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By Stoney B. Hager “no1_player”
I thought it would be kind of like the sony dvd changer , it loads quite abit slower and it don’t have any way to add thumbnail pics for the menu when it is not in the grace notes. Other wise it still has a good piture a sound and you don’t have a bookshelf of moives on the side of your tv.
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By Graham Jenkins
The only feature I don’t like is the HDCP.I have a fairly exspensive projector but don’t carry an HDCP signal,which cost me about 75.00 dollars to find out.I can use the component vidio to bypass this but you can only upconvert though the HDMI.other than that it’s a good machine.
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By M Wright “GreyfoxVt”
Well, I have received and installed my new Sony BCD-CX960 Blue Ray Carousel, and it has brought some heartache along with it. I will start with the bad first, this is a big animal, even with my huge Ethan Allen AV cabinet, it still won��t allow me to close the front top door, (which is the only place it would somewhat fit). I like the simple setup and the Ethernet options, but the Gracenote is not able to resolve my DVD copies, even those with a complete disk copy, and not just the movie. I inserted 250+ DVDs and about 50 Blue Ray DVDs, and of those about 30 are copies from the original which did NOT auto recognize by Gracenote.
The configuration of the names in a manual mode is a bit quirky, but workable, only you cannot attach an ICON for the file, so it just shows a grey DVD disk instead. The manual indicated you could set the Genre for the input DVDs, but I was not able to do so, and now they are listed as separate movies and not grouped with the others. I also see no way to add additional comments to the DVD such as Gracenote does for Actor, Director, etc. Lastly the ICONs are very small, even on a 55�� Flat Screen TV, which make them next to impossible to really see or read.
Another note, I am using a Logitech Harmony 1000 controller for my system, and it is a bit awkward to work, so I am keeping the original controller handy�K
On the good side, the unit is faster than I would have thought, and loading and unloading is very easy. The Rental slot #1 is a neat idea, and works well. The Gracenote recognition when it works is fairly nice, although I did get titles which had nothing to do with the movie, and instead indicated a series and a collectors set name with the Director�K? The ease of use once I figured the menu system is straight forward and the sorting is very nice with all the different options. I do wish that you could override the grouping, and possibly you can, and I have just not figured it out yet.
I really like the automatic update feature for the firmware, it is nice it tells me it can be upgraded when an upgrade becomes available, and it is easy to do �
For the price I am not sure this is a great deal, I do like the unit despite its size, and hope a future firmware release will improve so minor misses�K
On my scale it is a 4.5 of 5
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By Jerry W. Reynolds “jerry”
The fine print does not say you have to be connected to internet for the machine to save the movie titles for each DVD. The older model did not need access to internet…. it read the DVD for info.
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By Dean K. Gibson
I previously owned the Sony DVP-CX995V 400-disc DVD changer, and it was so-so: If you wanted to use the unit’s directory for selecting a DVD and then play it, you had to fiddle with a slide switch on the remote!!! Other user interface issues were just as archaic, and it missed getting the titles of many (about 65%) DVDs off the media (whereas my PC did just fine).
The new BDP-CX960 is a MAJOR improvement:
1. The on-screen menu is much more extensive and capable, although a bit confusing when you first turn it on. Getting to the “home” (directory) menu screen when playing a disc is instantaneous (unlike the DVP-CX995V).
2. The ability to retrieve DVD/Blu-ray disc data from the Internet is a big improvement, and it only missed for about 2% of the discs.
3. Applying a firmware update over the Internet was seamless (with the DVP-CX995V, you had to order or burn an update CD).
4. Finally, better options for controlling the aspect ratio. I know there are idiots in the universe that want every movie (no matter the aspect ratio) to fill the entire screen (no matter the distortion), but I’m not one of them.
5. The remote control is a LOT easier to use!
6. The claimed ability for the unit to control a compatible TV (“Bravia” ?) seems nice, but I don’t have a Sony TV.
Minor criticisms & suggestions:
1. What’s with the bright light that shines in the display when you play a Blu-ray disc? Is that to impress your friends??? I had to set the display to “dim” to make the “Blu-ray” light not be distracting in a dark room. Feature suggestion to Sony: Option to disable the !@#$% light. Sony, if you are going to go to the trouble of having a bright light, why not have it shine on the numbers in the carousel tray when the door is open (duh …)?
2. Nit: Yes, I had a 1GB USB memory stick laying around, but how much money did that save Sony for extra memory?
3. What this unit REALLY NEEDS is an embedded web server (like virtually every other Internet-capable intelligent device on the planet) to provide a web interface over the Ethernet port for:
a. Controlling the device.
b. Keying in disc titles/genres/actors/etc. This would solve the keyboard interface issue without any additional hardware, and embedded web servers don’t take much memory or computing power. You could also import images for the discs that don’t have one (or the wrong one).
c. Saving & restoring disc titles/etc (preferably in XML format). Once my DVP-CX995V lost power, and the several dozen titles I had entered were gone (this was a MAJOR incentive to sell the DVP-CX995V). Granted, the Gracenote DB found virtually all of my current titles, but still …
4. Nit: When playing music CDs, the remote’s “TIME” button cycles between displaying on the TV the track time played, the track time left, the disc time played, and the disc time left. Ah, Sony, isn’t there enough room on the TV screen for all four times???
5. Why oh why does this player (like the DVP-CX995V) think it has to load some disc (any disc) before it will respond to the remote control? Still, it’s not as bad as the DVP-CX995V.
6. Nit: The unit displays (on its own display) the titles of music CDs when loaded, but not DVDs. Why??? This would be especially helpful if the title would be displayed as you rotated the carousel with the door open …
Other comments:
1. This is a 1080p-capable HD device, primarily intended for HDMI output, although there is component output (won’t send 1080p signals, though). Accordingly, there is no S-video output (although strangely enough, there is a composite video output).
2. Verizon’s FiOS remote control worked with the DVP-CX995V, but has no compatible IR codes for the BDP-CX960, and the BDP-CX960 remote knew nothing about the Verizon FiOS STB or my Harman-Kardon receiver. Time to look at the Logitech remotes …
3. Some reviewers (not here) have commented as to what’s wrong with just having a well-organized bookshelf to hold your CDs/DVDs/BDs, instead of this unit? Answer: DISK HANDLING.
All in all, this is an excellent product for my purposes, and the nits are only how to make the product better (all but one of my suggestions could be solved in software).
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By J. Gabriel
I had Sonys 400 disc dvd player, and i loved it. I decided to upgrade to the 400 disc blu-ray player and am in general very pleased with it. The only real complaint I have is that it takes forever to load and play a disc. Other than that it is really cool to compare dvd quality to bluray quality, one can really tell a difference.
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By Kevin Stowell
After you put your discs on the carousel do not “load” the titles until you are online with your internet connection. I made the mistake of “loading” the titles without being online and the internet connection will not overwrite what the “loading” did which was pretty much nothing. I’m guessing I will have to remove my 230 discs long enough to “unrecognize” the presence/abscence of discs and then reload them on to the carousel BEFORE going online and letting the titles, etc. be supplied by Gracenote. While your there, have the exchanger menu set to upgrade the software for this. I don’t know if any upgrades are available yet but, as I understand the situation, it’s automated so–why not?
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By J. R. Harper “SciFi Junky”
This 400 disc player is a vast improvement, I had Sony’s previous model the DVP-CX985V and it has nothing on this model. First of all the GUI is ten times better, the way the movies are displayed. You can sort & group movies better and easier. Being able to connect to the internet for automatic Gracenote access when you put in a movie for the titles & picture display is the best thing they could have ever done. All your movie titles are listed on the main screen instead of like previous models having to go through folders. The “rental slot” button is another great additon, push this button and it automatically goes to slot 1 everytime for rentals or borrowed movies. The picture quality is great and the sound is excellent, no complaints there. The only downside is disc access time is still a little slow. Also, the unit is pretty bulky so you need a good size shelf or cabinet for it.
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By Jane Doe “Don’t forget to check the Gold Box!”
It is almost impossible to expect a computer to recognize 399 discs (the rental slot I left open…good feature) right off the bat.
I loaded my grandfather’s DVD collection which is over 2000 discs so we barely made a dent. He likes mainly classic films like Bette Davis, westerns, Gone with the Wind, War movies, etc. He also has an extensive War Documentary Collection around 200.
Set up was fast and easy once we purchased the right internet repeater. There is a ethernet connection that is required for Gracenote to work. The system works when you directly plug it into your internet router or if you get a system like the following. [...] That is very easy to use. You plug your router into the ethernet adapter and then plug the other adapter near your DVD player, hook up the ethernet cable to your DVD player and you are ready to go. Make sure you plug the NETGEAR ethernet adapter directly into the wall though, it will not work through a surge protector I found that out after about an hour, I should have read the directions.
We decided to load all of the War Documentary, Betty Davis, and some classic Comedy (Lucy, Carol Burnett, Benny Hill) 399 discs into the player. It took around 2:30 hrs to complete the load with all of the discs. A big problem though, Only 281 discs were recognized. I had to leave so I couldn’t figure out which ones loaded and which ones didn’t. The Blue Ray discs were all recognized by GraceNote but I think some of the old westerns and classic films were not. I wish that Gracenote had a way where you could access the internet and send the info to the player. I haven’t looked into it too much though.
Everything else was good so I def recommend this player.
I do suggest that you write down what you put into what slot while loading your discs so that you don’t have to play the movie to see what it is before manually inputting the title, year, genre etc. That would take a long time since it takes about 10-20 seconds to load a DVD once you ask the player to play it. I found that a little disturbing. A regular DVD player takes around 8 seconds to load the DVD. Once you press play on a normal 1 disc DVD player the DVD starts playing pretty rapidly. This 400 disc player takes a little bit of time. So if you don’t know what is in slot 243 and you want to manually input the data, you have to wait 20 seconds for the player to load disc 243 to see what movie is in the slot. Or you will have to sit by the 400 disc player and press 243, eject, look at the DVD and then manually input the data.
Oh and get a comfortable chair if you are going to put all of these DVD’s into the player in one day. Sitting on the floor inputting these DVD’s took a while and my back still hurts and I am only 30.
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By Timothy L. Grimm “Reaper”
I’ve owned two of Sony’s 400 disc DVD mega changers (DVP-CX995V) since they came out about five years ago, and I really love them. You just can’t beat the convenience of being able to browse your DVD library using a remote.
The only thing that I regretted when I made the leap to Hi Def discs a few years ago was giving up the convenience of being able to put my discs in a mega changer. So naturally I jumped at the opportunity to purchase one of these Blu-ray mega changers as soon as I found one for a reasonable price.
The only thing that I’m disappointed with this device is the size. It’s 2″ higher and 1″ deeper than its predecessor. This may not sound like much but it makes a big difference. It’s quite a bit heavier too.
A notable improvement to this model over the previous one is the ability to download disc information via an Internet connection (from the Gracenote database). This worked well for me as 54 of the 55 Blu-ray discs that I inserted were found and catalogued. I wasn’t crazy about some of the genres that Gracenote assigned but fortunately I was able to change them. I was also able to tweak disc titles as desired.
When you do have to input disc information manually, it’s tedious. The remote uses a cell phone keypad texting paradigm and that’s not bad (and quite an improvement over the previous model), but this is just not the kind of data entry that lends itself to a remote. What’s really needed is USB keyboard support. The previous model supported a keyboard. And while it was essential for imputing information into the previous model (there was no Internet connection so almost all information had to be manually entered), it would still be nice to be able to use a keyboard with this model too.
The box art in the GUI is cool. Sure, it would be better if it was larger (such as with a Netflix player) but still, it’s pretty cool.
I like that the changer remembers how you last sorted the discs even after it’s powered off. I like to leave mine sorted by genre and then title.
My last nit is with the Blu-ray format itself. Why do some discs load so agonizingly slowly? (I’ve had a couple of other Blu-ray players so I know that it isn’t a problem with this one.) Why do some discs block the changer from resuming play where you left off? It’s not a good thing when copyright protection gets in the way of the viewing experience. And if you ask me, HD DVD was a superior format. It’s too bad that there won’t be a mega changer that incorporates Blu-ray and HD DVD.
All in all, this is a great upgrade from the previous DVD model and is an excellent addition to my home theater system.