One of our biggest knocks against Sony's older DVD changers was that disc information usually had to be added manually, which involved connected a PC keyboard to the changer and tediously entering the disc title, song names, etc. The Blu-ray changer is impressive enough as is-it's the first giant Blu-ray changer we've seen-but Sony has gone the extra step of including a 500GB internal hard drive that Sony claims can hold "137 hours of video, 40,000 songs, or 20,000 digital photos". With only about 300 total Blu-ray discs on the market, that might be overkill, but you can fill the gaps with your existing CD and DVD collection. With its rectangular, tower-like design, the HES-V1000 is a 200-disc changer that can play and record to CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs.
Sony's been in the changer business for a long time, but the new HES-V1000 looks completely different than the company's previous offerings and offers some truly cutting-edge features. Usually when we hear about mega-disc changers we're reminded of Sony's older behemoths, which always seemed like a great idea but were often more trouble than they were worth.