Sony DVP-CX985V 400 Disc Progressive DVD / SACD Player

by Sony

Product Details

Product Manual [2.72mb PDF]

• Product Dimensions: 23 x 23 x 13 inches ; 19 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 25 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• Shipping Advisory: This item must be shipped separately from other items in your order. Additional shipping charges will not apply.
• ASIN: B0000DIK0U
• Item model number: DVPCX985V
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #15,009 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
  • #67 in Electronics > Televisions & Video > DVD Players & Recorders
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Store your collection of DVD movies and audio CDs in Sony's DVP-CX985V progressive-scan DVD/SACD player, and they'll just be ready for playback at a moment's notice. The DVP-CX985V multiformat mega-changer stores 400 discs and is compatible with DVD-RW/-R, DVD+RW/+R, SACD (Super Audio CD) multichannel discs, and CD-R/RW discs with CD and MP3 audio.

Other DVD players detect image changes at the scan line level--Sony's Precision Cinema Progressive (PCP) system detects them at the pixel level. The picture is more faithful to the source--whether film or video--because separate, optimized algorithms are used to handle the differing pixel behavior. Separate algorithms are also used to process the moving and still parts of an image, resulting in sharp backgrounds with moving objects that are free from motion artifacts.

The high-speed 108MHz/12-bit video D/A converter employs 4X oversampling for much more effective noise filtering.

In addition to standard 2-channel CD playback, the DVP-CX985V plays 2-channel and multichannel Super Audio CDs. It reads the disc information of all the discs and loads the information into memory so that disc type, titles, and other text information can be displayed on the TV screen.

It has the following video output options (with number of ports): component video (x1), S-Video (x1), composite video (x1), coaxial digital (x1), and optical digital (x1). It also has the following audio output options: analog audio (x1) and 5.1 channel (x1).

Other features include:

• Included remote operates the DVP-CX985V as well as a number of functions on select brands of televisions and receivers; its keys glow in the dark.
• Instant Replay feature enables you to go back 10 seconds to review a scene with a single press of a button.
• TV Virtual Surround feature generates a convincing surround-sound effect using only 2 stereo speakers.
• Dolby Digital and DTS output.

Tech Talk

• SACD: Super Audio CD (SACD) is a high-resolution digital audio format that promises vast sonic improvements over the current audio CD format. SACD discs can be played back on dedicated SACD players or combination SACD/DVD-Video players. Certain SACD discs feature a conventional audio CD layer (hybrid SACDs) which can be played back by any CD player or computer with a CD-ROM drive.
• Progressive scan: Also called sequential scanning, a progressive-scan system displays the entire image--providing all the horizontal lines per frame, rather than every other line--once every 60th of a second. This method reduces flicker and increases stability. Progressive-scan viewing requires a compatible digital TV.
• Component video: Unlike a single video input, component video maintains the video signal as three separate signals through these three jacks. This connection provides optimum quality. To ensure maximum picture quality, use three video-grade cables for the Y, Pb, and Pr connections.

What's in the Box
Sony DVP-CX985V DVD/SACD player/changer, remote control (RM-DX500), 2 AA batteries, RCA cable (57 inches), and operating instructions.

Product Description

Progressive-scan DVD player, compatible with DVD-RW/-R, DVD+RW/+R, SACD (Super Audio CD), and CD-R/RW discs with CD and MP3 audio.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding unit, usable menu, July 18, 2004

By 

contentgrrl - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sony DVP-CX985V 400 Disc Progressive DVD / SACD Player (Electronics)

Expectations are everything. My experience with the incompetence of the consumer A/V industry must lower mine. I've heard the complaints about the speed and clumsiness of this unit but I have no major complaints about it. I must admit that I place a higher priority on picture and audio quality, and this unit is awesome on both counts. In addition, the transport is well designed, quiet and well balanced.

For those of you shopping for one of these, make sure you read the dimensions. This sucker is HUGE. It's much deeper than any of my other equipment, including my Sony ES receiver. I had to cut the back out of my A/V cabinet in order for it to fit. Again, no biggie. I'd have bought a new piece of furniture for it.

The time required to set up this unit is nothing when compared with the nightmare of displaying, storing, and handling 350 DVDs. My wife and I spent about three hours inserting the discs and entering the titles, using a keyboard and a spreadsheet of our movies. It took me another hour to divide the DVDs into the four included groups in the Disc Explorer. I divided them into Family, Action, CDM (Comedy Drama Musical) and Other (special features, yoga, documentaries). Seems to work so far for me.

Is the Disc Explorer the greatest thing in the world? Nope, but it works fine if you are too lazy to have a printout of your movies nearby. The best part is that it's not required in order to use the unit, which gives you lots of flexibility. If you are serious about your video system, use DVDlobby and you'll never use Disk Explorer again.

I've heard complaints about the speed of the transport on this unit. Again, expectations are everything. How long does it take to look through the movies in your media cabinet, decide which one you want, open the sometimes bizzarre packaging, load the disc into your player, take the old one out, and put it away?

With this unit, it takes 18 seconds to load and play a disk on the opposite side of the platter. It takes 9 seconds to go from viewing a movie to viewing the Disk Explorer. It takes about 4 minutes to navigate through all 400 disks with the Disk Explorer. It's faster if you don't add pictures to the disc names, and some of the names from the disk manufacturers are just wrong, so you might be better off not letting the unit detect your disks.

The only movie I had a real problem creating a title for was Confessions of a Dangerous Mind since there was only room for "Conf/Dangerous M". I settled for "Dangerous Mind". I know my movies well enough that I don't require an entire paragraph to remind me.

If you are interested in using this unit for SACD, remember that you must have a 5.1 channel input on your receiver. If you have more CDs than DVDs, don't expect this thing to be a good CD player. It isn't, but I've never seen a DVD player that was. Buy a megaCD changer and save yourself the trouble.

76 of 84 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars So Many Stupid Mistakes, August 14, 2004

By 

Homer Simpson (Los Gatos, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sony DVP-CX985V 400 Disc Progressive DVD / SACD Player (Electronics)

First the fundamentals: this unit works--it stores and plays 400 DVDs with very good picture and sound quality; but there are so many little things that make it hard to use that the only reason to recommend this over another mega-changer is the price.

The biggest problem is the amount of your time this unit wastes.

As other reviewers have noted, with the cover art installed, it takes over 1.5 seconds to display the next item when scrolling up or down. That really adds up in a 400-disc player. You can cut down on this by alpha-sorting the folders and scrolling rapidly without having the unit display the titles as you go, but even with this it still can take over a minute to find the disc you want. Definitely longer than when I had my DVDs on the shelf.

It is also very annoying that the player locks-out the stop button during the FBI warning, so if you start playing a disc unintentionally, you have to wait until the warning is done before you can go back. That can easily add a minute or two.

Which leads to another big frustration: an extremely bad remote control. There are lots of little buttons that are very difficult to tell apart. Some of the buttons can kill a viewing experience if hit by accident (eg., if you hit disc skip you need to sit through the entire FBI warning for the DVD you are moving to, and then again through the one you are watching, and then you have to find your place again. A potential 5-minute delay because your finger slipped in the dark).

There is also a strange bug that causes the unit to sometimes start playing the current disc when you hit the power button. (There is a feature to do this, but I have it turned off). To continue the ongoing theme of this review, when this happens, you need to sit through the entire FBI warning before you can go select the disc you want to view.

Two features that I've seen mentioned about this unit (though not by Sony) are not present at all. First, some places refer to this as a 400+1 disc changer. There is no 401st slot; you need to remove a disc to put the 401st in. Second, I saw one site say that this unit could play both sides of a DVD. This is not true.

I have ended up printing out a paper list of the installed DVDs and their slot numbers, and I navigate using the dial on the base unit. I control the unit during play using a universal remote that doesn't include any changer functions.

Not an ideal solution, but not bad for around $350 delivered.

31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The positives outweigh the negatives - with another remote., February 20, 2004

By 

Paul F. Pangrazzi (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sony DVP-CX985V 400 Disc Progressive DVD / SACD Player (Electronics)

After reading numerous reviews regarding the Sony DVP-CX985V, it became obvious that Sony's interface needed to be avoided altogether. Since I also happened to be looking for a way to avoid another remote in the living room (I'm embarrassed to say I've collected over a dozen somehow) I found the Harmony SST-659 universal remote can catalog all 400 slots and display them on the backlit LCD.

In short, you look at the remote to choose the movie, not the painfully slow and inaccurate Sony "Explorer" mode... which does a great job at making you feel as if you are truly exploring some vast, unknown and mostly empty wasteland.

You might not like the idea of buying a new DVD player and a fairly pricy remote just to make it all work. But if you're like me, and were ready to get rid of some remotes anyway... it's a winning combo.

What's the catch? The remote itself requires patience and an internet connection to program it... remember, it can control all of your systems.

The silver lining? I shopped around and bought both for a little more than the retail price of the DVD player alone.

So I actually love the DVD player now. The quality of the picture is superb. The sound decoding is faultless. It plays every rewritable disc I've thrown at it, and finally, it's just too cool. Watching the blue backlit carousel spin your library around gives my 3 year-old the giggles every time.

And I LOVE the door locking feature. We can keep his DVDs out of his hands and locked in the carousel. This has actually saved us money, since he's been able to find several of his discs in the past and frisbee them to death.

Bad kid. Good player.