Customer Reviews

Sony BDP-CX960 400 Disc Blu-ray Disc / DVD MegaChanger (Black)

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

Initial review (10/09/2009), will update in the coming days:

Overall, I love it! Below are a few things I found while installing the unit:

My current entertainment center could not accommodate the changer due to its extremely large size. The width of the unit is pretty standard for a component; however, the height is 9.5 inches and almost 22 inches deep. My entertainment center does not have adjustable shelving, therefore the changer will not fit, and I will have to purchase a new shelving unit (bummer, but not a show stopper).

Once connected to my HDTV and surround receiver, the unit was very easy to set up via the onscreen guide. Initial set up was pretty quick, loading discs was not.

Okay, on loading my collection of 283 discs, the player began "Loading Disc Information" from Gracenote via the Internet. ***YOU MUST CONNECT THIS UNIT TO THE INTERNET*** or you will be forced to manually type the information into the player. I bring this up as I previously stated that I loaded 283 discs, and all but 12 could not be found on Gracenote. Why is this important? Well, you must type it in manually...... via the remote!! Prior models of this changer had a computer keyboard input for this, however, this one does not. Not a huge deal if it's only a few titles (it was like sending a text message a few years ago before QWERTY keyboards appeared on phones, for the letter "c" you have to hit the number 2 key three times, etc.) Actually, for 12 titles it was painful.

The player connected via the Internet to Gracenote for disc information. This process is time consuming so be patient. The "Loading Disc Information" portion for 283 discs took roughly 2 hours and 45 minutes. Once complete the changer will initially alphabetize your collection and place all the discs that it could not find at the top of each folder (e.g., Photo, Music or Video, etc.) This is where you have to type in the disc information.

Gracenote, hum, not so sure about this. Sort of strange results as I have both a DVD and Blu-ray version of a few movies and they are cataloged differently on the player. One example is "Young Frankenstein" one version is placed under "comedy" and the other under "horror". Also, it appears random, however, Gracenote found the movie "Airplane" which is roughly 29 years old, but could not find or have record of "The Wizard of Oz" on Blu-ray. Also, on boxed sets, it found some but not all of the collection (e.g., "Family Guy" it found disc 1, 2 and 4, leaving disc 3 to be manually entered???)

On BD-Live, pretty cool. You will need a USB thumb drive of at least 1 GB. And, the drive slot is on the back of the unit. So I would recommend that you place the drive in first before you place this unit into a cabinet and connect all the cables, as once you get going and then decide you need it, it's a bit cumbersome getting to the back of this unit (especially since it will be loaded with up to 400 discs, etc.)

On the rental slot, start loading your collection in slot number 2 as the "quick" rental slot is reserved for slot number 1. If you don't plan on using this, which I don't, then begin loading with slot 1. Actually, you can start loading disc wherever you want, just thought I would point that out.

Lastly, many of your DVD's will be located under multiple folders (e.g., Photo's and Video's) as the disc may contain JPEG images, which will qualify them as photo's, etc.

Well, I have only had the player now for roughly 27 hours and love it thus far. I will update this review if I experience any strange behavior or if something dramatically changes my opinion.

UPDATE 11/14/2009:

One month later, I still love it! There are reader comments and responses (below under comments) however, I thought I should make note that the player performed well with a power outage (I intentionally unplugged the unit to perform this test). This is extremely important if you have ever owned a prior Sony Megachanger as those units would not retain any data beyond at 6-8 hour period without electricity (I have personal experience regarding this and it was extremely painful.) This is a solid unit so far, and I promise to update this review and related comments should anything change. Stay tuned folks.

UPDATE 12/15/2009

Sony released a software update to the player today, December 15, 2009. I went from version 15.1.010 to version 15.4.013. The download and update was pretty smooth, and completed within 8 minutes. The screen on the unit will flash "Version Up 0/9", where there are 9 updates to be performed, etc. The system took the longest at 7/9 at roughly 4 minutes, however, when competed, you should see "Finished" on the box and it will then turn off. I have no details of this update as of yet. The system found two DVD's as NOT recognized (strange as they were there before), however, Gracenote found them and all is good. Best regards.

UPDATE 02/02/2010

Powered on the unit this evening and noticed I had 7 "unknown" discs (in various slots). Since I have not added any new discs in over a month, I was a bit concerned. Not sure what the problem/issue was, however, upon pressing the "load" button on the unit, the missing titles were restored from Gracenote. One positive note, the unit only scans the unknown discs to load, it does not attempt to reload the entire library. This is not a "show-stopper" for me, I still love this player!

UPDATE 01/03/2011

Purchased a boxed set (16 DVD's) and only the first four (4) were recognized by Gracenote. Strange, as the recognized disc's were the oldest dating back to 1988. I have submitted a service request to support@gracenote.com (providing all the required information) to get the information updated, will update this review on resolution. Still love the player.

WARNING: This is a very long review...

*You want a Blu-Ray changer, so that you can keep all of your Blu-Rays (or standard DVDs) in one place, organized, sortable, and easily accessible? CHECK.
*You have a home theater where you'd like to be able to scroll through all of your movies from the comforts of your chair and pick what you'd like to watch easily and painlessly? CHECK.
*You'd like to have all of the information for your collection, including titles, release date, album art, and actor/director, loaded automatically (but customizable where need be)? CHECK.
*You want all of the above at a reasonable price, but don't want to sacrifice the current industry standards for Blu-Ray video and sound quality? CHECK.

This unit does what it claims to do and nothing that it does not claim to do (e.g. no wifi, no netflix/amazon, etc.). It's not magical or particularly revolutionary. It simply organizes Blu-Rays, automatically loads and enters (most) metadata, provides a relatively easy-to-use user interface, and offers outstanding Blu-Ray output.

Are there downsides? Of course. Dealbreakers? Not if you are simply looking for the above.
*It's not the fastest, but it's fast enough for all that it does. Be prepared to spend some time, especially with initial setup. It takes about 60 seconds to queue a movie and another 45 seconds or so to load the movie menu/movie.
*Also, it's not quiet - there is a constant very low level noise when this unit is on, even idle (almost trivial but there - if you're watching a movie you absolutely cannot hear it).
*It is massive in depth and height - it loads 400 Blu-Rays on a carousel for Pete's sake! It didn't claim to be "compact."
*The XMB interface (familiar to PS3 owners) is not as elegant as say, AppleTV, but it's absolutely just as functional.
*Those who want internet movie streaming won't find it here (though I think the firmware could be updated to accommodate this - just my own guess).
*You will need the Ethernet port on the back for Gracenote and BD-Live. A unit of this size with that kind of requirement should have had wifi built in (after all, Sony did build that in to the PS3 and wifi modules are pretty cheap nowadays). But again, there is an Ethernet port, so this is a nit.

All that said, at [...] (as of December 11, 2009) plus free shipping/no tax, this is the steal of the year from Amazon for the "problems" this thing solves (face it, getting up from the chair, opening the container, pulling out the disc, and loading it into your Blu-Ray into the player is hardly a "problem"). It's basically just a bit more expensive than a regular blu-ray player but with FAR more functionality and practicality - especially for a home theater. There is really no reason to research further, wobble, debate, hesitate, stutter, or second-guess any further. Stop reading here and buy this thing if you want the above capabilities, and can stomach the price. I've lost at least 3 precious weeks (at this price) with this thing, desperately waiting for an official review somewhere.

One caveat - this is a new product offering, new model. I cannot testify to its durability, longevity, stability, etc. over time. The above is based mostly on initial impressions.

The rest of this review is for owners/users. I will add to this as I identify other issues/problems/workarounds:

* Loading - Others have stated issues with loading (especially the dreaded "load all discs" which erases all of your loaded, and EDITED, info and starts from the beginning). A couple suggestions: load about 20-30 discs at a time. For that matter, try to break up the initial setup into manageable chunks (load, then edit, load then edit) rather than trying to do everything at one sitting - just my two bits. With each load, you will see a folder called "unknown discs". Highlight that folder and press "options". Then scroll down to "load" (not "load all discs" up top). It will only load the Gracenote info for those discs and won't touch your other edited info. Basically, do not EVER hit "load all discs" unless it's the very first time. Sony should have added an "are you sure" prompt for that, but it is kind of out of the way too. Just stay away from it. There is a folder called "BD Data" that you can't open but I think this is where the device stores the edits. I've confirmed that you can shut down, unplug, etc. and still have your edits/data.
* Disc breakage - Because of the other review I read on disc breakage, I decided to only load a few discs at a time, as I described above. This seemed to work fine. One thing that can happen, b/c the slots are so close, is that two discs can actually overlap in the same slot. It's not as hard to do as you think - I caught this once. Not saying this was the cause of the other person's problems though (in fact, I doubt it was). In general, that is another reasons why I think it's best to do the initial setup in chunks - you minimize the potential for damage. So far, I've played a couple movies and loaded all my movies (only about 120 discs b/c I only loaded the Blu-Rays) and I've had no issues with breakage. SO FAR.
* Organization - This might not apply to everyone, but I'm obsessive and anal when it comes to the organization of my media (e.g. iTunes, AppleTV, etc.). I cannot stand not having the right year, the right names/titles, album art, etc. Gracenote is "okay" in that it will sometimes get the data right. 99% of the time, it has at least some data, but it's only "perfect" (again, in my lil anal world) about 10% of the time. For example, I like to organize by title (you can sort by release year, slot # and title), but this unit recognizes "The" as the beginning of the title. So, "The Godfather" and "The Matrix" appear with the "Terminator 2" and the other "T's". I prefer to change the title to "Godfather, The" to get the organization right for my tastes. Others may differ. Also, if you order Box Sets, it will usually default to "Matrix Collection (Disc One)" rather than "Matrix, The" (actually it won't ever put a space before "(disc one)" - See? Anal...). Sometimes Gracenote will have the preferred choice if you highlight the title, go to "options", and press "load" - sometimes not. If so, you will see 2-4 additional options. You may have to try a few to get it right. If Gracenote isn't perfect, I always correct it manually. This means spending A LOT of time editing. Also, there is no way (yet) to add missing album art, so if it's not at Gracenote, you're SOL (and you will feel the feeling of fingernails grating the chalkboard everytime you scroll past your "dud" movie file). But I will be hounding Gracenote to update it's database with holes I find, hopefully others do too. I will periodically "re-load" problem titles. I've only loaded Blu-Rays into mine so this is kind of inexcusable (Gracenote/Blu-Ray coding issue, not Sony).
* Editing - As above, if you need to edit for any reason, it's pretty painful. But I found a little shortcut that others may not have realized. Rather than scrolling with the arrow buttons on screen to a letter, pressing the letter, then scrolling to another block, simply use the remote control itself. For example, a "space" is number "0" on the remote. If you press zero, the first slot is space. Let's say you next want the letter "T" in caps. Simply press "8" right after and since T is first in that queue, you will get a "T"...and so on. So, let's say you want to type ", The" (I've done this so much, I'm typing this from memory), you would hit "yellow button" twice (gives the comma), "0" once (space), "8" once (capital T), "4" five/six times (can't recall exactly how many - lower case "h"), then "3" five/six times (lower case "e'). Then press "enter" on the remote and you're done. You can do that without pausing or scrolling - all in a row! Maybe others knew this, I only realized it after the first edit. Another thing - "Clear" on the remote works as "backspace" if it's all the way at the end and as "delete" if it's all the way at the beginning. I found that using the remote saved me TONS of time. It's still kind of painful (especially having to type certain phrases like "Special Features" over and over and over again) but it's way better than using the on screen display. If you don't edit much, you might not care.
*Other media - As I've said, I've only used this for Blu-Ray so far. I cannot speak to the capabilities with standard DVD (which should be about the same), CDs (should be the about the same), or with home CDs/DVD-Rs/RWs (which I would expect to vary WIDELY). I also don't know how it handles digital media off USB (haven't tried yet). For home DVDs or rentals and such, I plan to use the "rental slot" (which I have tested and it works perfectly). But that's more my own quirkiness and not wanting to "mix" my hi-def Blu-Ray with standard - pure personal preference. (In fact, I have all my home movies, loads of other movies, and all music digitized on a backed-up hard drive running through a hacked 2Tb AppleTV, so I wouldn't use this machine for any of that anyway.)
* Usage - Last but not least is actually using this thing. It works as expected for a Blu-Ray player, but it takes a bit of time to load - more than normal b/c it needs to queue the disc first. It also automatically loads and plays the last loaded movie at startup/power on (haven't tried to figure out yet if that can be disabled). Be careful not to hit the "home" button which is clumsily placed so close to commonly used buttons (also be careful with other Sony remotes which can activate functions on this). I've programmed a Harmony remote to manage everything so I don't have that issue, but I hit "home" once and it took me back, right out of my movie, to the movie selection screen. This pretty much means another 60-90 secs to watch your movie again. My suggestion? Basically, don't rush when using this. Wait a sec or two before you hit a selection b/c if you do something unwanted, you must wait painfully for the "load" to complete, THEN wait for the "load" you actually want. There is no "undo". From a quality standpoint, picture and sound are outstanding - certainly as good (or better) as my very spec'd out previous Blu-Ray player - so you lose nothing and probably gain here. As stated, I haven't played with the USB Port/BD-Live functionality yet. Depending on what additional functionality I get from a USB drive packed with goodies, this could be a HUGE bonus. Seems like the XMB menu is set up for this, but I just don't know yet. I will update.

Anyway, I hope some of this long-winded review is helpful since there are still no major professional reviews out there. I'm very pleased with this purchase.

It's about time an affordable BD changer appeared on the market. Picture and sound quality are equal or better than the PS3 it replaced. Been testing with Planet Earth, and the output is amazing. Also tested the up-scaling using the extended 'Return of the King' DVD, it's output was nearly good enough to keep me from buying the BD when (er. if) it appears.

Thank God for the new interface! It is much faster and easier to use than the old 'Disk Explorer' from the 300 and 400 disk Sony DVD changes.

The disk loading, and Gracenote, do need some improvement. If you just want to try the unit out after newly installing it, then start with only one disk. Because, every time you select the 'Load All Disks' option, it restarts from the beginning (disk 1), even if half of your collection was already stored.

The Gracenote had no info at all for about 1% of my collection. Another 2% had no picture jackets. And, perhaps the most annoying because of the number of times it happened, about 5% of my disks ended up with foreign language titles. You do have the option to over-ride this, which I did, and manually enter a title. Also there is the option to manually select different database entries - but all of the failed BD's had only a single entry. The player did manage to save my manual edits even when the disk was ejected and reloaded.

I bought the sony BDP-CX960 to accomodate my ever expanding DVD library that was eating up my shelving space, slowly and surely.
I only read the one review available from amazon when I bought it, and the specs from sony [...]web page.
Having owned multiple sony coponents over the years, I felt comfortable pulling the trigger on this 649 dollars baby.

I briefly read through the manual some before setting it up. I have connected to a pioneer VSX-1019 receiver via the BD HDMI input, outputing to a samsung 58 inches 1080p PN58B650 Plasma TV. the speakers are 4 Polk audio m70's for front and polk cs2 cc speaker and Polk M-60 for saurround rear with 2 Polk audio PSW505 subwoofers,..

All I can say is WOW, WOW,...

THE SONY DBP-CX960 SETUP MENU was very easy and intuitive, smoothly guided me through the all set up, from choosing audio, to picture quality to upscale, etc,.. all were easy and straightforward.

Now came loading the BD and DVD discs. After connecting the RJ45 in the back to my network, I loaded about 100 DVD and BD discs.

Via remote I instructed the machine to load all disc informations, which it does by connecting to gracenote, web site that downloads the discs informations and displays the jackets for easy recognition, as well as genres, actors year, etc,..

well out of 100 disc I loaded, it recognized 100 discs and downloded all there info, some were older one from the mid 90's,... no problem.
the process took somE time, so you bettEr get it started and get busy with another project. I did not time the process, but for the 100 disc I think it took about 1 h +/- 5-10 min.

The picture quality is amazing, and the sound could not be better.

Now i can sit in my favorite chair, flip through my DVD collection and not worry about loading the disc...that is what I was looking for.
No need to manually enter any information, wow,..it is about time somebody made good use of the internet in this business.

By the way you can do the same for audio cd and other media format.
It can connect to your computer via your network and displays picture, music and movies,.. not bad at all.

The list goes on and on,.. in a brief summary, the machine has lived up to my expectations so far, after one month of use, and has delivered what Sony has proclaimed. Great picture, excellent sound, HDMI connection, and others connections, and easy set up and operation.

If you are debating weather to spend the extra buck on this baby, and want to treat yourself for an early X=Mas gift, go ahead, take the plunge, the price keeps falling,.. it is in my opinion worth the price i paid for it.

Hope you'll find this helpful

Update 09/02/2011

Almost 2 years of ownership and light usage and the Sony BDP CX960 is still going strong. I have updated the firmware few times since I initially purchased it,. it is holding over 250 BD movies now and has only failed to recognize titles for 2 movies, via gracenote.
Still think it is a great buy, I see the price has gone down since it came out.

I have very mixed reviews about this product.

First of all, the delivery: This player arrived in its own sony box - no additional packaging, just a UPS label stuck on the side. They also didn't require a signature. Had I not have been home when it arrived I'm wondering if this would have still been sitting prominently on my front porch when I got home.

It is massive - will not fit in a cabinet. I had enough height but not enough depth in my cabinet to fit it so we put this on top of a cabinet.

Connecting the player to our system was quick and easy - we already had ethernet available. We loaded a couple discs initially just to see if it would work and how easily it would be able to receive the Gracenote info. Of the 3 we loaded it only was able to get one title. The other 2 were "Ka" a cirque de soleil disc (which we really didn't expect it to be able to find), but the other one was a brand new release "The Ugly Truth".

So with a 33% success rate we decided what the heck and loaded 311 discs into the player and then let it load. We watched tv and went to bed. In the morning it said that 110 discs had not loaded. I think this was probably due to our shutting off the tv. We had programmed our harmony remote to control all of our components and I think when we shut everything down to go to bed it inadvertently shut off the player (even though we had covered the ir).

So - we started the load process again on just the missing ones. Towards the end of the load the player started making a terrible noise but then it subsided. After successfully loading data for the dvds that didn't get data the previous night it said that all of the dvds but 17 of the last 20 did not load - which seemed weird (especially since they were all in row in the player). We let it finish the process and took a look at the dvds that did not load. Each one of them had a massive scratch across them in the same place. They were not scratched when we put them in. We moved a disc that had been successfully loaded previoudly and put it into one of the slots that had scratched the dvds. That dvd proceeded to get gouged when we tried to load the data. I have no idea why it happened in just a small section but there was something wrong with the player. We did try a couple more dvds in the same slots and this time got them to load fine. I am very nervous about putting more in but I do have some dvds I would feel comfortable testing with. I wonder if one of the dvds didn't load right and threw the ones next to it off but I'm not really sure how that could happen. Loading dvds is pretty easy - it's not like you could do anything wrong other then putting them in with the label side the wrong way. However, ours weren't - we definitely checked and all of the previously 285 dvds had loaded fine. In fact, a number of the scratched dvds were 2 sided widescreen/standard discs so it doesn't matter which way you put them in. One was even a blu-ray. Most were recently released dvds.

Massacre of my dvds aside (they were ones that weren't really our faves). I am tryinng to remain positive after all the work of loading and time to get the data from Gracenote. The player works perfectly for the rest of the dvds. Picture is amazing and the sound is great with our 5:1 sound system. In the end almost of the data was able to be retrieved from Gracenote (just 2 additional new dvds didn't get info).

We tried to contact Sony about this but it is Sunday. I will be adding an update to the review once I am able to talk to Sony and see what they have to say about the scratching. I will update this review after that. Had we not had 17 dvds ruined I would have given this 5 stars. Would I buy it again? Not sure. I am going to keep it and see what happens...

I purchased this player after a fair amount of debate.

My concerns were:

The variability of price over time. The price seems to be bouncing around quite a bit even on Amazon.

Lack of a WiFi connection. The Ethernet works, but you still need to have a bridge. (I decided to use a Buffalo Technology Nfiniti Wireless-N Dual Band Ethernet Converter WLI-TX4-AG300N. Had some problems with the first one, but the replacement has worked fine. Having the ability to connect four ethernet devices has proved to be a real plus.)

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 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 could 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.

Price. Because of the variability, even on a day to day basis, shopping is worthwhile.

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 Amazon-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.

July 16,2010

I decided to get a second on to replace my old CDP-CX220 300 disk CD player primarily because information entry was quite tedious and I really like the Gracenote function. Unfortunately, the 960 does not have the ability to group disks and repeat play a group. An example would be a set of CD's that you play around Christmas. A call to Sony yielded the suggestion that I should get a CDP-CX350. Unfortunately, that unit does not have internet connectivity and, thus, no access to Gracenote. The 960 does have genres and you can create play lists of specified tracks. However, per Sony, there is no related repeat function and the genre process is an assist to find a specific disk and does not have the capability of playing a complete genre let alone repeating all the disks in a genre.

So, I'll be saying goodbye to the "Group" function. I'll probably end up creating play lists and just restarting them when they end. I haven't done anything more than study the information about playlists in the manual. Hopefully, a playlist can include multiple disks and allow the loading of all tracks on a disk at one time.

I'd suggest that Sony consider a firmware update to add the "Group" functionality to the 960.

7/19/10

The "Group" function has a parallel contrary to what the first Sony tech rep said.

I found that when you select a genre or artist and press the "Options" button, one of them is play. Do this at the genre display level and not the level of individual disks. This will cycle through the disks in the genre in slot number sequence. Keep in mind that you can create new genres and assign disks to them. This allowed me to convert my "Christmas" group on my old player for use on the 960.

I can't recommend the playlist function for trying to do a parallel because you have to create a playlist track by track and there's a limit of 99 tracks on a playlist. There are only eight playlists available.

You should also select "No" to HDMI during setup if you want to play the CD's through and A/V receiver and not use the speakers in the TV. If you don't, turning off the TV once you've set up a multi-disk will also turn off the player. I guess this latter is another reason to have your CD collection on a separate player.

Unfortunately, turning off HDMI has the side effect of also turning off the ability of the TV to determine the correct input source. This means that you have to use the TV remote to do this manually and adds to the complexity of playing CD's on this player. I had been considering replacing my rather elderly Sony A/V Receiver with a new one to take advantage of the multiple HDMI inputs on the newer Sony receivers. I decided against doing this after a discussion with Sony tech support because it wouldn't let me turn off the TV after making my TV selection unless I'd disabled HDMI. The Sony tech suggested just using alternative inputs for the sound, but this would have prevented me from being able to use the player menus on the TV for making my selections. Having this ability was my reason for getting a second player for CD's. It would be nice if Sony were to enable options within HDMI to selectively turn off/on various HDMI functions instead of having it all or nothing. I would probably have gotten a replacement receiver if I'd had this ability.

I'm getting to where I feel that the manual is really only a starting point. These solutions were only found playing with the machine and calling Sony tech support--and that's why I've added this comment to the review.

8/22/10

There is a way to have HDMI and turn off the TV without turning off the connected components. This is a setting on the Sony Bravia TV's. I don't know whether other brands have this capability.

Go to "Control by HDMI" Within that, there's an option to not turn connected components off when the TV is turned off. There's also an option for not turning the TV on. I've found that I needed the latter when playing the player I used through a Sony STR DH810 receiver for CD's so that it won't turn the TV on when loading a new CD in a set.

11/10/10

I've now had three instances in which previously loaded disks have become unknown. These appear as a group at the head of the list. It usually includes five disks. This is fixed by pressing the options button and selecting "Load". I've no explanation why this happens since it is infrequent and, for me, doesn't merit taking the time to call Sony. You should check for this occasionally since the disks involved will have disappeared from the various selection lists.

5/1/2011

Had an interesting hiccup. After loading two additional disks, I noted that the text and icon information for the disks no longer displayed on TV menu. I checked several disks and found that the information was still there. Contacted Sony tech support and their suggestion was doing a full reload. Since the data was still there, I pointed out that I didn't think a full reload was the answer--especially since this would overlay all my manually entered information. I turned the unit off for a while and when I turned it back on, all the menu information had returned. I've no idea why this occurred and, I suspect, that the Sony tech had no clue, either. I just hope it doesn't repeat and become a permanent problem.

6/2/2011

The problem has not re-occurred. There has been a new firmware update, but I haven't checked to see if it included this problem.

This is the end point for my comments which are specific to the BDPCX960.

However, if you're interested in some lessons learned while integrating two of these players with a Sony AV receiver and a Sony Bravia TV, I've added the following comments.

1. Sony really needs to develop a system integration manual that spans Sony components. Integration information in specific component manuals is not adequate.

2. In my specific configuration, I've used two of the CX960 players. One is for movies and one is for music. After extensive attempts to integrate the movie player so that it would operate properly through the AV receiver, I've finally decided that it was easier to just do an HDMI connect from the player to the TV and connect the audio out on the TV to the TV audio in on the receiver. This was after unsuccessfully experimenting with component HDMI settings and the pass through function on the receiver.

3. This approach works and is quite satisfactory. The integration problems aren't related to the players, but to the receiver and the TV.

4. I still recommend this player.

I've owned this 400 blu-ray disc changer for a few days, and I'm very pleased with it. The addition of of blu-ray capability to the carousel disc "megachanger" was inevitable, but what makes this really remarkable--and a net time saver--is that with an ethernet connection, it automatically catalogs all of your disc information using gracenote in just a few hours. Of 220+ disks loaded, it missed about 15. Frustrating though it is to have to enter this data by hand, it can hardly be blamed on Sony. Once identified, the machine remembers the discs gracenote missed.

Overall, this is a great blu-ray player. It's quick and quiet. Easy to load. Great image and sound quality. Much better for DVD playback than the PS3 I was using previously. Only caution for people considering it is that it is very large -- standard width, but 9" tall and over 21" deep! Make sure you have the room for it.

Overall, I'd say this dramatically enhances the value of my DVD collection by making it much easier for me to remember--and quickly access--the discs that I've bought over the years.

I've had two of these units. The first one played about 15 discs fine. Then I updated the firmware. All the discs became "invalid". I spoke with Sony support and they asked me to send the unit in. After a month, they called me to tell me they didn't have the parts to repair the unit, and offered me a refund. It took 4 months for them to send me the refund. So I bought another unit hoping the problem was a fluke. Got the unit home -- all the discs were recognized using the firmware that came installed. Then a month later, the discs that were recognized weren't recognized any more. WTF?!? So I updated the firmware, removed all the discs, and forced them to all be recognized again -- no luck. This product seems to be built in such a way that it will play a disc, then later decide the disc is invalid. Terrible.

This unit does what it's supposed to do, and is easy to set up and operate. Our 8-yr-old already has the hang of it completely. It gathers all of our DVDs and BDs into one safe place, and ends the days of wondering why the disc isn't in its case. No more scratched and useless discs!

Audio and video quality are fine; at least as good as most single-disc units out there. You have to spend a lot more to get better results, and then it only holds one disc instead of 400, and doesn't have Gracenote to help keep track of them all. We also own the 7000ES, and while it's definitely better, it's also more than twice the price. For value, this unit is the clear winner.

I own two of these units, and love them!! They are everything that you would want from a blu-ray changer, and more. I found, through trial and error that the changers work at their best with the original firmware that came with it, and that the firmware update removes it's viability and causes nothing but grief. When I received my first changer, I loaded all of my discs. Everything worked perfectly. Even Gracenote found all but two of my 400 discs. Then I made the mistake of 'upgrading' the firmware. To my chegrin, 75% of my discs now came back "Invalid Disc". I managed to restore the original firmware, and voila, all of my discs were once again recognized.

I have read most of the reviews posted on Amazon for this unit. Many of them seem to be written in anger and haste and may be tainted by the writer because of this. To believe that the changer destroys discs is nonsense. If the reader inside of it destoyed 1 disc, then it would destroy all of them. Also, regarding Gracenote, if the description, or icon does not say what you expected, 'Load' that disc again. Gracenote will usually put up a menu with multiple choices for that disc. Pick the appropiate one.

I was so satisfied with my first unit, that I bought a second one. I have split my blu-ray discs so that unit #1 contains titles starting with 'A-O', and unit #2 contains 'P-Z'. Both are hooked up to the internet, and both work carefree, perfectly.