This could be from 97-99, can't remember exactly when we bought it, but it still works great. Never had any major problems, even withstood kids putting discs in wrong, putting blocks in the machine, etc... If I calculate the cost, it comes out to less than 10cents per day, and it's still going strong (knock on wood). Definetely had it 10 years now, if not 11ish.

Disk capacity

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

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.

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

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.

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.

no conspicuous strengths

user interface is exceptionally poor

I have little to add to the previous comments, except to note that there is now a superior alternative--the Pioneer DV-F727.

The Sony machine is fatally flawed simply because it's more trouble than it's worth to find and play the disc you want to see (or hear). In the time it takes to find and play the disc you could have not only have pulled a DVD out of its case and started it playing in a single-disc machine, but also gone to the kitchen and made a snack to eat while watching.

Since, as noted by a previous reviewer, there is as yet no place to review the Pioneer machine, I'll give brief details here, with a few comparative remarks about the Sony.

The Pioneer handles 101 more discs, and can be made to control a second unit to make a total of 601 discs accessible. The "+1" disc slot is particularly easy to use--I use it to play my double-sided discs, which would otherwise require an awkward flip. The disc management is much superior to Sony's, but still leaves something to be desired. Titles are limited to 12 characters (there is another 12-character field for "artist"). The on-screen display will sort the discs by slot number or alphabetically by title, or artist, but the alpha sort looks only at the first character, and is case sensitive. Unlike the Sony, one can overwrite the title information that comes on the disc. The Pioneer "remembers" the title and artist information you enter for up to 330 discs, so you can pull a disc to lend to a friend, and the machine will recognize it properly when you put it back in a different slot later.

The most annoying problem I've had with the Pioneer is that the component video output is monochrome. This may well be a set-up error, but I can't find it, and the Pioneer technical support people were spectacularly unhelpful--they simply told me that I was wrong.

The Pioneer machine will not show time remaining on the unit's own display. The remote is reasonably functional, but not as nice as the remote of the Sony, which has an unsually good jog wheel.

Despite its larger capacity, the Pioneer is somewhat smaller. Both are rather boxy, but neither is conspicuously ugly.

All in all, I consider the Sony an expensive mistake. The Pioneer is not perfect, but it's not bad. The Pioneer would get *** for value (it's got a high list price, but is seems to be deeply discounted--I paid $715 at Oade Bros.) and **** overall.

Similar Products Used:

Pioneer DV-F727 300+1 DVD changer

200 DVD/CD/VCD, Excellent audio/video, No Lip sync problems

CD-R/CD-RW can't be played, Average disk explorer features

I am pretty happy with the system. Used it for more than 3 1/2 months so far. My first DVD player. I have read all the previous reviews. I will also do a summary of them.

* I haven't found it scratching or frying DVD's as complained before.
* After entering data for 15+ DVD's and 10+ CD's, I shut down the power for 15 minutes. When powered it on I didn't loose any of the data. Somebody complained everything was gone.
* I connected this system to Harmon-Kardon AVR80II system through 5.1 analog inputs. No problems so far.
* Never played with HDTV, digital/optical coax cables, component AV outputs.
* I tried to record some songs from this DVD player to a sony minidisc player but the audio was scrambled. I also tried to record from this DVD player to a VCR but both audio/video were scambled.
* I have played Video CD's with no problems and PBS works fine.
* Disc Explorer feature shortcomings:
1) 16 letter limit
2) small amount of genres
3) playing a dvd or cd, you cannot access the
menu of other dvd/cd's.
4) slow scroll through titles.
5) no search capability.
But I can live without them. I know better systems will be available sooner or later. Heard pioneer F727 has better features.
* Twice so far, system didn't respond to the remote or front panel keys, in the middle of selecting different disks. However when I physically shutdown the power and switch it back on, everything worked fine. I guess it crashes sometimes and you have to hard reboot it!!!
* Looks like there are some really bad pieces frying and scratching dvd's, out there perhaps I lucked out.

Similar Products Used:

None

A lot of things

This thing ate my movies. I've never seen DVD's bend like that. At least one of my movies is toast, maybe two. I got this one open box from Best Buy; I found a cd in there from the previous owner when I was looking for one of my movies that dissapeared inside. It was stuck off to the side. Too bad I don't like Garth Brooks. Do yourself a favor and load up some of you junkie CD's and play around with it for a while before you put your movies in there. You might not get them back.

If it didn't destroy my DVD's I'd love it.

Capacity, EZ Play, Picture/Sound Quality, Styling

Disk Explorer, Expensive

This is actually a review of the DVP-CX860/870D -- I haven't been able to find any other reviews on it, so I'm putting it here where people will see it.

I previously owned the CX850 when it first came out, but I returned it because it had a nasty habit of destroying my DVDs. Discs got stuck when the spindle dropped discs in the back, left corner of the unit. When the player detected the problem, its solution was to quickly rotate the carasaul (full of other DVDs) around and around past the stuck DVD. It was like watching "the wheel" on Wheel of Fortune, but each revolution was a $20 DVD snapping in half, or getting scratched to hell. Honestly, I didn't use the 850 much because that was a feature I decided I could live without. Sounds like they fixed it since, but for $800 (at the time)... nope.

Now, a year later, the CX-860 and CX-870D have been released. Since I have to play with latest gadgets, I decided to try them both out since Crutchfield has their nifty 30-day (shipping on them) return policy.

Both the 860 and 870D play DVDs beautifully. I have seen no flaws at all -- no artifacting in the video, and no lip syncing issues with the audio (as early Sonys did). A cool new feature of the 860/870 is the DVD flipping feature. Nice if you have movies (like Seven) that require manual flipping of the disk mid-movie -- or disks that have supplemental tracks on the flip side. That said, the new loading mechanism in the 860/870 is designed much better. The player pulls the disks into the center of the unit from the front, or the back if you are using the flipping feature. The new mechanism seems to have fixed the DVD demolition feature of the 850. The 860/870 is significantly smaller than the 850. My 870 can actually rest on all four feet on top of my receiver... unlike the 850, which required a garage. Finally, the 860/870 EZ Play feature is pretty cool for those times you miss your single disc player. Did I mention that the door for the 860/870 is motorized now too?

If you didn't like the Disk Explorer on the 850, you are not going to like the 860 and 870. It is basically the same firmware, except they added some genres. I am still trying to decide if I like it. Sony claims that more recent DVDs have titles and jacket covers, which the Disk Explorer relies on for ease of use; but, out of my collection of 85 DVDs, only 5 had titles. ONE had a jacket cover. Folks -- I buy new DVDs almost every Tuesday, and even the newest DVDs don't have titles and jacket covers... i.e. Gladiator, The Klumps, Fantasia. Sony does include a jacket collection VCD this time, but only for *some* of *Sony's* movies. The Disk Explorer interface is still somewhat slow, and has the 13-letter disk memo/3-letter folder memo limitations. Finally, the "Loading" feature is still an all disks load, or none of them load, proposition that takes several minutes to complete. I have read complaints that if the power is pulled on the 850, the manual input of titles/genres gets erased. After a 3 hour power outage today, I didn't see this on my 870.

The main differences between the 860 and 870D are:
1.) The 860 does not have the built-in Dolby Digital decoder. The 870 does have the decoder, and has the neon blue decoder light on the front panel if you care.
2.) The 870D has some additional A/V enhancement functionality which you can read about at www.crutchfield.com. The Video EQ feature is kinda cool.
3.) Both units have a neon blue LCDl; however, the 860 has a dull, green carasaul light, while the 870 has a cooler, blue neon carasaul light. (Personally, I thought the green was annoying, and didn't match the other Sony gear I had.)
4.) The 870 has Holographic disc numbers, which makes them easier to read... especially w/ the blue light.
5.) The 870 has a light built into the remote for commonly used buttons like play, stop, and pause.

All in all, I decided the 870D was worth the feature/style improvements over the 860. Finally I have the DVD changer that the 850 should have been. Hopefully more DVD manufacturers will include DVD titles/jacket covers.

Similar Products Used:

Sony DVP-CX850D, DVP-CX860

200 disc capacity is huge. Appearance of the unit is quite nice.

Lack of info on the DVD (title, jacket, etc.), but that's not really their fault. Remote is quite picky, or maybe more precisely, problematic. Half the time the buttons don't work when trying to browse w/ the disc explorer, makes loading the info a real chore. Size, yes be prepared for a behemoth of a unit. No disc flip feature for double sided discs.

I guess I'd give it 4 starts out of 5. I waited months for this thing, and once you get it set up you'll love it. Could have been a 5 if the Disc Explorer was a little less of a pain in the rear to use.

200 discs. sound/picture quality

size/interface

This thing is big! Much deeper than any of my other components so it doesn't fit the rack. All by itself its off to the side on a small table, which might bother some people.

I've had ZERO problems with it scratching discs as mentioned below, but you must be careful inserting/removing discs.

It operates as expected. Clear picture...i use the coax out to do my decoding in my receiver....flawless.

the interface clearly needs work, and i think it has been updated in later releases. Regardless, I got mine on closeout, CHEAP. I keep a laminated cheat sheet in my magazine rack which let me know where all the discs live. No, I haven't figured out all the features of the remote....but all i care to do with it is find my desired disc#, and play it. That part is easy!

Similar Products Used:

no jukebox styles, but it performs as well as any 1->5 disc dvd player i've seen for less than $300

capacity, plays multiple formats, looks great, it's a SONY!

Big machine, but I like it

Got this baby at Best Buy, dropped to $299.00, then got a $50.00 preferred customer coupon for a multi-dvd player purchase, dropping it to $249.00, then also got a free Sting DVD to boot ($20.00 value). It is so cool to load up and organize my collection to the way that I want to watch and listen. Abolutely no problems, this machine doesn't jam, is fully-featured rather than complex, and the video and audio capability is easy to see on my 50" projection TV, switching from A to B. It is much better than my current Pioneer LD/CD/DVD player, and the DTS signal capability (fed to a required outboard DTS processor) is simply AMAZING! My friends think I went a little overboard, but for the money paid, you are shortchanging yourself in going with anything less than this state-of-the-art player. I have put it through its paces, and IT DOES NOT JAM. Maybe earlier reviews got some lemons made on a Monday or something. Anyway, the only way it could be better is if it were FREE (which I think it almost is at this ridiculous price). GET ONE WHILE YOU CAN: my Best Buy has run out already.

Similar Products Used:

Pioneer DVD, Pioneer combi, Apex, Denon