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| Date Reviewed: 01/24/2005 |
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Strengths: Can handle most people's DVD library... even their MP3 CD's. Keyboard input for labelling in filing system. Superb value.
Weaknesses: SACD playback will not work through optical or coaxial digital cables - it requires separate cable(s). Not for those who want easy access to their DVD's.
Summary: This DVD changer is awesome! I placed all of my DVD's and MP3 CD's in here... now the only cases I have out in my living room are the video games. Think of the clutter that I got to clear off my shelves! My family was here over the holidays and all they had to do was go through the on-screen Explorer filing system and press a button to watch a movie! I recommend that you keep your single DVD player for playback of rental/borrowed DVD's. It would be great if there was a "+1" player built-in for this purpose. Works wonderfully with the Sony STR-DE997B AV receiver. If you don't intend to take your DVD's out frequently, then you don't have to worry about load times.
 100% of People (7/7) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 12/26/2005 |
- Silver-Fox
- Member Since:
Dec 2005
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Reviews
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 Ok player... watch out for scratch problem Strengths: Really like the video and sound but...
Weaknesses: 1. Can scratch your DVD's
2. DVD folder Menu is cumbersum and slow
3. Loads the last DVD you were watching when you power up. Should go to folder.
Summary: 2005-12-26 18:40:06 I really like this player BUT it can, at least on some units, develop a problem that scratches your DVD's. Not saying you should not buy one... just beware and current owners, be vigilant.
SYMPTOM:
Some DVD's may sound a little out-of-balance (mechanical rotation sound). Intermittent play of certain DVD's, remove DVD to clean/inspect it and you see one or more half-moon shaped scratches... deep with curled plastic and "DVD" dust that has been gouged out of your DVD.
I entered a call with Sony service who asked me to unplug it for two minutes... oddly enough, this did not solve the problem :)
Sooo... I opened the player and after viewing about 50 DVD changes it all became clear.
BACKGROUND:
To get so many DVD's in the unit and minimize the player depth dimension, Sony designed it to NOT totally move the playing DVD into the player section unlike their 300-disk changer that I also have. They leave the edge of the spinning disk inside your storage tray. To keep the two DVD's on either side from getting in the way, a forked-bracket comes out that is supposed to separate/move them away from the spinning disk.
PROBLEM:
Sometimes the forked bracket that is supposed to move the side disks apart either doesn't or FORCES the DVD to the right of the spinning disk into your spinning DVD which, like a saw, grinds away during the entire time you are watching the playing DVD. Heck, if you are watching Titanic it may actually saw the poor thing in half. If I wasn't serious that may have been a joke.
MY RESOLUTION: (Try at your own risk)
SONY was of no help and did not admit that anyone had ever reported this (evidence in chat forums tells me this is less than honest) So... I made a slight mod to the back screw of the laser assembly (has a small blue rubber boot over the screw) Added a thin washer so it points the leading edge of the spinning disk a little to the left and away from the exposed play side of the next DVD. CAUTION, make sure you don't tilt the player when you move it or your DVD's may come out of the tray.
So far (viewed about 200 disk changes) so good. BTW, my unit is level, the disk tray is in alignment so that is not it and the forked bracket is tight. I think there is just enough variables in the mechanism that it works "most of the time". Some players may never see the issue but mine, and others obviously have.
You could send your player to SONY and perhaps they have a solution they are not making public, perhaps not.
SONY, shame on you for this design and for not being honest with customers who have reported this. Good luck fellow DVD lovers!
100% of People (6/6) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 08/29/2004 |
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Strengths: Easily stores music and video libraries. Playing a single cd or movie is as simple as inserting and playing.
Weaknesses: To fully utilize all functions, there is a learning curve. Using front panel controls is awkward.
Summary: I really like this unit. Simple setup for basic features. I was playing cd's and dvd's in minutes. Advanced features took longer to figure out(be prepared to open the users manual). This replaced my single disc dvd player and 6 disc cd player. Does everything they did plus more. I would definitely recommend this dvd player.
97% of People (33/34) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 02/26/2004 |
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Strengths: Great value and features - 400 disk, progressive scan and Super Audio CD. Video quality is excellent.
Weaknesses: 1. Set up is cumbersome.
2. Everytime player is turned it loads a disk automatically. Should go to DVD List.
3. Many items have to be accessed through menus (i.e. no remote button for random play).
Summary: 2004-04-03 10:35:28 Overall this is great DVD changer and value. The picture quality is excellent even in slow and fast speeds. However, the weaknesses are significant and it makes this DVD changer not very user friendly. If you can live with these weaknesses buy it you won't be dissappointed.
The Pioneer DVD changer is much easier to use, unfortunately they haven't updated their large changer in a long time.
96% of People (26/27) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 05/31/2004 |
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Strengths: 400 Disc DVD/CD/SACD Mega Changer capable of playing DVD-RW/-R, DVD+RW/+R, and SACD Multi-Channel/MP3/CD-R/CD-RW. 96 kHz 24 bit Linear PCM audio decoding, Dolby and DTS Digital Output.
Weaknesses: Disc Explorer on Screen Management System only allows minimal characters for naming of discs. Not easy to manually add data.
Summary: Previously owned a Sony CDP-CX450 400 disc CD changer. Tracking went out so I purchased the Sony DVP-CX985V 400 disc DVD/CD changer. Very impressed with the digital audio output and progressive scan video output. Not overly impressed with the on-screen disc management system, but the audio/video quality makes up for it. Would recommend.
94% of People (29/31) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 02/15/2004 |
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Strengths: Easy to setup, plenty of connection options (progressive scan, dolby digital, etc), Plays everything I've put in it, recognizes DVD titles so you don't have to input, ability to mix both CD's & DVD's.
Weaknesses: Size, it is huge. Would like a simple search feature, although I still have manual reading to do.
Summary: I was looking for a Progressive scan DVD player which played at least 200 DVDs. I ran across this while looking for the earlier model. Aside from the size (it is large), it seems to fullfil everything I was looking for. I just bought a HD ready set and the progressive scan, component ouputs were mandatory. The picture is outstanding. When placing a disk in, it automatically recognizes the title and sets up folders for you. You can enter titles manually such as for SVCD's via keyboard which makes it painless. I believe I am going to love this player the more I use it.
92% of People (22/24) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 01/14/2004 |
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Strengths: A very good value, especially with street prices dropping below $350. Plays DVDs as well as audio CDs, SACDs, and CDs containing MP3s. Can connect a standard computer keyboard to add textual info.
Weaknesses: Fairly slow to load discs (up to about 15 seconds depending on what it is currently doing). No computer interface.
Summary: This is a very good value, especially with street prices now dropping below $350. There aren't many DVD Mega Changers on the market and this changer is far less expensive than a competing Pioneer changer. There is a Sony with 300 disc capacity that flips the disc but there isn't much reason to be able to flip discs.
I'm using it to store DVD Movies. I don't use the changer for the user interface but a combination of Pocket PC with CompactFlash Wireless Ethernet card accessing a Windows XP server running DVDLobby, MainLobby, MainLobby Server, HomeSeer running on Windows XP with an Ocelot IR interface.
Alternatively, the movie database can be built using the changer function with a computer keyboard. Although not as graphical of a method as mine it does appear as though this changer supports creating an extensive Movie database on the changer and accessing it in a variety of ways. Some of the information is obtained with the "Load" command automatically from DVDs but this isn't the case for very many in my collection. By connecting a computer keyboard to the changer, you may add the information in a far more timely method than using a remote.
Overall, I'm very satisfied with this changer. I don't have sufficient experience with it to know how reliable it is though and this is a major concern for a device like this with many mechanical parts.
91% of People (20/22) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 07/30/2004 |
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Strengths: High Capacity, Multi-format support, Multiple Standard A/V outputs, Easy To Start up out of the box.
Weaknesses: Limited High-end option (NO Network Connectivity, No Multi-room Support, Limited Disc Label Editing)
Summary: I have only touched on the options of this player but I do feel it will suit my Mid-range System needs. I do wish it had a few extra options like the networking option and Multi-room support but for $300-400 you can't expect too much.
81% of People (13/16) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 12/08/2004 |
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Strengths: Picture quality. Durability. Price/Performance ratio
Weaknesses: Must burn custom DVD's to effectively use Disk Explorer
Summary: 1. I too used the disk explorer at first. It works, but after spending 5 hours typing in names, and actors, and selecting pictures for the display, I had only done 100 disks. That works out to 20 hours to completely fill the disk explorer menu. Then, if you take a disk out, you MUST make sure you put it back in the same slot, or you have to redo both that disk and the one that you mixed it up with.
2. Standard DVD's are not designed for a jukebox. You must select a DVD, wait till it loads, watch the obnoxious FBI "Warning Of Doom" screen, then select to play the movie. At the end of the movie, the jukebox just sits there.
My answer to both of these issues.
1. DVDShrink the DVD to my computer
2. Re-author the DVD and only include the movie, and the single audio type I use (5.1)
3. Use a program called "title writer" found at dvdrhelp.com to put the name of the movie and the author into DVDtext format inside the DVD movie.
4. Use Virtual Dub Mod to capture a single video frame of the movie.
5. Use TMPGenc to encode the single frame to MP2 format
6. put the MP2 files into a "JACKET_P" folder in the DVD.
7. Burn the result to DVD.
I have about 230 movies in my Jukebox. I put any disk in any slot, and chose to scan all the movies. At the end, every line in disk explorer is filled with the movie name, chief actors, and a frame from the movie displayed next to it. I start playing at disk 1, and about 10 days later, the last movie has played. Actually, I have the jukebox playing 24/7 as a kind of "movie channel" for my home. I turn the TV on anytime and theres always a movie playing. If I don't like the movie, I open the menu and go to another movie. About every week or so, I go back to disk 2 or 3 and start the list over again.
I don't watch regular TV anymore. Just movies.
Highly recommended if you wish to use it this way. If not, just average recommendation.
80% of People (20/25) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 07/28/2004 |
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Strengths: Plays most anything.
Weaknesses: Sometimes it didn't like some of the cheap noname media.
Summary: Other than the size of the device and it not liking some of the cheaper media, this device is pretty sweet. The built in folder (menu) option is a nice way to catalog all 400 CDs or DVDs. Overall, I would recommend the Sony DVP-CX985V to anyone that is looking for a reliable way to store their CDs and DVDs.
76% of People (13/17) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 04/25/2005 |
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 Don't Buy This Player!!!!!!
I'M bought the Sony ... Strengths: nothing
Weaknesses: nothing
Summary: Don't Buy This Player!!!!!!
I'M bought the Sony DVP-CX985V and after few hours,i noticed that the player scratched around 29 dvds(Approx. 600$) of my collection.
After having contact Sony,to tell them what happened with my dvds,they told me they were not responsible for that.All technicians told me
it was a default of this machine because the dvds is to close to one to each others when reading.
I HAVE NO TRUST IN THIS MACHINE AND SONY ANYMORE,THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT THE CUSTOMERS
50% of People (3/6) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 11/12/2005 |
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Dependable? Not!!
Strengths: Features, sound, video quality, variety of media it will play.
Weaknesses: Stops working every way you can imagine. I have now had 4 of these devices courtesy of Sony tech support.
Summary: First, it jammed up and I heard all this grinding noise while it was trying to open up. Eventually after pulling the pieces of a prized jazz cd out, it worked again for awhile. Then it began to skip on DVD's, eventually not playing them at all. It took me quite some time before it wasn't my scratched or dirty disks causing the read errors. Sony's policy is you send it in, and if they deem it a problem, they send you a replacement. They sent me one that had a worse problem than the one I sent them. I sent that one back (had to pay shipping on the first one too). Next one they sent worked - for awhile. Now the audio had died. I have given up on this product. It would be great if it were reliable, but I have to beliewe after going through this many of them that they must all be junk after about a year of use. I got lucky on the first replacement - it was in the 12th month - within days of going out of warranty.
50% of People (1/2) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 07/14/2005 |
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Strengths: Stores 400 discs!!!
Great picture and sound.
Weaknesses: Very big unit, but how else can you store 400 discs?
Somewhat awkward menu structure, takes time to learn.
Summary: I've been very pleased with this unit. I bought it as a glorified DVD case because I ran out of shelf space for all of the cases, but I've been happy with its operation and performance. All 400 discs can be categorized and listed by genre, by title, etc. Now I don't have to move all 250 of my DVD's down one space when I get a new movie that starts with A - this unit keeps an alphabetized list as a handy reference. Also, it plays my DVD-backups flawlessly. The only problems I've noted so far are that it is a huge unit (but it has to be to store 400 discs) and that the menu structure is difficult to understand and requires a bit of a learning curve. These problems, though, are far outweighed by the benefits of this unit. I highly recommend this DVD player to anybody with a large collections of CDs or DVDs.
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| Date Reviewed: 05/15/2005 |
- mkearns7
from PA
- Member Since:
Feb 2005
View Member's:
Reviews
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Strengths: Stores 400 DVDs or CDs
Weaknesses: It's a little hard to access the folder and add DVDs and CDs takes a little bit to get used to but I think it's worth it
Summary: I originally bought this unit for the storage, but was impressed with all the connections, I connected the DVD player to my high-definition TV through the composite cables, the picture quality is very good and so is the sound I was able to connect that through digital cable very nice unit for the price.
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| Date Reviewed: 04/14/2005 |
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Strengths: easy to use
Weaknesses: need a keyboard
Summary: love the product, and still can not beleive how much i saved would recommend the retailer again and again and again. I am still learning about all it's features. one really neat feature is that it recognizes sony dvd's and and automatically adds them to the menu. the 400 cd or dvd storage is humongous and free up so much space in my living room.
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