Sony BDP-CX960 400 Disc Blu-ray/DVD/CD MegaChanger

Comments about Sony BDP-CX960 400 Disc Blu-ray/DVD/CD MegaChanger:

[...] Setup is easy HDMI into HDTV true 1080p. I have the 400 dvd changer and love it. Have had it for several years. Hope that the BluRay 400 changer works as well. This sure cleared the storage problems for the Bluray discs laying in front of the tv. Loading and operation is the same as the other changer. I would recommend this and the older Sony 400 changers to anyone with a large collection of movies. Movies can be sort by Title, Genre, Actor, Order in machine. Hook up to internet for additional information on movies. These machines free up lots of shelf space. Just box up the dvd cases or even dispose of them. When moving I just used a couple of dvd notebooks. easily reloaded movies without difficulty.

Comments about Sony BDP-CX960 400 Disc Blu-ray/DVD/CD MegaChanger:

Brand new owner (less than a month)

Just got this thing shipped overseas to my FPO. For my first Blueray Disc player I was impressed with the Sony brand and looking for a way to to make my movie collection more accessible to the family.

This changer is pricey, but out of the box it works as advertised. I like the familiar Playstation menu interface. The child lock feature is a must for a home with little ones who are always tearing into things.

You will have to manually enter any more obscure discs that you put into it. Also, holding 400 discs requires some leg room. So, ensure that you can put this box somewhere. Despite it's size in depth, it wastes no space Sony gave it. What I mean by that is, it helps to have excellent fine motor skills to insert the discs. Spacing between each slot is tight inside the changer.

Sony missed the mark on this 21st-century product by opting for an ethernet port vice a built-in or a USB wireless port. Either of those options would have provided the consumer with a better means of connecting to a home network. Instead I had to end up buying a wireless gaming adapter to get the ehternet-to-wireless conversion.

Lastly Sony's XMB (Playstation) menu interface is missing a couple things. First, the movie sorting/grouping feature is nice. But when I want to group the discs to Band of Brothers for example, it would be nice if it would find that "Box set" on Gracenote and offer a grouping option for that set. Maybe a manual grouping (without manually creating a Genre to group by on the home screen) feature would have been helpful. Second, practice your phone keypad text entry skills. That's the only way I know of to manually edit a disc title if the changer can't find it on Gracenote.

All in all initial assessment is that it's great for storing and organizing discs if that's all you need. But it will have some feature that bother you. You'll just have to learn to live with them in exchange for decluttering of your movie cabinet.

Comments about Sony BDP-CX960 400 Disc Blu-ray/DVD/CD MegaChanger:

I have a large DVD collection, and this is my second Sony MegaChanger. My other one was pre-Blu-ray. This is an excellent solution to maintaing a large collection in a small space while providing ease of playing them. The BDP-CX960 adds Blu-ray capability.

It is easy to use and provides excellent picture quality. It has enhanced functionality compared to my earlier model and allows me to access a broader variety of media.

The button for selecting the 'rental' slot that that opens the player with slot #1 already in position to insert a single disc for playing is a nice feature.

The entry of DVD details (Titles, Cast, etc.) is very cumbersome in that it must be done one character at a time via an on-screen display operated from the remote control. My earlier model allowed entry via a detachable keyboard.

Also, it will not play some DVD's that I am able to play on a very inexpensive single-play DVD-only player that I own. The disc will start to load, and then the player simply shuts off. It's a minor inconvenience as I am able to play the discs on my other player.

Comments about Sony BDP-CX960 400 Disc Blu-ray/DVD/CD MegaChanger:

Easy setup, high quality picture and sound. Grace notes is really helpful in organizing my CDs, DVDs, and BRD

Comments about Sony BDP-CX960 400 Disc Blu-ray/DVD/CD MegaChanger:

Wonderful player.just load and go.willgetmost cover art on line the rest can be input manually.load time was quicker then my pioneer single disc player and less glitchy will buy another just to hold my cds

Comments about Sony BDP-CX960 400 Disc Blu-ray/DVD/CD MegaChanger:

I purchased this player in February, 2010, after a fair amount of debate.

My concerns were:

Lack of a WiFi connection. The Ethernet works, but you still need to have a bridge.

Gracenote. Does it really work? Yes it does--mostly. I've loaded 158 DVD's so far. It failed to find three. Two of these were documentaries which, I suspect, had a rather limited distribution. The surprise was the failure to find "Up". The assigned genre can be strange. I found one series of eight DVD's that included three different ones. However, it's quite simple to change genre and even create new ones if you'd like to group specific disks.

Lessons learned:

Read the manual. There are obviously sections that can be skipped based on your use but understand the load process and information editing. The actual play is pretty intuitive and should give you few problems.

Be careful when loading Gracenote information if you're not loading all of the disks at one time. Subsequent sets of disks are grouped together and you can load just those. It's pretty easy to accidentally do a full reload which will overwrite your edits. I think Sony should really have a "Do You Really Want To Do This" display prior to beginning this. It's simple enough to cancel, but it can be scary if you've gotten into a full reload by accident.

Things I like:

I disagree with some of the other reviewers about load time. I also have a five disk player and have to sample a disk to make sure it's the one I want. The menu display for the jukebox eliminates this and I don't think the time to load following selection is excessive.

It is fairly intuitive once you remember that the "Home" and "Options" buttons are your friend.

To my eyes, the HD upscaling when using an HDMI connect to a Sony Bravia TV yields a picture that, for me, is indistinguishable from the quality of BluRay.

I've reserved the use of this player solely for movies and I suspect that it'll be quite a few years before I come close to filling it.

The various ways you can sequence the disk find display makes finding a specific disk in your collection quite easy.

Concerns you might have:

Size. This is a large machine in height and depth. If you're putting it in a component cabinet, make sure that there's sufficient space. I also put mine on the bottom instead of one of the movable shelves because the weight potential of the component when fully loaded will be significant.

What to do with the emptied cases? I've found that the Iris media storage box works for me. I label each box with the slot number range it contains. (I also put a slot number sticker on each case.)

Advance preparation. In addition to component size, having an Ethernet/WiFi bridge will be worth it in time saved by using Gracenote.

Don't purchase two sided disks. Only one side will be available. (Note to DVD/BD sellers-It'd be nice if the disk specifications indicated whether one was two sided.)

For me, this player was definitely worth it.

May 19,2010

I've finally got all the disks loaded. Sometimes a disk doesn't initially want to go all the way in. Don't try to force it. A little jiggling and repositioning the turntable will take care of this. I found that I occasionally skipped a slot and had to correct this.

It did have a hiccup yesterday and I apparently wiped a couple of titles that had previously been loaded. The unnamed disks show at the head of the by titles list so I just did a "Load" on them. This apparently took care of the problem.

I'm still glad I got it.

June 25, 2010

Well, the tally is now 230 I guess it's a hazard to have this capability. You just keep wanting to add.

I've noted in a number of other reviews a criticism that there is no capability to add/change disk icons. My personal feeling is that icons are nice, but I don't select based on them. The title and the ability to edit the title more than offsets this.

Comments about Sony BDP-CX960 400 Disc Blu-ray/DVD/CD MegaChanger:

This is the first blu-ray megachanger i have purchased.I have five sony megachangers model 995.The quality of the cx960 re the picture and sound is outstanding.I have four separate 5.1 systems throughout my apartment all linked via hdmi to the sony megachangers.To have 2400 dvd's available at the touch of a button is sensational.Thank you Sony.