Very compact size considering the 300 DVD capacity. Excellent audio/video quality. Beats a cupboard full of DVDs (which need to be removed from their cases) and a single-disc player any day !!!

The GUI interface could have been more intuitive and flexible. Many menu options are restricted whilst playing a DVD

I have had this unit for nearly a year now and wanted to give any new and old users a few hints/feedback as well as clarify what some of the other reviewers have mentioned here. DOES IT PLAY CD-R/CD-RW DISCS - I do not understand why not even one reviewer has mentioned that ALL Sony DVP-CX860 models CAN play CD-RW discs but only the /B models can play CD-R as well. I have actually got the original model (not the /B) and it plays all my CD-RW discs without any problems, both music and VCDs. AUTORUN & DISCLOADING PROBLEM - Many of you mention this to be extremely annoying where the FBI warning will be played for 10secs before the required disc can be played. However, please note this is only a problem when turning the unit on from the main switch. I have never had this problem as I always turn the unit on/off (standby) from the remote control. This also reduces the amount of physical disc searching the unit does and hence cuts down on wear & tear. AUDIO/VIDEO QUALITY - I have many friends with various makes of DVD player and I haven''t seen any better than this Sony unit for picture quality, apart from a Denon progressive scan unit. I have a separate hi-fi only set up, so I don''t really use the 860 for music that much. However the 860 is not much behind in terms of sound quality in comparison to my Arcam CD72 cd player (both the 860 & Arcam are hooked up to the same Denon amplifier and B&W speaker set up). BUILD QUALITY & RELIABILITY - I have not had any problems with this unit. I have all 300 slots full and the unit has been in daily use for the past 9 months. May be I am one of the lucky ones! I really don''t know. I know that there are a lot of moving parts inside the machine and it sometimes worries me that there is a lot of potential for things to go wrong, but that''s like buying a fully loaded Mercedes ''S'' class and then saying it won''t be as reliable as a base model ''A'' class because there is more to go wrong in an ''S'' class. Based on that argument I am happy with the thought of owning the Merc ''S'' class equivalent of a non-progressive DVD player ! CONCLUSION - If minor issues bug you then don''t buy this unit. If you are after a 300DVD changer then this has got to be the best choice. A lot of my movies are on VCD (hence split across 2/3 cds) and this is a god send because I don''t have to leave my sofa to watch the entire mov

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Sony DVP-CX850D

Storage capacity, smaller cabinet size, sound quality, remote backward capatibilty with sony tv's.

Slow gui. Slow command acceptance, build quality feels poor.

I bought this unit with idea of having hassle-free storage of my 150+ dvd collection. It worked fine for about 6mos. the unit is now 10 mos old and i have several negative issues. On powerup the unit spins back and forth aimlessly, sometimes for 4-5 mins. when it finally does stop it autoloads any dvd it feels like. Sometimes it stops spinning and never load anything. I must power it off with the front panel switch because it stops responding to the remote. Lots of times it makes a grinding moise while trying to load a disc and then gives an error code and powers off. After several power on and off cycles, it resume acting normally. Several times after ive tried to advance to another dvd while its in the play mode, it will pause, do nothing for a minute, the front panel will be flashing with the next disc ive selected and then jam and shut off. This player has actually removed a disc from the slot it was stored in and moved it to another location in the player, along with erasing the title info. I find the explorer gui to be cumbersome and painfully slow and complicated. with my 5 disc, you can name the disc on the fly while its playing. This unit makes you stop and enter the explorer mode to enter title info. And why cant the software accept mutiple commands. i.e why do you have to enter edit and then exit edit before you can file or sort? Why is there no title display on the front panel like on the cd mega changers? I shouldnt have to load each cd or turn on the tv to know where a disc is located. After finally jamming for the 4th time so far, ill be packing it up to send for service before the warranty expires. I am most disappointed, i hope sony improves the next generation model, or im switching brands.

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sony 5 disc dvd changer. sony 100, 200 and 400 cd mega changers.

Sound quality on DVD and CD

Everything else

Thought that it would be a good idea to sell my other two units (above) and purchase a single DVD/CD player. Boy, was I wrong. It works okay as long as you have a lot of time to spend waiting around for it to do so. When you turn it on, it spins left, then right, then left again. It finally starts at disc #1 (always) To get it to change to a specific disc takes a lot of time. It will not play CDR's, it sometimes flips over a normal CD and then just stops when it finds nothing on that side. The labeling functions stink, and if you use the 'genre' lables for each CD, it takes forever to display them when you switch to the disc explorer mode. Oh, did I mention that while listening to a CD, you cannot display any other CD, as was possible on Sony's other CD juke boxes. I could go on, but will end as I am selling this piece of crap on Ebay. Buyer beware!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Sony DVP350, Onkyo 525

Holds 301 dvd/cd

Everything

All I can say is thank god I kept my Pioneer Elite DVD 05.

I purchased the Sony 860 because my DVD collection had grown to 175 disc, and I thought it would be great to have all the movies at my fingertip. So I retired my Elite unit to the bedroom and brought the Sony 860.

It took a while to get my collection into the changer. Out of 175 discs, the Sony was able to identify 4. Every other movie title had to be entered manually. Of course the sony only allows 16 characters. What the heck!!!!

When all movies were loaded and titled, I began to watch several movies. When I was changing from slot 30 to 151 it took 5 minutes to load movie 151. (I am not kidding) It would turn left, right, left and so on. It acted like it could not align the disc correctly to enter into the slot.

The second month of ownership, it began to have problems pushing the DVD into the playing slot. It would rotate for 10-25 seconds before moving into the players mechanism.

And then it happen. I press the button to see movie 98. For whatever stupid reason, it ended up loading two movies and viola,....jamed. It could not be removed. I had to take it in for service. Three weeks later it was back in my hands, and once again I had to reload now 185 movies.

2nd day back it did the same thing again. Two movies loaded and viola...jamed again.

I disconnected this piece of crap..removed my movies and returned my single player Elite DV 05 back to my living room.

I threw away this piece of crap. Never....and I repeat never will I get a changer from Sony. For 600.00 dollars crap like this should not happen. I will stick with Pioneer Elite line, and get their 5 DVD changer from Elite.

Stay away from this crap.

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Pioneer Elite DVD 05

Allows any PC keyboard to be used to name DVD/VCD/CD
Lighted remote; multi-function and multi-brand

Comes with a DiscExplorer cd that can identify many titles which saves on labeling via a keyboard, but wonder if more cds will be released to auto-name newly released media??? I wish it had a serial/usb port and was web aware to make use of the commercial sites that will identify a title and download disc information into the player; that would really rock!

All in all it seems to be just what an audio/video enthusiast needs to catalog their multimedia. I think the MSRP of $800+ offered by most stores is very high though. I feel the $600 I paid was worth it, but wait a while and it most likely will come down in price. Sound quality is superb and it has added a noticeable crispness and brightness to the audio and video output over my previous player. It is louder than expected when it shuffles or selects the media to play, which I'll live with and I guess is expected of any mechanical mechanism that puts so many discs at your fingertips. Only time will tell whether the mechanical part will give me problems but it came with a four-year warranty (outstanding).

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First mega-media/multi-player purchased; I was tired of finding, loading, and playing a movie/cd out of my 300+ collection.

Audio / Video Quality is excellent. Plenty of outputs for various uses. Low profile packaging. Flip Side 1/Side 2 feature.

Same complaint as everybody else: Explorer software needs work. Case is just a little to deep for most audio cabinets. Hate the fact that it automatically loads a movie when you power on (I'll get over it). A little pricey.

I read the reviews and took my chances. My DVD collection is starting to grow and I needed a better way of managing my discs. The thought of keeping all my discs in a changer and selecting movies to play was appealing. Not to mention my kids handling the discs with their sticky fingers.

Actually, all reviews aside, I am happy with this unit. I am only using it for storing and playing DVD movies, so not being able to read CD-R/CD-RW disks was not an issue. I loaded up my 65 DVD movies without any problems with jamming or not being able to read the disks. The changer was a little noisy moving between discs, but after a little use, I became oblivious to it. The sound quality was awesome going through my Denon AVD-2000 Dolby Digital Decoder. The picture quality was also excellent using Component Video through my Toshiba HDTV.

Complaint # 1: The Explorer Software (like everybody else complains). The limit of 16 characters for a DVD Title I can work with (using abbreviations when needed for the few movies that had long names). However, to have to manually step through each Disc to find the movie you want can be time consuming. I actually keep a printout (one list sorted by Title and another list sorted by genre) of all the movies in the changer as a quick guide. "The Matrix" - "Disc 33". Also, a keyboard is a must when editing titles & genre (my wireless keyboard works great).

Complaint # 2: Power On the unit and a movie is automatically loaded and starts to play. A wasted, useless feature. It's probably not the movie I want to watch, and I have to wait to get through all the intro stuff before I can stop it and select the movie I really want to watch. I'll get over it.

My final thoughts: This unit's a keeper. I can live with the Explorer Software. Keeping a separate list is handy for quickly finding movies in the changer. Plus, now I have a list of all my DVD's for insurance purposes (do the math: 300 DVD's x $20.00 = $6000.00). If you need to play CD-R or CD-RW Audio CDs, look elsewhere. This unit does not support these formats.

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Sony DVP-S3000

Sound quality, picture, look, remote.

Autoplay, possibly built quality.

Great picture and sound. Very easy to setup. I got for 420 with my employee discount. Autoplay is annoying, but you can switch any CD/DVD anytime before, or while it loads a disc. You can't stop the process. Its very light, and I wonder how much quality was put into it. I have a 4yr service plan so I don't care. Well worth my price, (I would never spend more than $599 on a DVD player). I would highly recommend this...especially if you can get a discount.

Hold a lot of discs. Good picture and sound quality. EZ-Play slot is great for rentals and DVDs/CDs you borrow.

Menu is too slow. Autoplay's when you tell it not to. Not enough room to properly label discs. Navigating the GUI is painfully slow.

The previous reviewer said His/Hers was a /B and played CD-Rs. If you are going to purchase this unit, get the /B, it will be one of the only up sides!!!

As soon as you turn the unit on, it automatically begins playing a DVD even if you disable autoplay in the options. You have to wait until the end of the FBI warning before you can hit stop with most discs. The "loading" process takes forever, and all it really does it checks for Sony CDs/DVDs and if it finds any it reads the disc info and enters it into the Disc Explorer database for you. You have to manually enter the information for every other disc (99 out of the 102 I have loaded) and they don't even give you enough space for that. I have numerous discs that no one but me would understand like "NIN - Further" and "Bon Jovi - Cross". The "Strobe Play" Feature is the stupidest thing I have ever seen and I can't even begin to figure out how one would use that for anything useful. Also, there are only 4 folders for you to file your DVDs/CDs into. That would mean that with 300 discs in there, you would have about 75 discs per folder ... IT TAKES ME 5 MINUTES TO GET ALL THE WAY THROUGH A LIST OF 20 BECAUSE OF HOW SLOW THE STUPID GUI IS!!!

The ONLY good thing about this DVD player, aside from the fact that it holds my entire CD/DVD collection, is the EZ-Play slot. It is perfect for rentals and movies you borrow from friends. All you have to do is pop the disc in and hit one button on the front of the player, and your watching the movie/listening to the CD.

I totally regret purchasing this unit, and I warn anyone thinking about it, DO NOT PURCHASE THIS!!! For the price I paid for this ($999 Canadian before tax) I would expect a USB link for access (through special Sony software on my PC) to the CDDB database, an ability to play CD-Rs and RWs, a quicker, more intelligently designed GUI, a way to upgrade the firmware, and a much, much better disc management system.

Holds 301 discs, picture/sound quality

disc carousel

If it weren't a present, I probably would have waited for a carousel-type player with progressive scan (I heard Kenwood will come out with one). I decided to open the box and try it out despite the bad reviews.

The picture quality and sound was about as good as it can be without being a progressive player. My only complaint in this area was that I rented a DVD that played on the unit the first time. After the DVD spent a day in my car, my wife wanted to watch it but it would not play on this unit, but it did on my other DVD player.

The user interface appears to be designed by engineers for engineers only, but luckily I am one. I found it intuitive enough to be convenient, but I do keep the manual nearby in case I get lost. It was great to be able to categorize the discs and play them directly from the listings.

The worst thing about it is the carousel mechanics. Mine has not jammed yet, but it has spun around aimlessly, so it seems. I found that the changer gets really confused if you remove power during playback. If you follow the manual and press stop (I press it twice so it won't try to resume from were you stopped playing), then put it on standby, then power down, most of the early problems I saw will be avoided.

I guess the biggest complaint is that the player finds a disc to play when it powers on. There's no way to fix this design error, but it did help that I put the Gladiator disk in slot 1. The Gladiator disc, for some reason, can be stopped right away. Other discs have long FBI warnings or, like my kid's Emperor's New Groove DVD, there is a long commercial in the beginning that cannot be stopped. Slot 1 is what the Sony plays when the last disk it played is removed (e.g. from the "Easy" Slot).

Overall, I think I can live with the shortcomings and use this as a DVD juke box. The dual Video out allows me to distribute the componet output to my A/V room and the composite to the rest of my house (via an RF moduelator). I'll eventually buy a progressive DVD and use it for the "main events." I'm going to give it 4 stars because of the convenience it offers for storing and finding my DVD's and for having very good picture/sound quality.

Plays CD-R's, Excellent Picture and Sound

No Progressive Scan, won't play MP3's

Recently purchsed this unit eventhough prople on this site consistently gave it bad reviews. After recieving the unit I noticed that the model number was listed as DVP-CX860/B. I was wondering what the /B stood for, worried that I bought a "B" stock player I called Sony and talked to a CSR. I was informed that the /B meant that it is an updated version of the original CX860. It wasn't listed what the updates were but he said it is usually software or hardware or both.

After playing with the unit for a few days I found that it still autoloads a disc when turned on but I don't have to wait till the end of the FBI warning to change the disc I can do so at anytime with the remote or on the unit itself.

I also decided to try burning some music or VCD's on a CD-R and low and behold it worked... I thought I might just be lucky with the Office Depot Disks so I tried the cheapest disks I could find Comp-USA. I bought the 100 pack for $19 and it also worked. I found this interesting because even the manual says it will "NOT" play CD-R's, perhaps they upgraded the player but forgot to update the manual.

The player is now flawless, everything works great, it plays CD-R's, it has never jammed on me, and I picked it up for $468 (not including shipping) so I have no other choice but to give it 5 stars all around!

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owned pana a110 and apex 600a, but no changers