @ Oct 18th 2006 6:50PM
HOLY COW! Anyone else notice that this looks exactly like Toshiba's hd-xa1 hd-dvd player!
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-eIgrVcbWQTO/cgi-bin/ProdView.asp?g=279850&tab=morephotos&pi=3&i=052HDXA1&display=L#Tab
siva @ Oct 18th 2006 7:21PM
Actually this design predates the Toshiba HD-DVD player. The previous generations of Sony Media Centers XL1 and XL2 had similar designs.
Ben Hobbs @ Oct 19th 2006 3:15AM
1700 quid??!!!, Why on Earth is it double the price of an exact same spec media centre, without the Sony name or Blur-Ray drive.
I can imagine about 20 people buying this in the UK, and never actually using it.
Ed @ Oct 19th 2006 8:43AM
I like the fact that these sony fanboys can't afford a blu ray player, yet they seem to defend it over HD DVD which has clearly shown that it's superior in terms of price, picture, sound, reliability, movie quantity, availability and it's already in it's 2nd gen (3rd gen with Xbox 360 HD DVD?). Why are you so hell bent to defend a format that is clearly inferior and you CAN'T AFFORD!!!! http://www.thedvdwars.com/index.cfm!!!
Franssu @ Oct 20th 2006 11:16AM
"It also has a quick standby mode using Intel's VIIV technology, which brings it up in 15 seconds, as opposed to the 50 with a normal player."
WTF !? In the old days, one of the features differencing standalone players from HTPCs was the boot-up, which was way faster on a standalone player...
The Joe 6 packs of the world will go crazy with these startup times if this isn't corrected fast. Can't wait to see how much time my XBOX360 will take to boot-up and be able to read a HD-DVD. I hope it'll be less than 50s, or even I will go crazy.
actarusfleed @ Nov 8th 2006 10:18AM
Hi to all.
I think that is very interesting to view the rear pannel of this HTPC unit to know what kind of outputs it brings.
My personal interesting goes to the 5.1/7.1 analog outpunts ... because I haven't an HDMI audio-receiver yet.
And more ...
On the italian (I'm italian) sony-style site:
http://vaio.sony-europe.com/view/ShowArticle.action?section=Products_ITE&article=1147790066900&productcategory=%2FComputing%2FVAIO+Desktops%2FVD+XL+Series&productmodel=%2FComputing%2FVAIO+Desktops%2FVD+XL+Series%2FVGX-XL202&productsku=VGXXL202.IT1&site=ite_it_IT
there is a "strange" blu ray specification ... it says:
"The supported blu-ray disc (tm) format is not universaly compatible.
The Vaio machines do not support the reproduction of movies recorded on BDR in MPEG-4 AVC and SMPTE VC-1 formats at transfer rate over at 20Mbps".
So my question is here: If I buy some warners VC-1 BDR discs ans some FOX Mpg4AVC discs the vaio will be able to play this medias?
And more: Does all the BDR with those codecs has always bitrate under 20Mbps?
Thank you so much for some clarifications,
Actarus.