Sony's Vaio VGC-RC204 Media Center PC is the first computer we've seen to come with a built-in Blu-ray writer for playing Blu-ray movies and recording your own content to blank discs.
We were impressed with the VGC-RC204's performance in our Windows benchmarks. It sped through our video-editing and multitasking tests thanks to its 3.2GHz dual-core Pentium D 940 processor. The 1GB of RAM included is more than enough for most tasks, although at this price we'd expect to see 2GB for memory-intensive tasks such as video editing.
The VGC-RC204 is a competent games machine. The GeForce 7600GT clocked up a smooth 48.1 frames per second (fps) in our Doom 3 test and 23.7fps in Call of Duty 2. Dedicated gamers will want to upgrade to a more powerful card, though; again, we'd have expected something a bit better for this price.
While Blu-ray is the big selling point of this PC, its writing speed is not particularly impressive. The drive included is supposed to record Blu-ray discs at 2X, but writing 22GB of data to TDK- and Verbatim-branded write-once and rewritable discs took one and a half hours, which is closer to 1X performance. By comparison, Pioneer's BDR-101A Blu-ray writer, which we reviewed in What's New: Storage, Shopper October 2006, took 46 minutes to write a BD-R disc and just over an hour to write a BD-RE disc. The VGC-RC204 can write to CDs, though, unlike the BDR-101A. A DVD-ROM drive is also present, but since the Blu-ray writer can write only to recordable DVDs at 8X, we'd have preferred a second DVD writer instead.
Attempting to play back a pre-recorded Blu-ray movie disc was even more frustrating. The supplied Blu-ray version of WinDVD would play the movie for only a second and then refused to proceed further. Updating to the latest version made no difference. Unfortunately, there are few other Blu-ray playback programs available.
You can record TV shows using the included remote and hybrid TV tuner, but there's only one tuner so you can't record one programme while watching another. You can add another TV tuner to the free PCI or PCI-E x1 slot, but it'll be a tight fit inside the cramped interior. The PC uses the familiar Windows XP Media Center Edition to manage recorded shows instead of the Sony software used by previous Vaios. S-video and composite video inputs are present, but there are only DVI and S-video ports for outputting video.
Two 300GB hard disks are joined in a RAID 0 array to give 600GB of hard disk space, which is more than enough for holding all your recorded shows. If you need more storage, you'll have to plug an external drive into one of the two FireWire ports or one of six USB2 ports, as there's no room inside the case for another internal disk. A memory card reader is built in, though.
No monitor is included, but a wireless mouse and a keyboard with built-in track pad are provided. The keyboard is responsive with plenty of feedback, but the teardrop-shaped mouse won't suit everyone. The generous software bundle includes Adobe's Photoshop Elements 4 and Premiere Elements 4, plus Sony's own video- and audio-editing packages.
The Vaio VGC-RC204 is a quiet, stylish PC with good performance in Windows and lots of useful software, but it's also expensive because of the Blu-ray drive. Write times are slow and Blu-ray movie playback isn't reliable. There's no point paying such a premium for a feature you'll barely use, and plenty of PCs are much better value.
System Specifications
MEDIA CENTER PC 3.2GHz Intel Pentium D 940, 1GB RAM, two 300GB hard disks, 256MB Nvidia GeForce 7600GT, BD-R/RE DVD+/-RW +/- DL, DVD-ROM
Author: Alan Lu
Computer Shopper Online