Price Paid:  $450.00 from Sears

Summary:
Compelling reason to opt for Sony 850D Changer was to keeping my cd/dvd collectin in box. I declined to buy the extended warranty (A Must for sony products. Regretting now). I had bad experience with Sony products earlier. Was skeptical of sony's durability but decided to give a try mainly based on the Disk capacity feature. Disk explorer was slow and annoying but could leave with it as I write down the titles on a paper. Did not play CD-R and didn't try using CD-RW. Picture quality was fine. Used my receiver's (Marantz SR8200) Dolby digital decoding for Audio. Player worked fine under moderate usuage for about 2 1/2 years. (Averaged 3 hours/Week). Recently started noticing occasional freezing, jumping while playing DVD. First I thought it was due to bad dvd. A week ago stopped playing completely. Loads the disk, spins it and after a while tells that "not a CD/VIDEO/DVD" and goes to load the next one. What a waste. Its a piece of junk now. I would recommend avoiding Sony products if possible. If you really have to buy one, make sure you get an extended warranty.

Strengths:
Disk capacity

Weaknesses:
Piece of junk. Bad quality. Dont expect long term service.

Price Paid:  $350.00 from SuperFi

Summary:
I read the reviews before purchase and thought I'd break a habit of a lifetime and buy a hifi separate made by Sony ~ My friends all had nightmares with various Sony products. After 6 months I felt content until the system was powered down for 3 days while refurbishing the pad. When the system was powered back up Yes it did keep all the title information however the the disc selection now sounds like the starter motor on a Ford Escort on a cold morning. It still plays CDs and DVDs ok but the noise is off putting to say the least.

Strengths:
Stores all you disks in one place. Works well as a jukebox for parties etc.

Weaknesses:
It needed chipping to get all region dvds to play on it. The gui is pants. Its huge. CDRs don't play ~ haven't found a CDRW that does either. What can I say should have trusted my instinct.

Price Paid:  $500.00 from Cambridge Sound

Summary:
I bought the Sony DVP-CX850D about a year ago. Over all is has performed as a DVD player well. I have had a 36 XBR TV for about a month and have used the component input, the picture is as expected, great. I never had a DVD that would not play.

My hope a year ago when I purchased it was that most DVD would be text Titled, and this has not come to pass. You must enter the titles into the unit by keyboard or remote. The editing capabilities is small, don’t make a type-o.

The unit has an index capability to sort the DVD. Once you index them it places a picture beside the title, nice feature. The unit can scroll through the disk at about 1 disk per second when indexed. This results in over a 3 minute to move through the full menu (TOO SLOW). I think they are using a Commodore VIC 20 to produce the disk index menu. It is quicker if you do not index them as Action, Sci-Fi, etc, as this adds the picture of the index where the jacket cover goes. I am trying to remove the index, to speed it up.

When I bought the DVD, I was hoping to make VCD from home videos and place them in the unit. This does work, but limited. Home made disks must be written to CDRW or the player will not recognize them. I have read that there are some green and silver CDR that work but I have not been able to make them work.

I burn an Audio CD (CDRW) with Text. The player supports text and shows the title of the disk, not the song, not the artist. If you change tracks on the CD a big blue bar is shown on the TV stating track on the left and blue space to the right. The bar is the full length of the screen, plenty of space for the track title.

I am happy with the player as it performs as a DVD player well. I did get a chuckle out of Sony sending me a notice on the new 300 Disk Carousel. I don’t think I will upgrade until CDR, VCD 2.0, SVCD, XSVCD and FULL TEXT are supported. My next player will have this and an Ethernet port to find the DVD or CD title from the net as well as an HTML interface for programming song play lists.

Bottom line, it is a great DVD player, I expected more, got less, but still a good value.

Strengths:
I have a small child and the carousel is great. My Son never touches a DVD, thus never chance damage. I rent 2 or 3 movies and place them in the player, and you enjoy seamless viewing.

It is Sony quality in workmanship.

Weaknesses:
User interface is poor. REALY BAD. With 200 disks, the menu is important, and this fails in speed, usability, versatility, and esthetics.

Limited CDR and CDRW support (though stated not supported) and limited VCD support.

Price Paid:  $650.00 from tweeter

Summary:
Ok, after over a year of using this beast I still love it! Can’t really understand all the complaints. I have had NO problems using this player, maybe I am used to my sony VCR style of remote.

Complaints about the player picking up DVDtext or pictures: blame the DVD producer for this one DUH… like it’s the players fault for the dics not having the info

I have filled this and am shopping for my next DVD changer. I have had no complaints about finding discs or scrolling. I don’t even use the catagoies for god sakes. One big DVD category and I find every disc fast.

Unpluged the unit and put it in my car with all the discs still loaded and moved it to my new home, no loss of memory or any mechanical problems.

Remote is fine, styled like my 2 sony VCRs but will be picking up a pronto for my system upgrade. Could have used a “force swing back” like the vcrs have.

Strengths:
200 discs

Weaknesses:
a few

Similar Products Used:
DVD rom drives

Price Paid:  $500.00 from Pyramid Audio, Anchorage

Summary:
I originally bought the Pioneer 727 at Costco for $600 but took it back after noticing frame jumping during lateral movement of various scenes of several dvds. The picture on the Pioneer was very sharp but the 4 or 5 jumps per movie got annoying. The Sony on the other hand performs flawlessly both visually and sonically. Sure, the ergonomics are slow between movies, and those of you who are using CDs in it should invest in a $200 changer if you want speedy disc exchange. I've never had any jams or mechanical issues of any kind, but, out of the thousands of players sold, I'm sure some of you have had QC problems. Luckily, I haven't and overall considering the lack of competition (the Marantz player is a Pioneer!)-- I am very pleased with my Sony.

Strengths:
Cuts down on disc handling and storing issues. Superior video quality. Excellent built-in decoder (if needed)

Weaknesses:
Slow disc access. Moderately noisy during playback. No backlighting on remote (common Sony problem!)

Similar Products Used:
Pioneer 727 200 disk player, Sony S300 single disk dvd player