CES: Sony plans Vaio PC for handling HD content

Sony is developing a version of its Vaio RA desktop PC that will have a storage capacity of 1.6T bytes and be geared towards storing, editing and distributing high-definition digital video, company officials said Wednesday.

The new Vaio will be designed to complement Sony's HD video cameras and HD televisions, new models of which will be on tap for 2005, said Mike Fidler, senior vice president of the home products division for Sony Electronics, in a press conference at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The new desktop is expected to be based on Intel's 915 chipset with PCI Express peripheral interconnect technology. It will have four serial ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment) ports for connecting hard-disk drives, two optical drives, a media card reader and a TV tuner card. It will run Windows XP Media Center Edition and come bundled with Vegas 5, Sony's software for creating and editing HD content, said Todd Titera, product manager of Vaio PCs at Sony.

Users will be able to load content to the PC from their HD video camera for editing, and then feed the content from the PC to a compatible HDTV using Sony's RoomLink Media Receiver, a networked set-top adapter, Fidler said. RoomLink uses specifications developed by the Digital Life Networking Alliance to interconnect gadgets in the home. A new version of RoomLink is expected by February, according to Sony officials.

Sony's new desktop will be mostly liquid cooled to offset the heat generated by the powerful hardware required to handle HD content, Titera said. The liquid cooling will make for a quieter system, with an average noise level of 28 decibels, compared to the 36 to 37 decibels emitted by a normal PC, according to Titera.

A basic configuration is likely to cost over US$2,000 without a monitor, and a good monitor could add a further $2,000 to the price, Titera said. The machine is expected to be available by the middle of this year, he said.

The Vaio teaser was part of a big HD push by top Sony executives here at CES. They said that most of Sony's future hardware products will be HD-compatible, including the PlayStation 3 and the company's LCD TVs, video cameras, digital cameras and DVD storage products.

Sony will offer more content in HD formats to go with its HD hardware, said Howard Stringer, chairman and CEO of Sony Corp. of America.

"A sophisticated device without content is scrap metal," he said.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.