- Great changer - Great way to manage your DVD collection effectively - Protect your DVDs.. no fingerprints - Rock solid software/hardware, just leave on 24x7 and watch DVDs on a whim

- The graphic user interface is not very easy to navigate using the remote or keyboard and your TV screen. You really need the touch screen. - No software updates have been provided in years. I guess the last version was stable. It would have been nice if they would have provided an update to change the user interface to look like the Fireballs! - Noise. This unit is actually a PC with a hard drive and cooling fan. If you like your home theater quiet, put this behind glass or in a rack in the closet. - No direct ethernet Internet access is supported. You need a phone line for good old fashioned dial up. Though, the access times are pretty fast.

The Powerplay was Escient's first system to manage DVD and CD collections. It has now been replaced by the DVDM-100. It consists of a controller and a separate 200 DVD/CD changer similar to the mega CD/DVD changers by Sony or Kenwood. The controller is a standard full size audio component (roughly 3U size) that contains a single DVD/CD player and contains the brains of the system. The changer can be placed about 15 feet away, connected by a single firewire cable for the audio and the video. Every CD or DVD that you load into the changer or single DVD/CD tray is automatically looked up just like iTunes gets CD information, but this adds DVD covers, titles, tracks and summaries in addition to getting info for your CDs. You can view your entire collection through a user interface on your TV screen. Features: ----------- - The DVD/CD changer rocks. These changers are no longer produced by Escient, but have been spun off and are now under the Powerfile name. I think this changer is what used to be called a Powerfile C200S Solo, but not positive. It has a solid metal face with real buttons, not the colored plastic of the new Powerfiles. These must be the best changers on the planet. Strong carousel mechanism. It makes loading and unloading discs easy. The display on the changer gives you slot number and title. Hit eject, and it find the disc and ejects it. Click load, insert the disc, and it grabs it and puts it in a slot. Keeps your discs dust free and protected. Makes those Sony changers look like cheap junk. - Changer lets you mix and match CDs and DVDs. Good if you have a small collection. - You can connect multiple changers together to support over 1200 DVDs. - User interface lets you view your collection by covers, titles, and genres. - DVD and CD information is grabbed from the internet. You provide the phone line, and Escient provides the internet connectivity free of charge and performs any look ups you need. - The Music management functions are minimal. You can view and categorize your CDs. But the functionality supported is less than you get in the Fireball units. Just basic functions. - Escient gets music and movie information just like iTunes. It correctly identified and cataloged 100% of my DVD collection of standard Hollywood movies. The hit rate for non standard DVDs, like those provided with CDs in combinations (like the Eagles Best Of package) was very low. The Powerplay provides a great set of screens that allow you to fully document a DVD not in their database and scan your own cover art, if needed. - No digital media management here. You need all discs in the changer. The harddrive has the operating system and the CD/DVD database only. Control: --------- - The system can be controlled with either a small handheld remote, which is so simple, that my wife has never been able to figure it out. The better option is the supplied wireless keyboard, though in the darkness when watching a movie, it is impossible to use. You really need to copy these commands to your remote, though I have not been successful in getting my universal remote to read the Escient remote codes. - Escient has LCD touchpanels that plug right into the rear of the controller so you can easily access your discs. The user interface was really geared for the touch panel user. It works great and you can view video on the panel when a DVD is playing when you enter the "play" view. - The system integrates with AMX and Crestron via RS-232 so you can add advanced controls.

Similar Products Used:

- Escient Fireball - Imerge S1000