Sony DVPCX995V 400-Disc DVD Mega Changer/Player

As others have stated... the DVP-CX995V wants to load the last disk used when turned on from the remote or front panel power button. This causes an un-acceptable delay while getting to the item I wished to play. While this work-around is a front panel operation, it is quicker than waiting for the player to 'do its' thing ' before being allowed to play what I want.

Press the OPEN button with the unit off... (the cx995v will turn on and open to 'the last slot played). With door open... use the DIAL to select the slot you want to play... press the play button, and watch your disk. Yes you need to know what slot to goto, but you likely have that list anyway. (I also use this for rented disks, just open... move to a blank slot... put in disk... press play)

I can hope SONY will, some day... look at users feedback while picking a new design, but I did say hope....

This is my second one. After having one of these babies in the living room for about 18 months now (Hooked up to my Sony KDS-60A3000 Display) I bought one for my daughters room. Like almost everything, there are limitations. Nothing is perfect or pretends to be. I agree it is a bit slow, entering disc data is slow and tedious, and when you remove a disc to play on another DVD player or lend it to a friend the disc data is erased when you turn off the player. The reasons I was attracted to this unit was because it upgrades to 1080i through the HDMI connection (On my TV And My Daughters) and it stores and organizes a large amout of DVD's (Over 700) in one area without ever having to touch the discs. To me the picture quality is excellent on mine and my daughters TV (Toshiba Regza 42in LCD) but we have them both hooked up through the HDMI connections. We are both very, very happy with this unit.

CONS: Have owned one of these for the past three years and over the past 6 months the unit started to have progressive failure. Firstly the player started to have intermittent problems reading discs, these problems started as the player failing to read discs during playing and freezing for a short time on an image on the screen on occasional discs. I thought the player was laser may have been dirty and ran a cleaning disc through the system and no difference. Then the frequency of problems picked up and the player would freeze for prolonged periods. Towards the end it was not possible to watch a movie without the unit freezing up completely. the piece-de-resistance came when trying to unfreeze a disc that the unit erased the 400 titles that I had entered into the player (say 350, because it actually identified the titles on about 50 of the discs that I entered).

PROs: In spite of the above I replaced the original unit with a new one. Why? Firstly the price was right and we have little kids and it is so easy to be able to pick a movie that they want to watch while sitting in the couch - no need to have discs hidden away from prying little hands. Also in the three years that we had the previous unit, and in spite of power outages, we never lost the details of all the discs that we had entered into the unit, unlike other reviewers here.

One word of caution it is a lot easier to enter the movie titles when using a keyboard (PS2 connection, not USB). However I had to try three different keyboards until I found one that had the relatively low wattage requirements needed for the player to pick up my keystrokes.

The disc sorting by title, number or genre makes it easy to find a movie.

The picture is beautiful when attached to a 50 inch plasma screen via component output.

This piece of equipment is a beast! I love it! It may not be perfect, but it upconverts to 1080, plays DVD-R and +R and DL DVDs. It gets rid of all those DVD cases and looks sexy in the cabinet. This is my 3rd one and I have hooked up in a series and it puts a great pictures on a Sony 60in screen. I know there is a move out there to put video on DVD, but if that fails you lose all the video. Here I have it all at the ready, protected in the case.

Pros- easy hookup, sharp looking, great performer, online updates for firmware from Sony, great upconversion
Cons- Big unit, remote functions not great manual is average -

I love this 400 disc changer, sure it takes time to load a disc, but it keeps the discs safe and scratch free, I might buy another one or 2 I collect TV shows onto DVD much better to have them where they are safe and usable. Don't let the negative reviews put you off this is the thing I have been dreaming about and at a price that is great.