Well, I have had this unit for many years now. I waded into the work of learning how to use all its features and, more importantly, how to work around its many operating and programming quirks.

As many have mentioned previoulsy this is not really a user friendly unit, however if carefully handles it can provide the most important basic funtionality users are buying this for; keeping 300 disks ready for easy use without having to halde them.

I have, over the years, gotten error codes, had disks placed into the wrong slots, etc. the unit does require careful use and management but I was willing to pay the price for the protection of my DVD collection from dust and scratches.

Last month the unit bagin to have problems finding the right slot when a disk was selected, it also had a hard time lining up the slot inside the player...sometimes taking up to 10 minutes to get a slot lined up...!

This week I finally bit the bullet and unloaded all 300 disks form the player (it was full), placed all the disks back into thier respective boxes (remember dont throw out the boxes once you place the DVDs into your changer!!!!) and tried to see if perhaps the unit was overloaded at full capacity.

well to make a long story short this unit is shot, it can no longer line up the disks with the playing slot, it constantly searched but misses...so out ino the garbage it goes! (sony wants $250 to repair it).

summary: keeps your entire disk collection ready for playing without dust or fingerprints from handling. troublesome interface and operation. probaly wont last more than a couple o fyears when fully loaded. I cant complain about a unit that worked well for 5 years, however I wish is was more robust.

Well, I have had this unit for many years now. I waded into the work of learning how to use all its features and, more importantly, how to work around its many operating and programming quirks.

As many have mentioned previoulsy this is not really a user friendly unit, however if carefully handles it can provide the most important basic funtionality users are buying this for; keeping 300 disks ready for easy use without having to halde them.

I have, over the years, gotten error codes, had disks placed into the wrong slots, etc. the unit does require careful use and management but I was willing to pay the price for the protection of my DVD collection from dust and scratches.

Last month the unit bagin to have problems finding the right slot when a disk was selected, it also had a hard time lining up the slot inside the player...sometimes taking up to 10 minutes to get a slot lined up...!

This week I finally bit the bullet and unloaded all 300 disks form the player (it was full), placed all the disks back into thier respective boxes (remember dont throw out the boxes once you place the DVDs into your changer!!!!) and tried to see if perhaps the unit was overloaded at full capacity.

well to make a long story short this unit is shot, it can no longer line up the disks with the playing slot, it constantly searched but misses...so out ino the garbage it goes! (sony wants $250 to repair it).

summary: keeps your entire disk collection ready for playing without dust or fingerprints from handling. troublesome interface and operation. probaly wont last more than a couple o fyears when fully loaded. I cant complain about a unit that worked well for 5 years, however I wish is was more robust.

Mass storage. What it plays, it plays well.

Unreadable manual. Won't play CD-R

The manual is gibberish, and probably useless even in the original Japanese, but worse in the translation. Inablity to read CD-R is unacceptable, since we all have a few. I still have not been able to select a disc from the remote without having to turn the tv on, even if I know the slot number. If you turn it off, and then start again, it always starts playing the first disc before you can start programming the disc you want. SONY now has the DVP-CX875P that plays CD-R and other formats refused by this one. Don't buy this machine.

Good concept

Finicking about loading disks and put disks in the wrong slot if powered down incorrectly.

I bought this unit and it caused a lot of frustration. First, if someone (wife or kids) powered it down on the player, it randomly placed the disk playing in one of the slots, but not where it started. One night it tried to load 3 CDs at once into its play area. After this, the player just spit out error codes. Too much frustration. I returned it after a few days.

301 disc capacity, Flip mode, styling

lousy manual, poor user interface, clunky remote, poor loading and cataloging, cannot gang units together

I have owned one of these units for a year now and it has had one VERY MAJOR flaw LOADING. The big vertical carousel is fussy about loading discs and it will ruin your enjoyment of this piece because of that. Mine is in now for its third service attempt now, Sony will pay for the servicing give them credit for that but you are still out the shipping costs and the time it sits on their shelf and not in your rack. They don’t do exchanges after 90 days! Cataloging your disc library is very cumbersome and slow, you will need to buy a keyboard to enter the names and genres, and if you use the remote to enter the information you enjoy punishing yourself. Only 20 percent of the discs come with title’s the unit will read and for some reason they usually come Sony pictures. The processor in this unit is slow so you need more patience when exploring your DVD library. The manual is a joke printed as cheaply as newsprint and written by someone who never used the unit so good luck. If you want to continuously play discs you’ll find out how helpful the manual really is. That also is another of the hit and miss features of this beast, it gets easily confused and if the title and chapters are not 1,2,3… sequential it will skip over the disc entirely in this mode. It has lots of features but getting at them is a decision tree labyrinth, don’t worry it will only be a couple of months of trial and error learning them. Their remote is clunky, cumbersome and poorly laid out, its’ lighted buttons feature lights up only the barest minimum of keys but do not lose your remote if you ever want to use this play Don’t look for much in the way of support from Sony, see the manual, the troubleshooting is brief and there are no provided contacts in the manual such as phone numbers to get a hold of Sony. The adage ‘you get what you pay for’ holds true here, Sony’s 301-disc player is the cheapest of its competition; I’ve now got a Kenwood, which works as advertised. I used to praise Sony but they have lost another customer to insipid, shortsighted design and service and with support that can only be equaled at your local mini-mart. Save your money buy another brand.

Similar Products Used:

Kenwood DV-9500M

300 disc dvd or cd with title and picture discribtion

none

lots of features some of which I am not using but great value and expandablity

Similar Products Used:

sony cdp-cx210 and sony cdp-cx205 both 200 disc cd only but no titles

Hold 300 disc, I don't have to get up nor search for a movie.

Only 300

I love it. What are you CD-R guys on. If you have that many CD-R's buy Sony's 400 disc CD changer you idiots. You can even daisy chain 2 400 disc players together that's 800 disc. I have them and they play every CD I have ever burned, scratched or not. FYI for the low IQ people. The exe on a DVD player is more sensitive than the eye on CD players. I call you idiots because it is advertised big as day DOEN NOT PLAY CD-R's!!!!!! So if you want this feature that should be a hint for what you are buying. Second if you want to play CD's buy a cd player. Ohh and for the guy trying to play family video Cd's (ELVIS- this is a clue of how lost this guy is) get a new version of Adaptec Easy CD creator (ver 5.0 platinum). Take you home viedos on your Pc and make a video CD (Yes you can do it just try a little harder) look through the options it is there and it will walk you through making a video-CD. Anyway I have been using most of the features since the 200 disc player and now this 300 disc player is even better. Ohh and as for the search knob it rotates right when you turn it left because it is letting you see what is to the right of where you are looking. If this is too complicated Stick to the 5 disc changer. What the hell are yall watching that needs the DVD player zoom function. I had a TV that did that and unless you are watching pornand are a real perv it is the most useless feature i have seen. AnywayI agree with the guy from canada don't use the geners and the Disc Explorer will move much quicker. Next, with naming Disc it is ok to me I mean i don't have the large collection of 10 DVD's (I have 211 to be exact) but unless the DVD is named something like "I know what you did last summer) I did not need much space to type "Office Space" "Fast and Furious" "Dr. Doolittle" or "Austin Powers 1, 2, or 3" This is a good player and a good buy. like I say if you want to play all of your CD's and Cd-R's then go get their 400 disc CD player. and don't say you can't afford it because I see most of you guys claim to have ES receivers which start at $1000.00 the Cd player is priced at $399.00 at Best Buy. I found it for $250.00 at Circut City and I am pretty sure you can find it for less on the internet. In other words do not complain about you DVD player not playing CD's when the fact is you are too cheap to buy a CD play alond with the DVD player. If I made you mad sorry.........

Similar Products Used:

the 200 disc changer.

Store it and forget it. Plays CD-RWs

Disc retrieval is hard

This unit does not play CD-Rs, but it does play CD-RWs!!!
Its hard to find a particular disk, I have a spreadsheet with all the disk-names & slot numbers.. glad I did this when I put the disk in.

Otherwise its a great unit, great picture, great sound, I have it hooked up to a SonySTR-DE444ES receiver through
an optical cable. The paly back sound quality is excellent.

Similar Products Used:

none..

It plays CD's and DVD's

It's slow, it's user iterface is poor, it doesn't play CD-R's, it's expensive and lacks many basic DVD features

In one shot, I upgraded my stereo, speakers and CD player so that I could ride the latest technology wave. Of the three purchases, I've been happy with the stereo (Sony STR-V444ES) and speakers (Polk Audio), and luke warm on the CD/DVD player.
I think Elvis' (San Antonio, Texas) review of this product sums up my overall complaints with it. Unfortunately, I didn't have the luxury of returning it as easily as he did and have kept the unit. To save you the trouble of finding Elvis' review, I'll give you my top four complaints with the system:
1. It is excruciatingly slow in loading/unloading/finding disks. It seems that everytime you turn the unit on, it has this annoying process of rotating the carousel, and, sometimes (I've yet to figure out the logic) loads the first CD/DVD. Of course, normally, I don't want the first CD/DVD loaded so I have to press the eject button, and wait as the player ejects the unwanted disk, and finds the one that I really wanted.
2. The options for watching DVD's are quite basic. There is no DVD zoom feature.
3. To enter CD titles, you need to attach a keyboard to the unit and key in the data (or if you have endless amounts of time, you can use the remote control to key in the data). For some unknown reason, Sony decided that 16 characters is enough to describe both the artist and the album title. Well... it's not! I realise EPROM memory is a bit more than CMOS, but is it really 'that' much more in comparison to the overall benefit that the consumer would derive from having better CD/DVD descriptions.
4. It doesn't play CD-R's. In fact, most of Sony's players don't play CD-R's. It seems to me this is Sony's way of imposing copyright protection - a battle they lost with cassette tapes - without looking like they're fighting the issue.

Anyway, the long and short of it is that I would avoid this product and look at other manufacturer's offerings.

Never have to search for or touch your DVD's again! Audio and Video output are superb.

The on-screen menu's work, but they could have been designed better. And there's no Control-S, so all the titles won't download to my STR-V555ES receover controller (like they do from my CD changer). No ZOOM features.

The quality and sound seem excellent. Having my DVD's in one unit makes life very convenient. The on-screen menu's could have been better.

I do have an unrelated (perhaps) problem, since this is my first SVideo component:

ALL of my stuff is SONY S-Link. Receiver. VCR (non-SVHS). CD changer. DVD changer. TV.

Problem. Up until I bought my DVD player, everything was hooked up via RCA.

But of course now I wanted to go SVHS. My TV has 3 inputs, VIDEO1 can be SVIDEO or RCA, and VIDEO 2 and 3 are RCA only.

SO, I moved the monitor-out from my receiver to VIDEO3 on the TV. And I connected the DVD player directly to VIDEO1 via S-Video.

When I switch to DVD, the TV was smart enough to switch from VIDEO3 to VIDEO1. BUT, if I then try and switch back to an RCA source (my VCR), it won't.

I tried going SLINK from DVD player to TV and also DVD to receiver (of course there's always 1 slink from monitor out on my receiver to the TV).

Can anyone help?

Similar Products Used:

None