Superb sound and picture quality.

large size, and awkward interface

Unlike many of the other reviews, I am VERY pleased with the video quality and the audio quality of this unit. I am comparing it to the DVP7000, and it is equal or better in all video and audio facets of performance.

Unlike the Pioneer unit, this unit also offers automatic selection of the audio channel with the highest number of channels and makes unnecessary manual selection with each disc of the audio format with the highest number of channels (a big plus). Also, re the video quality, it is quite "filmlike" on my projection LCD set, and I couldn't be more pleased with this.

Similar Products Used:

DVP-7000

200 DVD capacity, Bundles of Features, Sound and picture quality, loading is pretty quick as oppose to my Pioneer DV-606D

The front panel is a cheap snap type of cover. It seems that the intensions for the GUI was well intended, but fell very short of providing any significant hoorah to the visual file system. Very big, remote is aweful.

First off I was very well aware of what I was getting into. I have read each and everyone's reviews on this site as well as Epinions and Etown.com. It was pretty much a toss up between the Pioneer DV-F727 or The Sony. I have a Pioneer DV-606D and I had al lot of problems with it, until they finally replaced it. Since then I have not had any problems, but the thought of having a problem with a player that holds 200 DVD's, I was not willing to risk. So sony it was. I must say the sony player is a lot better than I thought it was going to be. As far as slow access to the titles I did not have that problem. I had all of my titles entered on my HPC in pocket EXEL and primarily didnot even have to you the explorer. However I must admit the whole thing is unnecesarily difficult. Mind you I used a keyboard. First off I do not like the fact that you have to Load every CD into memory again if there are any added DVD's that you want to enter information on. And that took atleast an hour (I fell asleep waiting for it to load all of my 145 DVD's). Despite it's shortcoming, I must say that the Sound and Video quality are extremely good. It blew away my brothers Toshiba DVD. I have had this unit only for a couple of days and cannot really make any true judgements on its performance, but I can say that it plays movies pretty quickly. I will put in an updated review when I have had this unit for a couple of months and then give a true review. However for now I can say it is better than what I expected. I am going to give it 5 stars for value and 3 for an overall rating because anything this many features should have been made a bit easier to operate and if you are going to add features they should be full not lack luster.

Similar Products Used:

Pioneer DV-606D Toshiba 3109

Its capacity was its only draw but now Pioneer has smaller unit that holds 300. Sure the video/audio is good but so are most other units so this isn't a strength but a requirement.

Human factors is a JOKE, no CD-R's, SLINK support is PATHETIC, more and more

From a hardware perspective, no real complaints.
The unit is bulky but I could see that before I bought it. It fit in my abinet and that was good enough for me. And I've had no jam problems that others have mentioned (knock on wood).

So what's wrong with DVP-CX850D? In a nutshell, the software engineers (and human factor engineers) who helped develop this product need to find a new line of work (maybe they could handle flipping burgers at McDonald's).

Every single aspect of the remote control operation is pathetic. It is completely non-intuitive. And if you accidently hit buttons around the pause while you're playing a video), you're back to ground zero (now you have to match the FBI warnings and copyright screens all over again and scroll to where you were watching). Enter disk names via remote is tedious at best, one mistake and it's back to start since no backspace (thanl goodness you can plug in a keyboard).

Scrolling thru the disk list is so slow as to be almost unusable. I dread when I get more disk loaded in and a longer list. If the little pictures are the reason for the slow scrolling, then why did they include them as they're totally useless anyway.

The disk title are too short. How much could a few more characters have cost.

Only 4 folders, way to insufficient. No ability to define
complex programs (play these songs on these disks).

The display on the changer has lots of potential. But does it display the name of each disk as I hop thru them? NOPE.
In fact, it never puts the titles on display automatically
(it takes some arcane key sequence).

This piece of JUNK can't play CD-R's!! My daughters $30 portable does that, as does my wife's car, and everything else. What is SONY thinking?

S-LINK was what attracted me to SONY in the 1st place. But here again nothing but disappointment. When I turn on my
850 with its remote, it sends a command on S-LINK and my
SONY receiver gets the command, turns on and sets its input to CD/DVD. Pretty convenient. But what happens when I turn changer off from its remote? Does the receiver go off?
No, it just sits there powered on with its display proudly announcing that its input is still the now powered-off CD/DVD player. Stupidity.

Holds lots of titles

Disc Explorer is very difficult to use. Multi-unit control is less than advertised.

My DVD library is approaching 200 titles so I am faced with the dilema of upgrading to a 300+1 player or selecting titles to move to the "you don't make the cut" back in the snap case list. I purchased this unit after buying the 5 disc carousel version and I couldn't decide which five movies to keep in the player - this solved my problem. The picture quality is excellent. The audio is connected to my receiver with a digital cable so I don't use the internal D/A converters. However, the player does do a fairly accurate job of decoding DTS so I recently connected the player's 6 channel analog outputs to my receiver's 6 channel analog inputs (My receiver only decodes Dolby 5.1). Abracadabra - I can listen to DTS discs and compare them. So far the only disc I heard a difference on was Saving Private Ryan.
As far as the disc explorer is concerned, I used it for about 3 days and totally gave up on it in favor of several three ring photo binders with poly-vinyl sleeves in which I have placed the paper inserts from the snap cases. For discs with the cardboard cases, I simply took them to my local Kinkos and color copied the box to insert in the sleeve. Each page of the binder has a sticker with the slot number of the title so I can flip pages to find what I want and then turn right to it. Nuff said.

One dissapointing thing is the ability to connect multiple players together. I was under the impression that it could be done but there are no appropriate connectors to master/slave two units together.

STORES 200 DVD'S GREAT LOOKS THAT WILL COMPLEMENT ANY HOME THEATER SET-UP. AUDIO AND VIDEO QUALITY ARE SUBERB.ON SCREEN MENU.

SIZE COULD BE A PROBLEM IF SPACE IS LIMITED. 17 INCHES ACROSS IS THE STANDARD SIZE FOR FITTING OTHER UNITS ON TOP OR BOTTOM. HOWEVER MAKE SURE YOU HAVE PLENTY OF SPACE FOR THIS UNITS 20 INCH LENGTH. A LITTLE NOISY BUT I HAVEN'T SEEN OR HEARD A CD TYPE CAROUSEL UNIT 100% QUIET.

ALL IN ALL THE CX850D IS A SOLID UNIT. GREAT FEATURES WITH AUDIO AND VIDEO QUALITY THAT IS THE BEST THAT I HAVE SEEN SO FAR FOR THE MONEY. ANYONE THAT IS STARTING TO BUILD A COLLECTION OF DVD'S MUST SERIOUSLY CONSIDER THE SONY CX850D. IT WILL BE MONEY WELL SPENT. I WOULD HAVE LIKED TO SEE SONY BE A LITTLE MORE CREATIVE WITH BEING ABLE TO PROGRAM TITLES INTO THIS UNIT. LIKE HAVING A WIRELESS KEYBOARD AS PART OF THE PACKAGE. KENWOOD OFFERS THIS WITH ONE OF THEIR CD PLAYERS.
BOTTOM LINE THE SONY CX850D IS A FULLY FEATURED DVD PLAYER THAT WILL GIVE YOU YEARS OF SERVICE WITHOUT THE FEAR OF OBSOLESENCE. GO FOR IT

Similar Products Used:

I PURCHASED A SAMSUNG DVD905 DVD PLAYER BACK LAST APRIL OF 1999 AND HAD NO PROBLEMS UP UNTIL ABOUT A MONTH AGO. THIS THING WOULD FREEZE IN THE MIDDLE OF WATCING A MOVIE,AND ALSO SKIPPED WHEN IT FELT LIKE IT. ALTHOUGH SAMSUNG CLAIMED THAT THIS UNIT LISTED OUT AT 700.00 WHEN IT WAS INTRODUCED IT BASICALLY IS WHAT I WOULD CALL A FIRST GENERATION DVD PLAYER. I ONLY PAID 299.99 FOR THE UNIT SO I CHALK IT UP AS A LEARNING CURVE.

Excellent video/audio, 200 DVD changer furthers the careers of couch potato's everywhere. Very very convinient once you get it set up.

Slow changer, can't browse while watching DVD. Clunky remote (see below) What's with the Digital Decoder Sony? Why not make a cheaper model without it??? It also isn't a "plug and play" device - expect to take a few hours to get it set up right thanks to somewhat clumsy interface

First of all, after reading all the reviews here (in addition to my own experience) one thing has stood out - This product is just SCREAMING for a Philips Pronto universal remote.

Let me tell you, I don't even USE the 850's on screen menu's anymore. The Pronto (for those who don't know, it's a fully programmable touch screen remote that IMHO is the best in the world) let's me create mini-buttons with the full title of each movie - I can fit about 20 a screen, as many screens as I want (I can tab them by catagory, too). I didn't even need to do all the back-end macro work - some guy uploaded his config file for the Pronto on www.remotecentral.com and all I had to do was change the movies to what I had. Took about 2 hours for my 145 DVD's, and let me tell you, it was worth it. All I have to do is press the button I made for the DVD macro (easier than it might sound), and browse through each screen until I see a DVD I want to watch. I press that button and bam, I'm done.
The Pronto is so flexible I can even put each DVD in my own custom catagory (unlike the set ones in the 850). I'm telling you, 90% of the complaints I am reading here are solved by the Pronto. Not to mention the thing controls every other piece of gear you have. BTW, it's on the "Hall of Fame" in this very forum, check it out. Only downside is the thing costs around $300, but hell, if you are buying a 200 DVD changer, you can probably afford it, right?
As for the rest of the 850 (sorry, didn't mean to turn this into a Pronto review), I think the audio and video are above par - better than my standard Sony 330 - although it probably isn't up to the high end Sony DVD players that you pay $1500 for. Note to Sony - LOSE THE Digital Decoder! No one who is going to buy this doesn't have one already!

Final note, I got mine from Oade Brothers (www.oade.com) for $625, and they are an authorized Sony dealer to boot. Real nice guys and great prices. Don't pay the retail $799 price whatever you do! :-) I gave it a 4 for value - if I had bought it for full price it would have been a 3. Overall it's a four, although I like it more because of the Pronto.

Similar Products Used:

Sony DVP-330

Good video, audio, inputs.

Not enough genres, limited programming capabilities, remote, slow in changing, cant browse while playing, freaking HUGE! SIZE MATTERS!

So why did i buy this darn thing given all its shortcomings? It looked kinda cool :) everything seems to be pretty decent. The video isnt bad, and neither is the audio, as compared to sony's 7700 model. One thing i've noticed is the video noise created when i foward/reverse a chapter as i watch a dvd. This may be just my luck, dont know. Another thing thats bugging me is that I have both the 7700 as well as this changer, and I cant seem to figure out how to control one unit without messing with the other. Press play and both freaking thing turns on, same goes for just about every other function on this darn remote, what the hell? Im sure theres a way to rectify this, perhaps im just too much of an idiot to figure it out. I think im just gonna use this primarily for cds, but i wanted something that would support dts music, or else i would have gotten the 90es mega changer instead. Honestly, this isnt that bad of a product, especially when i got it for $510, brand spanking new!!! It pays to know a sony employee i suppose :) Well, if any of you out there know how to set it up so my remote only control one unit at a time, please let me know, i would really appreciate it.

email: elirex@aol.com

Lots of bells and whistles
Incredible video and audio quality

BIG unit
Slow disc swaps - But, all jukebox systems are.

I received this product as a gift and it is absolutely amazing. The features are a little bit daunting at first, but just spend some time reading the manual and you'll get the hang of it in no time!

Even if you put all the bells and whistles to the side, the 850 offers unsurpassed video and audio quality.

The only downfall of the unit is the large dimensions as well as the slow disc swaps. But, overall I highly recommend the 850 for the tech-savvy users who want the great video/audio and all the bells and whistles to boot.

Similar Products Used:

Sony DVP-600

Lots of bells and whistles
Incredible video and audio quality

BIG unit
Slow disc swaps - But, all jukebox systems are.

I received this product as a gift and it is absolutely amazing. The features are a little bit daunting at first, but just spend some time reading the manual and you'll get the hang of it in no time!

Even if you put all the bells and whistles to the side, the 850 offers unsurpassed video and audio quality.

The only downfall of the unit is the large dimensions as well as the slow disc swaps. But, overall I highly recommend the 850 for the tech-savvy users who want the great video/audio and all the bells and whistles to boot.

Similar Products Used:

Sony DVP-600

Capacity

slink control is unimplemented

I purchased the DVD changer as part of my home automation setup to complement a 200 disc Sony audio changer. The slink protocol is rather limited, but capable enough for control of the audio changer via the automation system.

For instance, I can query the status of the currently playing disc, set memo text for any disc, read the table of contents (for CDDB lookups), etc. Very useful for seamless automation.

The box for the DVP-CX850D noted that it had both an A1 and a Control-S port. It even mentioned that the A1 was for Megachanger control, which is the protocol that I had already reverse engineered. So I sold my single disc DVD and purchased the changer.

As others have noted, the player does not appear to respond to controls on the A1 port. It does send commands to a slave jukebox and appears to parse the results, but this is the only capability that it has. So, no slick automation appears possible. I can't command it to load a selected disc, select the appropriate audio track and go. Perhaps over the Control-S port, but that is a unidirectional control with no feedback from the player. Clearly the CX850 does have a full A1 controller built it; it just doesn't use it for anything other than this slave unit.

Why can't Sony ever get this right? They do not require four distinc control protocols with different feature sets and capabilities. It makes integrating each new piece of Sony equipment problematic -- new drivers need to be written, new code tested and down time before the new device can be used to its full potential.

As far as I can tell, no one at Sony ever considers that some one might use the automation ports. Can anyone recommend a hardware manufacturer that does think about these issues before slapping together a device and shipping it in such an incomplete state?

Unless these issues are fixed, the player is only marginally better than a single disc unit.

Similar Products Used:

Sony 530D