Sony Next Generation Blu-ray Mega Changer Anticipation Thread  

For those who don't want cabinets full of BDs the answer is for the BD Forum to begin offering effective managed copy.

Then instead of having a big slow changer you can simply stream your BD movies from a server sitting in your basement.

Instantly.

+1 for HDD BR content and playback, though I think a nice BR megachanger with following features would make a nice stopgap solution in the near-term:

• Daisy chainable units
• Intuative graphical UI (auto lookup and storage of disc metadata via the Internet would be really cool)
• 400 disc capacity (minimum)
• Reasonable price (< $1000)

Eric

Gizmodo has more information up about the beastie in question here;

http://gizmodo.com/5045601/sonys-pro...in-dark-corner

While it's of no interest to me (and will likely be geared towards custom builders and cost a lot more than $999) I'm sure that with the frequent calls for BD changers at this forum there will be a few who are interested.

Can i heat up a tv dinner in this thing too? Since it's a prototype the size, features and looks can change.

http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/09/04...-mega-changer/

How much did the CX777ES cost at release?

I would pay a grand for this without blinking. More, and I'd have to think about it a bit. But if this is a mega-changer version of the S550, there's nothing I would want more.

The HES-V1000 is $3500. There's no way this would be under $1K.

The HES-V1000 isn't just a Blu-Ray mega changer. It's got a hard drive and all sorts of other "fun" stuff. Not the same thing at all.

I would still bet that this unit will retail for well over $1,000 but we'll see. Certainly the market for it is very small.

With new the ES styling I would have to hide it somewhere, which is where a changer belongs anyway - once it's loaded up. Never did care for the most recent ES sloped front panel look. But that's just me.

Knowing Sony, it will be priced 400 disc changer x $399 / disc capability = $159,600 USD!

Her's a couple of pics from CEDIA.

I have to admit I have never had a Mega changer but I am really going to look at this one...

Any more info on this unit since CEDIA is over now.

That's an AACS thing isn't it?



Then you get the fun of dealing with RAID and HDD failures and general data corruption. All part and parcel of my daily gig in Systems Admin and pretty easy... but not scalable into a general solution IMO. The day a guy has his HDD take a dump and he needs to retransfer (if not rebuy!) to complete his collection is the day all these solutions lose a chunk of their user base.


But for the firewalls, bad networking, and Heaven forbid, malware.

If you see Sony's DVD 400 Mega Changer, you might change your mind. That thing is slow!!! I am sure the BD Mega Changer will be a few folds slower.

Seriously. Anyone who thinks that the cheaper and easier solution is a massive RAID array has just never actually tried it. I've done an array with six hard drives using software RAID in Linux for DVD streaming, and it just did _not_ go as easily as some people claim it does - and, believe me, I have rather a good deal of experience with Linux RAID.

Don't get me wrong, streaming via managed copy would be great, but let's face it: it's basically dead at this point, and the AACS group has implied as much.

As for "mega changers are slow", I somewhat doubt they're slower and more of a hassle than getting up, hunting for the appropriate disc, changing the disc, and then putting away the old one.

I'm always amazed at ppl that can't seem to wait 30-60 seconds for either their BD, or HD disc player to finish booting up, or complain when their changer needs 20 seconds between discs and the list goes on - without getting fidgety.

You are absolutely right. The HD changer would be a god-send to my media room/HT, and so much more of an elegant solution too. I doubt the load time, or change time would bother me to extent I would seek to keep a massive library of ISO files on a multi-disc RAID array. I too have dabbled in RAID arrays - not recently - and found them to be unreliable. At least a software RAID. I know they are used in server farm environments 24/7 all over the world, but lets' be realistic - they've also got a ready team of IT pros to make it all better should something go wrong. A mega changer would be miles ahead in reliability, stability, probably ease of use, durability, etc.

To each his own though.

You will note that there is now a huge conglomeration working actively towards such solutions... the companies included are Best Buy, Cisco, Sony, Warner, Universal, Paramount, Fox, Comcast, etc.

You guys can bag on this stuff all you want, it's not going to prevent the corporations that run things from shoving it down our throats.

Enjoy BD while we have it, because it's not going to be around for a very long time.

You'll probably take a flash card in to an authorized point of sale and transfer your HD Lite movie there, then take it home to watch it, if you don't have a fast enough internet connection to stream it real time.

I'm not any happier than anyone else about it, but that's kind of the reality of how the industry is moving.

PS, here's the link from the article on this.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/09/13/d...of-the-future/

I don't think anyone's saying digital downloads aren't the future in some sense. We are saying that a very specific technology, "Managed Copy", is basically dead. Indeed, managed copy really has very little to do with digital downloads, so I'm not even sure why you decided this was relevant to the thread.


Frankly, if SACD is still alive and kicking in this age of iTunes and iPods, I would be rather cautious in predicting the time of the future death of BR-D - which has far better penetration than SACD already, I should think.

Anyways, like everyone else, I'm still wishing Sony would reveal some more details about this thing. Certainly, they had no compunctions about talking about the BDP-S550 way ahead of time...

I agree with pretty much everything you said, but I also think that NAS with decent RAID data protection could be implemented by the masses if NAS hardware and software (especially the UI) were specifically designed for these users. For example, I bought a Buffalo Terrastation NAS recently to try out cetralized media storage and network distribution. Though I admit I'm PC and network literate, I had the terrastation up and running in 5 minutes because some aspects of it were designed well in terms of implementation and configuration:
1: It's drive bays came loaded with drives
2: It came preconfigured for DHCP IP assignment
3: It came preconfigured for RAID5 data protection

Indeed, the only parameters I had to configure were the assignment of a static IP address, system time, my email address and mail server for notification of hardware failure, and new authentication credentials to the web based admin interface of the NAS.

With the following enhancements, I think JQ public could set up their own NAS:
1: A nice, user friendly setup wizzard that walks the user through key setup items one step at a time (with plenty of context sensitive tips to explain the item and options in detail).
2: Hot swappable drives with NAS bays that make a racket and use a small light and LED screen to ID a failed drive and provide instructions for replacement (most SOHO NAS do this now though my Buffalo drives are not hot-swappable).
3: A nice troubleshooting UI (similar to the system Logitech uses for its Harmony remotes) to walk users through problems plus live 24/7 telephone support as a backup.

As for the network the NAS connects to, one could argue that it can be just as easy, if not easier to implement than a video/audio switch (espeically an HD-capable switch) that would have to be installed for the mega-changer to provide the functionality of NAS-based media distribution.

Though I will certainly take a look at the new Sony BR changer when it becomes available, I currently have a bias toward implementing a larger NAS solution for BR for two reasons:
1: The ability to stream multiple sources throughout my house simultaneously
2: The ability to stream HD content over a single Cat5e or Cat6 link (or perhaps even wirelessly via 802.11n)

The only reason I don't build this NAS now is that I'm waiting for client PC motherboards and BR playback software that support Dolby True HD and DTS-HD in native form. I know mobos just came out that support multi-channel LPCM audio playback from BR.

An interesting article: This may indeed be the future solution for media distribution but its going to have its own growning pains. Assuming one even has a broadband connection, the issue of adequate download throughput-especially for HD content) will have to be addressed en-mass. Thus, I wouldn't write off phyiscal BR media just yet.

I've always said that flash based media wouldn't replace BD until you could get a 50GB Flash card for the $1 it costs to press a BD disc.

This won't necessarily be the way it is handled though. It is entirely possible that consumers will buy a memory card in a special carrier that is keyed to their DRM key and is paired up with their machines at home. They take this card to a rental store, Best Buy, etc, and rent or purchase the movie which is transferred to the card quickly.

This would be no more inconvenient than it is for them to rent discs today.

This is what the studios tried to push on us with DiVX and they almost succeeded. Blu-Ray seems more and more a stop gap HD solution to move more hardware until the kinks get worked out in this big DRM collaboration.

Doing 4TB of storage is easy. Doing 15TB of storage is remarkably difficult. That's the trick here - that BR-D changer has way more potential storage than anything you're describing. Consumer RAID solutions scale to a certain point, and then you're in this wild, magical, and semi-horrible world of enterprise-level RAID solutions that really do require some maintenance. Plus, assuming Sony keeps the daisy-chaining mechanisms that previously changers have had, you'll be able to run past that 400 disc mark quite easily. Let me know how adding another 15TB of storage to your RAID goes.

The reality though is that the average consumer isn't going to store 400 50GB movies on a player or network. They are going to store a couple of hundred HD-Lite movies that clock in at a file size of 10-15GB since that's what is going to be pushed on us soon. Storing a few TB of stuff is trivial now.

High speed connections make it increasingly likely that you won't have to store anything locally anyway. You will have DRM access to your media and simply stream it whenever you want to into your home. No physical media or storage needed.

I completely disagree with your premise that lower-quality digital formats are a market substitute for higher-quality "physical" formats. Simply put, iTunes hasn't killed CDs or DVDs, forget SACD and BR-D, and I've not heard talk of phasing out any of those formats just because the digital copies are doing well. The marketplace is big, and can support multiple options. If I was doing digital downloads of HD Lite only, sure, space would not be as much of an issue. But that's not what we're talking about.

In any event, this line of discussion is way OT, so I'm going to stop.

Certainly digital media has not been able to replace physical media in the case of audio CDs. SACD though is a very poor example as you can't get most new releases (or hardly any for that matter) on SACD.

The real question is will DVD soldier on as the cheap physical media for those who don't want to do downloads or will BD get enough foot hold that it will last another 10-12 years giving us the highest quality transfers of these movies available?

I'm not a fan of downloads for most content (although it would be a nice way to view television shows) but I'm simply pointing out the large effort in the industry with dozens of high profile players and probably millions of dollars of development towards a DRM locker system.

If BD doesn't gain mass adoption before this happens than it could go the way of LD and we could wind up with a choice between DVD or HD-Lite DRM downloads.

Rather than people holding out another year or three to get into BD they should suck it up and spend the $200-$250 to get a BD player this year. The more players/content that gets purchased the more likely the format will have a real life to it.

If you don't have a BD player, don't hold off a year or three for a 400 disc changer, get a BD deck now and support the format before the industry kills it.

The industry isn't going to kill BD. Certain folks put words in a certain Samsung employees mouth from a poorly edited and/or written article.

Downloads will never seriously threaten BD in the purchase market, though they could make Blockbuster and Netflix go bye-bye in the rental market.