S1Digital's Blu-ray Changer Has Media Center Link-Up

You may not be familiar with S1Digital, but with the launch of this new Blu-ray disc changer we're quite sure you'll sit up and pay attention.  Based in New Jersey, S1Digital say their primary goal is to improve home entertainment with the latest and best digital products available, so what makes this changer better than the others out there?

For starters, the Changer has a retail price of $1499, so it undercuts behemoths like the Sony by a considerable amount, but then it does only store 100 Blu-ray discs inside.  But this isn't the best part, that honour goes to it's easy link up to one of S1Digital's Media Centers.  Once it's connected up, you can play movies as normal and view cover art or movie information via Windows Media Center, plus each disc can be 'archived' to the installed hard disc for viewing later, without the need to find and play the appropriate disc.

S1Digital make a point of saying that the archive software will only copy discs without any copy protection, but it's still a very handy feature for backing up any photo, music or home videos you may store on a Blu-ray disc.  Media Centers start from the $2000 mark, but for this you get a slot-loading Blu-ray/DVD drive inside, a Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB RAM, a 250GB hard drive, optical and coaxial audio outputs, HDMI and Windows Vista Home Premium installed.  A TV Tuner and Wi-Fi add another $150 to the initial price.

So, for about $3500 you'll have a complete home media centre with physical space for 101 Blu-rays plus a back-up option, DVD playback and all the online content you could want, all wrapped up in a very compact package.  See what we mean about sitting up and taking notice?  The 100 Disc Blu-ray Changer from S1Digital is available now in the USA, but there is no mention of international shipping.