Unofficial VGP-XL1B2 Thread - Page 6

Thanks Dwight, I'm going to download the software and give it a try. Since my changer came in last night I wanted to post my initial observations. After unpacking I was amazed at how simple setup was. Install software, plug in, connect one firewire cable and BOOM... it'w working :-)

I inserted only 50 DVD's to start out and this included 4 box sets. All the box sets were recognized and labeled correctly. I was concerned it would miss these after reading comments here. Every other DVD was properly labeled except one which was Godson with Rodney Dangerfield. I didn't miss it, simply didn't find anything.

So far, I'm very impressed with this changer. It is a bit loud when changing disk but I can live with that. I'm going to try ripping some CD's tonight and see how that works out.

The software works very well, was looking for something like this last weekend for burnt dvds. If you have a dvd that is showing up as unknown movie when you are trying to use it, go into MCE and edit the name and save it. It will then show up with the name in the software.

pyro_

That's great news, I hadn't considered it for people using burnt DVDs. The thread on The Green Button, someone stated that the really stubborn DVDs that you can't change the Metadata for, you can download an xml for it at dvdxml.com and rename it the same xml as what MCE listed the movie for and re-edit that way. I'm going to try that when I get home tonite. Best to read the thread for better directions.

Dwight2001

With the VGP-XL1B2's "My DVDs" software is there any way to make it not display the DVD's I have ripped onto my hard disks? Currently it shows EVERYTHING even DVD's I have ripped and watch through My Videos. I would like this to be just the DVD's in my changer.

I ordered another changer last night. In all I've invested $485 (that figure includes the shipping) for two, factory sealed units. Not a bad deal.

I loaded 50 CD's up last night before I hit the sack. After scanning them the changer thought they were all the same CD. I started the copy anyway. When I woke up this morning, all 50 CD's were ripped with the correct titles and album art. It seems the changer software does worse job of labeling CD's than it does DVD's. Has anyone else seen this?

yup that is normal with cds mine does the exact same thing

Not on all, but on some CDs, yes, and in pretty much every batch I ripped. I also saw some outright "error" labels in the changer that copied just fine.

Which leads to a question: since the changer itself appears to be a victim of Sony's interface for it, has anyone found a way to untether these very useful devices from Sony's software leash? My dream is still to be able to have a PC (or xbox360) elsewhere on my home network see and control the changer, and with the announcement of the XL1b3, I doubt I'll be seeing any improvements on this model. Sony doesn't have a great history of supporting those whose money they already have in pocket.

Hello, I'm new here. Having pretty much the same experiences, however I do have a couple of issues.

(1) My unit is also labelled "XL1B" not "XL1B2". Is is possible that in fact I do have rev 2? How can one tell - by serial number? Got mine from TigerDirect for $299.

(2) Even after applying the firmware upgrades and then reapplying the latest rollup 2 from Microsoft, my bulk ripping still "fails". I put that in quotes because in actual fact the ripping occurs, but an "x" is posted next to the CD, instead of a checkmark. The only way I get a checkmark is to do them one by one. Any clues what may be wrong?

To use the changer from another PC, I established remote logon. This makes it easy to access MCE menus to change the disc. I then access the changer drive like any shared resource. First on the MCE box I mapped the drive locally in order to get a drive letter, then shared it, so everybody in my workgroup can see whatever is loaded in the changer drive (data, DVD, CD, whatever).

From XBOX360, I plan to use VLC360 to play any media icluding DVDs, but so far I'm still having trouble getting it to work correctly. Others seem to be using it ok, so I'm figuring it is just a matter of time before I figure out what my problem is.

Yes, this is what I've been reading on other sites too. It's not just flakey on Windows either. I've read about issues on Macs too. I believe they use RipMonkey for control on Macs. And their changer is the PowerFile (same as Sony changer). I have found some promising links on running it from Linux using the mtx control package. I'll be buying one of the changers today or tomorrow from eBay. Can't wait to get it and test out some python code.

Btw, is this is strictly a Windows group or are you guys OS agnostic? I don't want to come across as a troll. I just wanted to report my progress using Linux and this seems like the hottest thread and group for it.

Don't get me started on this one.... YOU ARE SO VERY CORRECT IN THAT STATEMENT. I boycotted Sony products for years and finally gave in with the PSP and this product... oh well...

I've discovered that the ripping in media center is actually done by windows media center. The mislabeling is the crappy Sony software.

Funny story about Sony. I bought a Sony digital camera back in 1996 when they first started becoming mainstream. If the camera had 10 images, the Sony software displayed a status message like this:

Transfering image 10 out of 1....
Transfering image 10 out of 2....
Transfering image 10 out of 3....

Anyone else find this funny? A huge company like Sony that can't write software with proper English.... I'm laughing just thinking about it again....

BUT.... I still buy their products... jokes on me I guess.

It can be done, not very pretty but doable via some scripting. I am doing so now with a combination of: MCE 2k5RU2 for the OS, DVD Profiler, Xlobby, Zoom Player, and some unix like scripting behind the scenes in cygwin.

Dunno about the 360 part, I don't have one...

-pd

got my XL1B2 yesterday. $200 + $40 s/h on eBay. recompiled the mtx source with the patch from mtx mailing list and plugged it in. cool, this works with Linux! so far, I've tested the load/unload functions. i plan to build an interface in python, so i will need to prompt the user to insert a CD. haven't done that part yet. any of you have experience with this?

let me know if you have questions on how to do this on Linux. i'm kind of a newbie with scsi but i think i can explain some of it.

btw, i would like to send links to pics of the changer internals but i have to wait until i reach 5 posts. from what I can tell this device would be great to hack. you have pretty good access to the CD reader drive assembly. the connector is IDE and goes to a firewire converter. my ripper seemed to only get 8x for DAE (need to verify this). you may be able to swap out the assy with a faster reader for improved ripping throughput.

Looking for some feedback if anyone has encountered the following.

One: Has anyone connected via a (4)four pin mini firewire connection, ie a laptop (built in Ricoh 5-1 host controler) connection

Two: My device(VGP-XL1B) shows up(disabled) under SBP2 IEEE 1394 Devices, not the simple IEEE 1394 Devices

Three: Nothing shows under disk management

I've tried just about every trick I know, installing as admin, installing mammoths software, all the no avail

so what are you going to do? 100% linux solution end to end? or you just going to put it on the network as a changer controlled by linux?

yes, a 100% linux solution for me. Although, there no reason this can't be done on Windows too. I've read somewhere that mtx has been ported to Windows using cygwin. My ugly code is written in Python (multi-platform) and I'm open to sharing ;-)

My first task is to automate the ripping / encoding of my audio CD collection. If I have the space, I'll use FLAC but it will most likely be ogg or mp3. The other option, which I didn't have with the Kubik jukebox, is to rip DVDs to VCD. From what I've heard, this is all handled automagically in Windows but it seems their encoding options are limited. My python skills suck but so far I have the ripping, encoding, and cdda lookup for audio figured out. I just have to piece it all together as one app.

I suppose I could buy 10 more changers and run a ripping/encoding farm from my home. I've seen these services for $1 a CD. Suppose radio DJs would be a good customer.

For those that have loaded double sided DVD's, does the changer read both sides? I am assuming it doesn't. I have Roots mini-series with each part on both sides of the disc. My thought if it doesn't is to rip all the even sides to HD and load all the odd sides in the changer.

Any other ideas?

I took the lid off of mine to watch it operate. From what I can see, there is no mechanism for flipping the disk on the XL1B2. I've heard of some really expensive CD changers doing this. The other option would be if there were two reader mechanisms on both sides of the disk. I don't see this in the XL1B2.

I think the only option you have is to do as you said which takes twice as long OR just get another XL1B2 to do the opposite side in parallel. I've seen some scratched up ones for sale on eBay for $175 + $40 s/h.

IMHO, it's good thing they didn't add double sided functionality. They kept it simple and as a result ... this thing is a tank.

anyone here have an XL1B2 with two drives? sorry if this question has been asked a million times. i searched but couldn't find anything.

i just rechecked the inside of the changer. mine only has one CD drive. but there is space and bracketing for another drive. still, this is just to increase throughput and not for double sided DVDs. that would have been cool though.

Finally, I can post some pics! Not the greatest quality. I only have a 2.1M pixel camera ...
Side View
Top View
Drive View

I may get another one just to add the other drive. Man, this thing is so cool! It really looks like it could be hacked to accomodate almost any CD/DVD drive ... possibly even BlueRay or HDDVD drive - though I know nothing about their internals.

btw, I just finished batch ripping 47 audio CDs on Linux. Although I haven't checked the audio quality yet, there wasn't a single mechanical / software failure. I'm a bit behind the curve on DVDs, possibly because I only own 4 or 5, but I plan to modify my app to rip those to DivX next. hmm, guess I should get a DivX compatible DVD player too

OK, I'm done posting. I just realized I'm starting to look like a Linux troll with all these back-to-back posts. Best of luck everyone and thanks for capturing such valuable information in this forum.

kejava: The units are OEM'ed PowerFile units, and the PowerFile's were often shipped with two drives.

The implementation in Media Center cannot handle two drives, and this is properly the reason that a two drive version isen't available.

Regards,

Brian

kejava: Oh, and btw - you won't get anything out of adding another drive, you need a different firmware for that, and Sony properly haven't even made such firmware for the XL unit.

What is the difference between the XL1B2 and XL1b?

According to Amazon.com there is no difference. Also, from what I can tell, the XL1B2 has a higher numbered Serial #. Check amazon.com link here

Dwight2001

What have you guys been doing to get this to appear in Vista MCE? Should this just be plug & play in Vista - if so which menu?

I saw a post several pages back that seemed like it should be autodetected.

I have a new copy of Vista installed, it autodetected the changer attached but nothing in MCE. I also tried installed the software and a new option appeared in MCE for "My Changer" but clicking didn't produce any results.

Thanks

I don't have a retail version of Vista yet but have been running RC2 and it was simple plug and play. Plus I didn't install any of the Sony Software. Simply put, it was just there when I ran Vista MCE.

Dwight2001

Still no luck, I found a MS support article that enabled the DVD gallery in Vista. I thought about reinstalling MCE but that doesn't appear to be an option since Vista seems to have done away with add/remove Windows components.

Doing some research it appears there should be two new menu's in MCE for this a DVD Gallery and a Manage Discs menu. I decided to email Sony support to see if they have any ideas to enable.

Are there any other PC front ends that support this changer?

Hi Binnerup,

How do you know Media Center doesn't support a dual drive XL1B2? Are you basing that on PowerFile support under Media Center? I haven't used Media Center before so I really don't know.

I would think the main reason why Sony didn't include the extra drive was to offset the cost of the full XL2 Digital Living System and to reduce the complexity of controlling it all. I'm sure Media Center would be able to handle two drives if the driver developers had the right tech specs.

The hardware / connectors exist in the changer to add another drive (see pic links below). As you said, the reason is because it's an OEM'd PowerFile. Keep in mind, I'm using this with Linux + mtx so whether this works on Media Center is irrelevant to me.


It's very possible that you're correct. How do you know the firmware won't support another drive? Has someone at Sony or PowerFile told you this? I'm not trying to be a wise guy, it's certainly possible you have some insider info from the developers.

Me and some developers at the mtx site have been considering the potential of adding another drive. Our initial impression was that the firmware wouldn't support it. After some testing, I have found it may be possible. What I did was I swapped the "primary drive + changer" to the "secondary drive + changer" position. I also swapped the connectors on the under side of the changer to address the new changer position.

The promising part was that I was able to load a CD to the new position! The sad part was that the unload command would cause the firewire kernel module to die, thus losing communications with the drive. Still the idea that the firmware is capable of moving the CD to the new drive location means there is at least minimal support in the firmware for adding another drive + changer.

The people at mtx think that if I have two drive + changer assemblies in the system, the firmware could handle it in a more sane way. I have another XL1B2 being shipped from New Jersey. I'll let you know what happens.

Here are some pics so you can see what I've been up to:
Before Drive + Controller Swap
After Drive + Controller Swap
Pic of Underside 1
Pic of Underside 2
Close up of PCB

I hope I'm not hijacking this thread but I have a question that doesn't seem to be already answered. I have a number of non-commercial disks (home movies, back-ups where I combine a flipper, etc.) can you add manually cover art and other information. I'm thinking of adding one of these changes to a new HTPC I'm purchasing that uses vista. I assume this changer will work with most any HTPC with firewire.

Thanks,

Mike (Da Bears)
go Bears!

Da Bears,

Check out this earlier post . For manually adding in cover art and metadata.
If you decide to install this application, one thing to keep in mind is that when you add .jpg's to the Cover Art folder make sure you resize them to work in MCE, especially for your home movies. (I'm assuming those .jpg's are large ones)
BTW, it works in both XP and Vista MCe.
One thing of caution though, is that I have noticed that DVD+R's sometimes don't play nice with the changer. Never had a problem with a DVD-R.

Dwight2001

Dwight,

Thanks for the response. It definitely sounds do-able to make it work for me. Unfortunately, all my back-ups and home movies are in DVD+R. I used fairly good quality media, however, so maybe I'll have some luck.

It sounds like people have gotten this working pretty well with MyMovies and it sounds much more cost effective than backing up my entire DVD collection to a hard-drive. I haven't used MyMovies, does it take a lot of tinkering?

Thanks again,

Mike (Da Bears)