Customer Reviews

Sony VGP-XL1B2 Media Changer (also: VGP-XL1B)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

None of the reviews on this remarkable product (which Sony actually calls a "Changer/Recorder") mentions the following limitations:

1) you can only rip CDs to the digital formats supported by the Microsoft's WMA Player, specifically WMA and MP3. That's it. If you want uncompressed WAVs, AAC, or anything else, you're out of luck. (It can do lossless WMA, which can be converted to WAVs, but it's still a royal pain to deal with.)

2) the unit itself is gigantic, far bulkier than any consumer PC I've ever seen at 18" wide x 19" deep by 9-1/2" high; it's also very heavy at over 40 pounds. Users will want to place the component on a sturdy desk or cabinet. The good news is, this is not a flimsy consumer device, which you might expect for this price. This is a very heavy-duty unit, in every sense of the word.

3) Sony's manual is terribly inadequate. Many basic tasks are only vaguely hinted at, such as how to change the disk directories or drives on which your library is stored.

4) Although the VGP-XL1B changer is equipped with two Firewire 400 interface jacks (its only i/o ports), the manual advises not to plug anything into the second jack except another changer (daisy-chaining up to five in all).

5) you can also use the system for recording data backups and music to recordable CDs and DVDs, but figuring out exactly how to do this almost requires an EE degree.

6) the functionality of the Media Center interface is kludgy at best, and very buggy at worst.

7) Loading audio CDs into the unit takes quite a bit of time, because Media Center (through Windows Media Player) has to go out on the Net and retrieve all the CD titles, artist names, and song titles. That means the information is only as accurate as entered into Gracenote/CDDB -- which often leaves a lot to be desired. Once the disc info is retrieved, you can then push one button and rip everything to the hard drive, unattended. It takes a long time -- I clocked it at roughly 2 hours for 25 discs -- but at least it requires zero human intervention, aside from loading and unloading.

8) there's only one slot opening in the front, and getting discs in and out of the changer is a little nerve-wracking. I shudder to think what would happen if a disc got loose inside there, because there's no easy way to open it up to manually remove it, short of disassembling the unit.

Sony has recently cut the price of the VGP-XL1B to $[...] (under $[...] if the Amazon rebate is still available), which is an incredible bargain. The Niveus Ice Vault 200 is identical to this unit, but costs $[...] by itself -- probably closer to what this CD/DVD-ROM changer is actually worth.

I suspect the Media Center concept is still one of those things that's not quite ready for prime time. But the Sony system is a small step in the right direction. Maybe Apple will eventually figure it out and show Microsoft how to do it right... again.

Congratulations for Sony in making the first true Media Changer for any Media Center PC that brings library control and access that many have been waiting for. This unit was connected to HP Media Center M7360Y, (5 total units via firewire). First, unit was used to rip 200 CDs at a time to hard drive. Flawless, unsupervised execution allowed easy ripping and cataloging of home 2,000+cd collection.(This time saver alone was worth the purchase.)After ripping CD collection, five units were connected via firewire to store home DVD collection. Flawless cataloging and easy access gives true access to home movie collection for $2,500 instead of $40K+ for movie hardrive storage solutions. Important note, all our media are original purchase items so we have had no problems mentioned in other review that states media was copied, not original. We also are using XBOX360 with Media Center Extender for access to the media library over home network through out the house with no issues. This device gives home Media PCs a real media storage solution that cannot be matched by any other solution at this price point. Only issue, installation on HP Media Center did not match the user manual provided by Sony. A call to Sony Tech support provided a promised call back that has never been received. A second installation of the software proved to provide full functionality with slite difference of Media Center PC menu that is covered in the owners manual. Every function is present and working, you just have to look elsewhere in Media Center menu to find the options. (You must make sure that your Media Center PC is using Microsoft Media Center Rollup 2 before installing!!!) Highly recommended product!!!

Simply brilliant!

Easy setup, effortless operation and simply no hassles. I am thinking of getting a second one - especially since they can be daisy-chained.

My only objections are a) the poor availability of movie content over the Internet from counties outside the US and b) that it will be rendered obsolete by HD-DVD or BlueRay - but then, so will everything else available now; and probably not within the next five years anyway.

I am using 2 of these units with Vista Ultimate, and I have not had any problems. I didn't even bother to install the Sony software that came with it. It was just plug and play. Vista recognized it as soon as I powered it up.

I have not tried this unit with WinXP MCE.

The printing on the Sony box it's shipped in says "VGP-XL1B" but the sticker with the model and serial number on it say "VGP-XL1B2"

I purchased a unit in December for twice the price that is listed now. Yes it took some time to load 200 dvds but the operation was flawless. I also own a Sony Cx985v which holds 400 DVDs. Although the unit performs fine the disc filing feature was a nightmare. I had to type titles in and it was slooow.
Now my wife can search for a movie and play it without a problem. I am also in the process adding a xbox 360 to extend the video and audio to other rooms. I plan to order another unit and daisy chain them together. I agree with a previous reveiwer. Media Servers are thousands of dollars. My entire investment is under $ 1500 excluding the dvds.
Even if you decide to purchase a monster hard drive(a higher cost) you still have work around the copy protection on the DVD.

We purchased this product so that we would have a way to organize or DVD's and also be able to use Media Center to play them in. The product has allowed us to do both, but there have been a few glitches that we are hoping there might be a software update that will fix some of the issues in the future.
When we first tried to load the disks in we were only able to load about ¼ to load, the rest came up with errors. After several days we were able to load the remainder in. We have on occasion received errors that the device cannot read the DVD and we have to eject the DVD and reload.

I'm embarking on an ambitious CD ripping project (4500+) and was looking for something like this, so that I wouldn't be a slave to my PC for the next year or so. Found one of these second-hand on ebay, as they're no longer available anywhere else. Took me a little while to get it up and running with Vista, but it's working great now. 3rd-party software is now available to do batch ripping with this unit. I'm using software provided by DBPoweramp. I'm converting everything to FLAC. I did a test run with 15 CD's, and it worked great. The MediaCenter software works, too, but it's pretty clumsy compared with the DBPoweramp, which cost only about thirty-five bucks. DBPoweramp will let you rip to just about any codec you want, including FLAC and Apple Lossless and all of the lossy formats. You can also batch convert between any format with DBPoweramp. I'll end up saving thousands from what I would have spent with a ripping service. Based on my trial run, it looks like it will take about 20 hours or so to rip 200 CD's, but it's truly "fire-and-forget," so I figure, I'll just load it up once a day until I'm done.

Overall not bad for the money, but some very irritating issues.

1st and foremost the only DVD's that the unit will recognize and give information for are originals. That means if you copied any movies, all the player will show is some generic name that you can edit, no info and no options to give it that info. About half of my movies are copied. The interface would be nice if all of your movies were store bought. Also the info it does provide is the bare minimum. The previous setup on my media center PC showed way more info.

2nd, don't buy this expecting to be able to copy anything from your harddrive to disc except for NTSC t.v shows. That is the only option they give you. I had 10's of hours of home video that I hoped to transfer easily to disc, but you just cant do it with the current software.

3rd, yea it is real big, but it stays cool and is very quiet except when it searches for a disc in I think a reasonable time.

4th, it is real picky with scratched DVD's or CD's

I have a very large media library and I puchased this product to download all of my music. If the changer is filled (200 discs)some of them will not be downloaded. This happened all 5 times I have filled the changer. It is also not a very quick process. Had I known about the speed of the downloading I might not have opted to buy it. The one benefit is that it can download music while you are at work or asleep. It will probably work well for keeping media that some might wish to store and have easy access (movies or a small music collection). This product is not itunes friendly either. All media must be converted from wma files to apple media files.