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 | Sony DVP-CX985V 400 Disc Progressive DVD / SACD Player Too Low To Display  Click here for more information |
Customer Reviews
The Solution
I liked the thing so much I bought two. Hate the remote, can't figure out the Disc Explorer feature, but it swallows up the discs. Until you have emptied the shelves of hundreds of jewel boxes and DVD cases you just can't fully appreciate the miracle of this machine. Forget all the features--it plays just about everything and if there is a sound quality difference from my old one disc Denon player, I'm incapable of hearing it. The DVDs play perfectly and I'm much more comfortable if the kids merely press buttons than if they are handling the DVDs.
Sure, in a few years everything will probably be kept on harddrive, but it is important to me to have my collection instantly accessible. DO NOT attempt to use the features--I spent hours entering title information and somehow it all got erased. I keep a log on the computer and a recent printout right next to the machine--it is so easy to dial up the disc you want that you find yourself re-discovering your music collection--not to mention the instant access to all your movies. This machine is worth twice its price.
Great if you know what you're dealing with.
Thanks to the dire warnings in reviews like these, I purchased this item with low expectations. I chose a local retailer instead of an online one because I knew I might want to return it. Got a floor model for $345, so I was satisfied with the price.
One reviewer mentioned that he avoided the Disc Explorer entirely by typing up a list and accessing discs by disc number only. I took his advice, and after a cursory look at the Disc Explorer I haven't used it since. Sony screwed up here, but the rest of the player is great.
(It's inexplicable why Sony designed the Disc Explorer the way they did. It shows only 5 titles at a time, you can't page down and it doesn't load titles automatically from most discs. It's really terrible. WTF, Sony?)
If the remote had a jog dial so I could dial up a disc number, I'd be in heaven. As it is, I use the
+/- keys or press "Folder", then type in the disc number, enter, enter. This works fine. I'm happy with the disc-loading speed.
What I'm most thrilled with is that it plays all my DVD+R home movies perfectly. Whew. Didn't know whether they'd play when I bought it. Having 20 years of my life on deck changes everything. I can go to my kids' birthdays, Christmas of any year or specific vacation memories in seconds. Without a player like this, most home video lies unwatched and even if you pop a tape in, you can't locate anything quickly. With everything transferred to DVD and loaded in a jukebox, I can finally really use my home movies. Same with my complete Monty Python and Seinfeld sets. If you want to put on The Argument Sketch or The Contest, you can go right to it. Oh, and children are incapable of putting DVDs back in their cases. Problem solved.
One nightmare I read about but didn't have was scratched discs. My player is fine in this regard.
My wife asked my why I bought it if it had so many annoying problems. Here's the deal:
1. This player costs $200 less than the Pioneer.
2. This player is progressive scan.
3. The Pioneer is much older.
4. It does what it's supposed to do.
I can't comment on the picture or audio quality since I'm not a videophile or audiophile anymore. I have the thing plugged directly into a 27" tv, not even stereo. But I'm sure if I get a plasma tv and hook it into a surround system it'll be awesome.
My wife is happy it plays CDs. She rarely listened to CDs before because it was too much trouble to find them and put them on the player. Now, she can just dial up (on the player) what she wants and press Play.
Buy one and work around the shortcomings. It'll change your life.
Pros
1. This player costs $200 less than the Pioneer.
2. This player is progressive scan.
3. The Pioneer is much older.
4. It does what it's supposed to do.
5. Plays DVD+Rs.
Cons
1. Disc access interface. Just avoid Sony's Disc Explorer and you'll be fine.
2. Huge, but that's not a big problem for me.
A great device for the price
First what this is: it's a great device to easily store and retrieve your DVDs. When reading the reviews here before I bought it I was concerned about the access speed. This is not an issue if you simply maintain a list of the DVDs you have in the player. The progressive scan picture is good and if you enter the slot number of a disc it quickly plays it. This is what I wanted out of this player and it delivers.
I also have a Sony 300 CD player and was concerned that the DVD remote control signals would interfere with the CD player (so that if I turned on the DVD player and wanted to play disc 4 that the CD player would also turn on and play disc 4). This concern is unfounded and there's no overlap in the remote control signals (and if there were, the DVD remote has three settings that enable it to effectively use one of three different sets of commands to avoid this problem - a nice feature).
I have had no problem with the 300 disc CD player so I am confident in the quality of Sony's DVD mega changer.
One negative: when you stop watching a move, the DVD player only remembers the location where you stopped it for a single DVD and only if you don't turn off the DVD player. In contrast, a 5 disc Sony player that I also have is great in that it remembers the location of where you last stopped 50 different DVDs - which enabled you to avoid having to watch the FBI warning and other nonesense everytime you put in a disc.
I have not even tried to use the menu system to retrieve a disc (because of all of the negative comments that I've read), nor have I tried to enter data about the DVD's into the unit (I used a keyboard to enter data into my CD player and it was a pain, but the data was not lost even when power was lost for over an hour). As mentioned above, the menu system can be avoided if you create a simple table with the slot number and DVD title.
Overall, this does what I'm looking for and the price is great for what you get!
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Check out the Friday Only Sale at J&R - Today Only - Many Items on Sale
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Last update: 06/18/2005