I am interested in the Escient product, but I don't have a clear understanding about the differences between models. I want DVD & CD management. I just bought a Sony CVP 777ES Mega changer. I am looking at easing into this venue, so thereby not needing the cadillac model. :) I am not a big movie afficianado.
I currently have distributed audio to 4 zones and will soon have distributed video as well.
Can somebody guide me in the right direction. I have my eye on the SE D1, any thoughts on this model?

I have SE D1 and it is reallya fine controller for 777ES. Please keep in mind the following however:
1. it does support only one changer. If need to support 2 or 3 or more you have to move up the latter on higher end Escient DVD controller.
2. It olby has optical and not coax in/out. if you are not inrested in internet radio it is a moot point
3. It does not understand SACD discs (you can name them though by hand)
4. You will need WIRED internet connection. I have wireless bridge in my rack (converts wireless->wired) and it provides plenty of speed for radio and title recognition.


When i boought it I immediately stuffed my changer with 300 DVDs and 100 or so CDs and SACDs and outside of SACDs and dozen of very obscure DVDs (mostly concerts) it recorginzed, cataloged, got cover images, etc of entire collection in a couple of hours.. Incredible. It also servers as server and client to other Escient hardware. Interface is superb. it also has fine Web-based interface so you are not stuck to enter data such as disk names or internet stations via remote.

The only issue is a price. i got it refurb for $699 and I still think it is a bit much -however it is super convenient and I am VERY happy with it. Well build product.

Going up from the SE-D1, the MX-111 at $1999.95 retail, adds 160 gig hard drive and controls one mega changer. Above that you have the MX-531 which has a 500 gig hard drive and controls up to three mega changers. Then the MX-752 you get a 750 gig hard drive, control of five changers and two zone capability. You may want to consider one of the ZP-1's if you want a second zone to serve up also.

In case you haven't seen it, here's a link to a pretty good comparison chart from Escient's web site.

http://www.escient.com/products/CompareDirect.pdf

Hope that helps.

Kevin

One thing to consider - if you have desktop PC sowewhere in a house yu can install Escient server software on it (it is free) and rip CD on it and stream it to SE-D1. Solution much more economical(albeit not as elegant) as dedicated Escient "player" such as MX-111 or SE-80.

Mk..

Just so I am clear on this. If I download and install the server software on my server that has my mp3's ripped on it... then purchase the SE-D1, I can play my mp3's from my server to the SE-D1 which is connected to my tv and ht setup? I am looking for a replacement, ala a little more expensive, for my aging audiotron.

Thanks
R~

RH,
I believe you are corect in your assesment, however i did not tried it myself (I am using D-Link streamer now, as my desktop PC is old NT box and fireball-pc needs XP). All documentation (and software) is available for free on www.escient.com

Going up from the SE-D1, the MX-111 at $1999.95 retail, adds 160 gig hard drive and controls one mega changer. Above that you have the MX-531 which has a 500 gig hard drive and controls up to three mega changers. Then the MX-752 you get a 750 gig hard drive, control of five changers and two zone capability. You may want to consider one of the ZP-1's if you want a second zone to serve up also.

In case you haven't seen it, here's a link to a pretty good comparison chart from Escient's web site.

http://www.escient.com/products/CompareDirect.pdf

Hope that helps.

Kevin
Kevin,
RE: the second zone, how is the SE-D1 limiting for this. I have distributed audio throughout the house, running thru an Elan S6. Would I not just distribute the 7775/SE-D1 as well?
thanks for all the info. It has been very helpful.

FYI,
Yes you can share your MP3 collection via the Fireball-PC application to the fireball. I'm using that option while I re-rip the entire collection to FLAC. I keep the MP3's for the iPod but want lossless for the house.

Technically,
I'm not sure you need the fireball if your collection is on the PC.You could get the same level of functionality by using the Escient iPod dock and the Fireball-PC app.
But for a bulletproof solution, stick with the actual fireball component unit.

Re: Fireball PC

I was reading in the FAQ section of Escient about the software and it says it is for windows xp pro and home. I have a server setup with windows server 2000 has anybody been able to setup it up successfully on that platform? I am waiting for a response from Esient...

Thanks
R~

Kevin,
RE: the second zone, how is the SE-D1 limiting for this. I have distributed audio throughout the house, running thru an Elan S6. Would I not just distribute the 7775/SE-D1 as well?
thanks for all the info. It has been very helpful.

The DVP777ES and SE-D1 would work together allowing you to distribute audio from CD's stored in the mega changer as well as music streamed from your computer but not at the same time. So if the source chosen in several zones was the SE-D1, each of those zones would have the same song playing. What I was suggesting is that if you got a ZP-1 in addition, you could play two different songs at the same time in two or more zones at the same time. You could be listening to Van Halen in the Basement while another person in the house was listening to Vivaldi! The SE-D1 would be able to play music stored in the changer or stream from the computer while the ZP-1 could play music from an IPOD or stream music from the computer. Hope that helps you.

In my humble opinion, I think the SE-D1 would be pretty limiting for you though. If you were my customer (I sell escient products), I would be encouraging you to step up to at least an MX-111 and ZP-1. I think it would be much more finctional for you having the additional 160 gig of music storage in the MX-111 and you would be less dependant on the computer.

Kevin

what about the control 4 set up in comparison?

KM..

You have a PM

what about the control 4 set up in comparison?

If this was a question for me (maybe it was a rethorical question?), I'm sorry to report I have no experience at all with Control 4 so I can't make a comparison. Go check it out and see it in action at a dealer before coming to any conclusions. If they can't get it to work in their showroom or choose not to hook it up for some reason, I would keep looking. I've been selling escient for around ten years and I can tell you without hesitation that their products work really well with very little hassle. I'm definitely a fan.

Kevin

I'll second Kevin's suggestion of moving up to at least an MX-111.
As far as comparing to Control 4, the Escient just works, that's the appeal.
Other than the occasional dead hard drive or power supply they just work.
There are a million CD/DVD products out there, but this is one that just works.
I know I keep saying that, but it's really the main appeal of the product other than the GUI.

Anyone can learn to use the units in less than 5 minutes, and it only takes about 15 minutes from unbox to first movie.

You will probably want to use a nice universal remote with it, as the standard remote has far too many buttons.

You can build a solution based on Control 4, but I'm not sure that would be in the same ballpark as the Escient. The Control 4 stuff is cool, but it's all the integration points that you'd have to worry about.

is there a way to control the sony cdvd changer via a networked pc..

the only bummer on the sony is that it doesnt have hdmi and it doesnt play blue ray

i am also considering the escient or the control 4.- buying them used or discounted

You can control the changer with the Escient via a touchpanel, remote or webbrowser.
In order to control the changer itself, you'll need a device that understands both IP and Sony Slink via Serial.

Might be able to use a Global Cache device to link it via IP. I'm sure there is probably some 3rd party software for that purpose. The SlinkE was a great solution, but it's not for sale anymore.

In my mind, the beauty of the SE-D1 is that it provides movies and music for ~$700 street price, assuming you have the music on another source.

Shoot, for the difference in price between the SE-D1 and the MX-111 you ccould buy a nice PC to run the fireball-pc software on, a gigabit switch and a 1 terabyte NAS unit.

Don

You can do that, but you still have to deal with a PC in the mix.
The beauty of the all in one units is that it's a no mess solution.

I've got more music than my 311 can hold, so I do use the Fireball-PC app for extra storage, but if you just by the SE-D1 you lose the built in CD ripper/burner that is SOOOO handy and you have to keep the PC running to access you FLAC files.

It's more than a collection of parts, ease of use is what you are buying.
I'm a geek but I love never having to think when I turn on the escient.

I just got an SE-D1 was able to sucessfully get the Fireball PC software to recognize all of the music on my PC (an iMac) but it did not carry over any of the cover art, which does appear on the Macintosh. Anybody have any tips?

G

At the risk of communicating with myself in this forum, I did find an answer to my question. I'll post it in case others have the same question. I spoke with Escient techinical service and the size limitation for cover art was 30K. Once I "shrunk" the size of the cover art for a given album (through Photoshop) and pasted it back into Fireball PC the cover art downloaded correctly. Could be a real pain in the rear given the amount of music I have on the PC and I have not figured out a way to batch convert file sizes using the Mac, but that seems to be the limitation.

Also they do have a discrete ON and discrete OFF command but it is a two step process. You press the Macro button first then I believe the Music button for ON or Macro and iRadio for OFF (or vice versa).

G

Garrett.
I think you'll need tp update your tags to see the cover art on the fireball. It should be included with the actual song tag and automatically show up when browsing the PC based music. I use mine that way and have cover art appear on the fireball and the FP-1 (Fireball iPod dock) so I know it's supposed to work.

Yes, you do need to shrink your art to fit. Once you have everything tagged and covers added, be sure to back up the cover art directory. Since you aren't adding the art to the actual tags, you'd lose the art if you ever needed to restore your content directory.

Regarding the macros, the escient has just about every discrete code you could ask for and integrates very well with just about every pro level control system out there. They even have fully discrete codes for the keyboard, so you can add cover art from a remote.
You need to download the full code set to get the power discretes without using a macro.

Yes, you do need to shrink your art to fit.

Do you know of a way to do a "batch" shrink for my iTunes cover art files? I can do it manually (copy cover art into Photoshop, shrink, and re-paste into iTunes) on a per album basis and it does transfer over to the Fireball but that process could take forever to do for all my music.

I do have the discrete ON and OFF working properly now.

Thx,

G

Garrett..

If you have photoshop just create an action to do the shrink for you.. Load up the cover art..... and away you go... the only problem is they all have to be in the same folder... if they are in different folders I think you might be out of luck...... IE doing each one at a time......

I just picked up the SE-80. haven't had a chance to play with it yet, but I am chomping at the bit to get hooked up thou!!!!

Garrett..

If you have photoshop just create an action to do the shrink for you.. Load up the cover art..... and away you go... the only problem is they all have to be in the same folder... if they are in different folders I think you might be out of luck...... IE doing each one at a time......

I just picked up the SE-80. haven't had a chance to play with it yet, but I am chomping at the bit to get hooked up thou!!!!

You'll dig it, it is lots of fun. Make sure you have the latest software version which I think is 4.2.5.6 or something like that. The system requires you to go to the web site to request the latest software because I guess it is a more significant update than the ones that are automatically made. A pain in the rear if you ask me.

G

Garrett..

Were you able to create an action to do the file conversion in photoshop???

I can't wait to get it up and running this weekend... thanks for the heads up on the update!

Rhett

Garrett..

All I can say is that I am in love... what a freaking easy system to setup too!!!! Plugged it in, told it to look for my server and bam... done..... tears of joy my friend.........

Garrett..

All I can say is that I am in love... what a freaking easy system to setup too!!!! Plugged it in, told it to look for my server and bam... done..... tears of joy my friend.........

That is great - I'm glad you are enjoying yours too. It is so cool to have easy access to a large DVD collection.

I haven't had a chance to try and create the action yet. Actually, I've never done one in Photoshop so it'll be a little bit of trial and error. Without knowing much about Actions I don't know if it will be a problem I can't seem to find a static folder that contains all of the cover art, the only way I can seem to extract the cover art is to select a particular song, then Get Info -> Artwork. Can a Photoshop Action take over clicking commands in another program (iTunes) to generate this type of Action?

Stev

I don't think you can copy the key commands from another program within photoshop.....

the action is really easy to do.

open up the action palette.
create a new
hit the record button
do what you need to do
hit the stop button
and that is it....

Have you downloaded all of the cover art or did you let itunes do it for you? I couldn't find the folder that itunes stored the info in, if it even stored them.....

R~

I too am looking at the SE D1. I thought my solution was just the DVDM-100 with a DVP-cx777es.

Besides the 3 changer ability with the DVDM, I really don't see what you get for an extra $1000.

I already have a Buffalo 750G Terastation on my network with my entire CD collection ripped to Flac. For access to all that music, I use Sonos throughout the house. In my HT Room, I have an HTPC so I can access the muisic that way.

What I plan to do is have the SONY Changer SDI modified and I would like to have the ability to access and play all the CD's/DVD's through a touchscreen panel. Do both Escient units work with a touchscreen panel?

I'm trying to really understand what the benefits of spending an extra $1000 on the DVDM are. What is 2 way
ethernet control for? It also mentions that the product works with Xantech stuff. Can you control other equipment through the touchscreen other than the Escient if this is the case?

Fran