Customer Reviews

Sony DVP-CX777ES 400 Disc DVD/CD Changer

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

If you have SACD's then you really don't have any other choice than a SONY changer; however, if you only want a DVD Mega-changer, go look somewhere else. SONY had an opportunity to really nail this product line and blew it big time. It almost feels as if the builders have never actually used this thing. It uses SONY DVD components so you know it has a great picture and if you take advantage of the Progressive Scan interface and the optical audio you will find the performance well above average. But no one buys these changes as a DVD player, we buy them as storage and retrieval devices and that is exactly where this thing and all of the other SONY's fail.

Major failures with this product:

1. Mega Changers should boot or power on directly to the menu/folder, not take the time to load and launch the last move played.

2. The Remote is a disaster, buttons are too small and the ergonomics are among the worst ever.

3. The movies that are automatically added to the menu are about 50%, so don't expect to add your movie and find it in the Folder menu.

4. Call it something other than the "Folder", you shouldn't have to figure out what things on the remote mean and learn their terms, it should just make sense.

5. Occasionally this thing just doesn't want to load a disc and will skip it, when it does it removes the disc from the menu or folder because it thinks it's no longer there.

6. Once you have loaded all of your discs you are expected to hit the load button to gather all of the text and graphic info into the folder, again 50%. Also, don't do it after you have manually typed in all of the missing discs, because the load button will erase those that it can't get info from.

7. You should be able to launch a disk and enter text info while the disk is playing, this will allow you to populate your folder over time as opposed to the very painful process of back and forth.

8. This changer is quite but because of that it is one of the slowest out there.

9. It will randomly drop disk info from the folder area. Again the primary job of this device is to house DVD's, CD's and SACD's while allowing us to find the one that we want when we want it. When you have a fully populated folder and you power up the device; after a full 40 seconds (go ahead and count it out or look at your watch it is forever) before you can get the folder to come up and you find that some or several of the disc's info is missing, you want to break this thing into pieces, and it will get worse and do it again and again.

I have had two Sony DVD Changers a 300+1 and this one. I thought that the ES would be a better product but it isn't. I am getting rid of it and will try the Kenwood, even though I am not a huge fan of the look, I care more about how it works.

How many still make DVD Changers? The number that seem to be decreasing instead of increasing, inspite the fact that everyone is building DVD collection like crazy!

The main reason I wanted 400+ Disc changer is so, I don't mess my DVDs with scratches taking them out of DVD cases all the time. Especially, my precious home videos! Also, I own over 400 movies on DVDs and using changers kept all my DVDs in prestine condition and that makes it easy for me to sell them fast when i try to get rid of them from my collection for better movies.

I bought this ES line of Sony changer because it was the only one avialable with Silver Finish and goes well with my all silver Home Theater setup. I also had the DVI output DVD player from Samsung and I thought the color reproduction of this Sony unit is amazing compared to Samsung and other non-progressive DVD players I owned before.

There are some drawbacks with user interface and how it starts off playing your last played DVD everytime you turn on the power. But over use, you will figure work arounds and will enjoy this unit like I do with an year of use now. I have no complaints and I don't think I can manage my DVD collection without it.

Some big advantages of this unit:
1. DVD Jacket picture. It shows you a thumbnail image of the DVD title along with the movie name. Most studios like Columbia, MGM, iDreamDVD (Indian Telugu DVDs), etc have this feature on all their DVDs.
2. Excellent picture quality.
3. Plays SACDs
4. Very silent operation
5. You will learn to manage it better with experience
6. You can connect regular computer keyboard to keyboard input in the front panel and enter all DVD titles that don't have DVD-TEXT feature.

Drawbacks
1. Slow disc explorer loading
2. Plays previously played disc automatically when powered on (You will learn not to shut power after using it for a while).
3. The remote on older non-progressive model is much better with more buttons. This model has reduced number of buttons hence, requiring your to press several buttons before you can do simple operation. Then again, you will not find it as problem after some use.

Overall, the best DVD changer with Silver Finish! If you are looking for black finish look no further than Kenwood's high-end changer Sovereign DV-5050M. It is amazingly user-friendly and the price on this model dropped over 50% in last one year.

11/28/2K4 I upgraded from a DVP-875P player and am very pleased with my purchase. There is a large improvment in picture quality over a standard Sony DVD player. This unit is also much quiter in its operation than my 875. You can barely hear it when its changing disks. I have had none of the problems that have been mentioned by previous reviewers. In fact the only thing that does seem to have taken a bit of a back slide is the delay between layers.There is a small pause when the unit switches layers. But that is a minor price to pay the excellent picture and sound this unit delivers. I have it connected to a Denon AVR-3805 and Toshiba 65H82 with a complete Infinity Alpha 6.1 speaker system.With this setup there is no need to go to the movie theater any more !!!

1/13/2K5 An update to my review on 11/28/2K4. My unit started shutting off for no apparent reason in the middle of watching a movie. After troubleshooting it was decided to replace the unit. When the new one arrived the door would not close all the way. So now I'm waiting for my second replacement unit to arrive. Sony needs to check their QC method's. I'm putting up
with this because the 777's performance in the picture and audio department is outstanding, and I cannot find a comparable product
(except for re-conditioned Kenwood).

1/17/05 The second replacement arrived but when playing SACD it
has a loud hissing noise. I give up. !!! I'm keeping my first unit and I am going to put up with the random powering off problem. I would dump this thing if I could find a comparable
high end player !!

The rumors are true. I have just found almost all 390 dvds in my player has been cut deeply with half moons. Some at the edge, some in the middle, and most multiple times. They have left actual curly plastic strips hanging off the dvd. I haven't tried to play them yet. Too scared of the heartbreak. I spent a lot of time collecting these. I have had 2 players for almost a year. I have experienced all the complaints in previous posts from both players. Including power loss in the middle of a movie occasionally. Poor menu, difficult remote, and most disappointing is the incompetent disc explorer function. Escient is making a fortune off this defect. My second player is not gouging discs yet, but how long do I wait? How often do I inspect all 400 in it? If it destroys one at a time, how long before I discover the problem? I was in love from the beginning with the capacity and DTS capability. Now, I cannot believe these are not being recalled. Why hasn't a class action lawsuit begun? It will cost me over $4000 to replace these.

The remote stinks, and I wish Sony had kept the mega-changer feature from the previous model. I have also had some problems with it not accepting keyboard input but otherwise the unit works well, rarely if ever skips, can play MP3 DVD collections and all formats of DVD's I've tried so far. Very convenient to have all my movies on tap all the time!

I wish the menu speed was faster, that the remote was laid out better and that it still had mega-control capability, otherwise I'd rate it a 5.

I almost didn't buy this because of a stupid reveiw about the user interface being so bad. I is bad but not that bad and I don't even use it. I just keep a list of all my DVD's next to the player and dial to which slot I want and hit play. The fact that the unit always goes to the last DVD played when turned on has it's pluses. Say you didn't finish watching the movie and can't remember which one it was. Or you were interested in the knowing the movie your kids just watched. I started typing in all the titles but gave up as the studios don't put that info on most of the DVD's. If you don't want to get up you can just hit the folder button to search and start the DVD you want. I am very pleased with this unit and would highly recommend it. The fact that it has a serial port for future firmware upgrades is a big plus. Who knows maybe they will improve the user interface.

As others have said - your choices are rather limited when it comes to DVD changers these days, but this is definitely the choice to make! I have had the changer now for 11 months and have been nothing but happy with it. I just loaded my 350th disc into the changer and will likely purchase a second changer in the next few months.

The picture quality of this player is outstanding, and the weaknesses of the disc navigator / filing system can be overcome a couple of ways.

1. The cheap way: Purchase a $10 PS2 keyboard and use it to enter disk information, and - if coverart is not supplied by the disc - simply remember to press the memory button while viewing the disc on a scene that you think will properly represent the movie.

2. Use PC control (this is what I do, although I am slowly building the collection with method 1 too). I use a program called DVDLobby to manage the collection on the 777... This is actually the reason why I chose the 777 over one of the lower-priced alternatives - PC control! Using DVDLobby, I can browse my entire DVD collection from any PC in the house - be the touch screen by the couch, on my TV screen itself via an HTPC, or on a desktop PC, and select a movie to play. The PC control (via RS-232 or "serial connection") is absolutely flawless and servers up the correct movie every time. I even have some trailers that play via the HTPC to fill-up the sub-60 second delay that it usually takes to load a movie. There are other PC and hardware control methods out there besides DVDLobby, so look and see what is available if DVDLobby is not your cup of tea.

Now - if you're not going to use PC control or don't require SACD playback, then you should save some money and buy one of Sony's lower-priced models like one of the 995's, but the4 extra cost for PC control is well worth it if you need it!

My player also gouges and scratched disks like crazy. There seems to be too little separation between disks, so a spinning disk will scratch the diks next to it. I have ruined quite a few disks before the problem became apparent. Now I only use every other slot, so for all purposes I really have a 200 disk changer (and a bunch of ruined disks, thanks Sony).

However great the playback capabilities are of this machine, it is no good if it scratches and destroys your disks.

Audio and Video is excellent, however the machine is impossible to program. There is no way to progam a playlist of cd music to memory. I think Sony did a very poor job with this unit.

I bought this unit at least four years ago (when it had a black case). I'm happy with it -- it never fails to play a selected DVD or CD, and the picture/sound quality is very good. Thr only drawback is Sony's "filing" system. It stinks. And it has lost data several times for no apparent reason, so I dont even use the filing feature anymore: Instead I developed a system using an MS Excel spreadsheet format to create two playlists, which I maintain on my PC, with printed copies near the Sony: The first Excel document is an alphabetized list by title, with the appropriate slot number in column #. The second Excel document is a numerical list by slot number, with the Title in Column 2, and comments (if any) in Column 3...Not a great way to maintain everything, but after I got it up and running, its been pretty easy to maintain it...Now that I'm close to using all 400 slots, I'm thinking of daisy-chaining another one.