Content area
Full text
Taking the new PowerFile C200 CD/DVD jukebox to an Apple dealer is a pleasant surprise. Normally, I don't travel with products, but this 200-disc system is tailored for the Mac world-an area we haven't covered a lot in terms of Mac-compatible network products and their usage on Mac-oriented networks. So I wanted to get the impressions of real-life users along with my own impressions, so I could then explore the Mac resurgence more in the future. If first impressions count for anything, the C200 should draw rave reviews among storage-starved Mac types: I almost sold two of them just sitting at a dealer's for a few hours.
The C200 is a new product from a new company, PowerFile, located in Silicon Valley and known in its earlier days as Escient. There's no question that this is a Mac peripheral to start with. Although it will run with any FireWire-equipped system (PCs included), it has the characteristic translucent, plastic facia a la Apple's latest line of iMacs and G4s (this time in a contemporary light blue).
The jukebox is small, measuring a mere 16" x 19" x 9" and weighing in at a featherweight 20 lb. It will hold 200 discs when full. It has three FireWire connectors in the back (for daisy-chaining additional peripherals) which should provide plenty of expandability. The front of the unit includes an LCD screen and five navigation keys: Load, Eject, Menu, and two arrow keys.
Unfortunately, the screen doesn't offer much in the way of management other than showing you the currently mounted discs. It would be nice if it had some on-board diagnostics to test the system like the Pioneer jukebox.
The unit comes with two internal DVD-ROM readers. They can access CD-ROM and DVD-ROM-either Apple [HFS) or PC (ISO-9660) format-as well as CD-DA and XA, Video CD, PhotoCD, Multisession, CDR and CD-RW, DVD-R, and pressed DVD-Video. It does not handle DVD-RAM or any other flavor of rewritable DVD disc at this time. It also doesn't do recording, which might be a future upgrade, perhaps when those DVD writers come down in price.
Hardware-wise, the jukebox does require a FireWire connection, so PC users will probably need to get an IEEE-1394 card installed. On the Mac side, all G4s...