Sony's Digital Living System Combines Home Theater Functionality with the Brains of a PC

Two sleek components comprise Sony's Digital Living System: a high-end multimedia PC and a 200-disc media changer/recorder. Both are designed to fit into a home entertainment rack and the elegant silver and black casings are sure to complement the rest of your home entertainment system. The PC connects to a television via an HDMI cable, the emerging standard for digital connectivity, to output high-definition video and multi-channel digital audio in a single connection.

Close collaboration with Microsoft and tight integration with the Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 operating system ensure unique functionality when using the XL1 system's disc changer. Discs inserted into the changer are automatically detected by the PC which downloads (over a wired or wireless network) available metadata on each one, including jewel case covers and artist information. For movies, an in-depth synopsis is also downloaded in addition to the star, director, producer details and more. All of this information is easily sorted and accessed using the included wireless keyboard or remote control.

"Sony has innovated once again by introducing a product that is a monumental step forward in defining the way consumers enjoy digital entertainment," said Mike Abary, vice president of VAIO product marketing for Sony Electronics in the U.S. "With the XL1, users can still manage all their meaningful entertainment content such as downloaded music, home movies and personal photos. But the really groundbreaking functionality is the additional ability to easily organize, sort, and access packaged content -- all of the DVD movies and audio CDs that have been traditionally relegated to a bookshelf."

"The Sony VAIO XL1 Digital Living System combines an innovative and cost-effective CD/DVD changer with a state-of-the-art Windows Media Center Edition PC, offering consumers a very cool, high-quality living room entertainment experience," said Joe Belfiore, general manager of the Windows eHome Division at Microsoft Corp. "The XL1 is a result of close collaboration between Sony and Microsoft, and our two companies will continue to work together on future products that extend the Windows Media Center platform."

Rip and Burn

With the XL1 Digital Living system, you can consolidate your music library by backing up your music CDs to your hard drive to be stored along with all of your downloaded music. With the touch of a few buttons, you can automatically and sequentially record up to 200 audio CDs from the media changer to the hard drive along with available album covers and track information. You can also record a series of television show episodes to the hard drive and easily transfer them to blank DVDs stored in the changer. The system alerts you to how many discs are needed and you can burn a whole season of your favorite TV program to DVDs to take on your next road trip.

In addition to being the ultimate home A/V entertainment center, the XL1 system is a powerful PC delivering robust performance for running multiple applications simultaneously. With its Intel Pentium D dual-core processor, ample DDR2 memory, PCI-E graphics and room for up to three SATA hard drives (RAID ready), the VAIO XL1 system is well-equipped to tackle your most demanding tasks. Internal PC components are liquid-cooled to ensure quiet operation worthy of a living room. Advancements such as Sony's Sound Reality technology boost audio performance for high-quality digital sound.

Web browsing has been especially designed for an engaging living room experience. With the touch of the remote, you can quickly expand your favorite web pages for comfortable reading from your couch.

The Digital Living System will be sold as a package and will be available next month for about $2,300 at national retailers, online at SonyStyle.com or at SonyStyle stores.

Source: Sony