300 DVD or CD storage never touched again.

Slow. I suggest using it only for DVDs. Buy a seperate player fot music. Disk Exployer is slow and need to be rewritten. Serious crunching of DVDs/Cds if proper operating instructions regarding Powering up/down and disk removal procedures are not followed as indicated by the book!

I agree with pretty much all that is stated below. It's best used as a multi-disk player for DVDs as it does a great job with the picture and 5.1 sound!
But it's NOT ES. It's a light weight player with a heavy duty price. I still recommend it. Man be careful removing or adding disks if you power it down with the switch on the deck. It somehow forgets where its at and will start extracting disks will make a mess rolling its wheel with a disk stuck in it. If that don't get your attention, nothing will. I had to yank them out as fast as I could
before they were broken or smashed. Of course, if you remove a disk you have to reload it in Explorer. Fortunately
I only had 10 of them in when I learned this. Please READ the part of the instruction on this or you will learn the hard way as I did. Use the remote control to power it down and you be OK, not the power switch on the deck itself. Other than that, it's pretty cool!

Similar Products Used:

Sony MDP-M555ES and CDP-300

Incredible convenience. I had a Sony 200 disc CD player and was using PS2 for DVDs. Removing DVDs from their cases and loading/unloading them was no fun at all and scratches abounded. I have a folder for all the liner notes and threw out all the cases and saved lots of space. The Disc Explorer works great if used effectively as obviously many reviewers here have not. Take advantage of the folders and don't input the Genre, its much faster. Also, for house guests, they can look through the liner notes (DVDs and CDs) and they are marked by number. Then you can push display and punch the number in directly.

Believe it or not I found this unit for $550 Canadian brand new in a box. I was looking to buy the 860 and saw it advertised for $570 Cdn. While shopping for it another store in Mississauga had this one for $550. Amazing price for what you get and a retail of $1200 Cdn.

The size is also amazing. It is way smaller than my old 200 disc changer and easily fits into my fixed shelving audio stand. The old CD changer HAD to go on the top.

Oh how I wish that the disc memos could be downloaded to my Sony LCD remote like they did on my CD changer. Sony certainly overlooked this feature. All they really needed to do was add a Contol A1 jack to the back of the unit.

The Disc Explorer is very slow with the Genres added but speeds up without them there. Do you really need them? I dont think that I will ever miss them, besides, hardly any discs have that information.

Others have complained about Autoplay and that it goes to disc 1. For whatever reason, mine goes to the last disc played, which I can live with although it is certainly not very necessary.

Having the space to only input 16 characters is a drag also but use abbreviations and all is good.

I have to say that I love everything about this unit except for the inability to download the disc memo to my remote.
The build quality is first rate (what do you expect for 95% empty space inside the unit). There are tons of connections and the DVD picture quality is outstanding. And with most new HDTVs now having progressive scan and 3/2 pulldown who needs it on the DVD player?

The Disc Explorer takes some getting used to (read the manual thoroughly) but works great. Use those folders wisely or I am sure that you will remember which position your favourite discs are in and you can punch them in directly. Like I mentioned earlier, don't input the Genre and it will scan down faster. Or try what I have and buy folders for the liner notes and number them.

The ability to input a keyboard saves lots of time and they are so cheap nowadays that I bought one just for this unit.

Outright quality is first rate with CDs and DVDs. If you have a good TV then don't bother too much with any of the video enhancements, I find it adds video noise and artifacts.

Shop around for a good price, I have been to a few other places that will sell it for $600 Cdn (BayBloor Radio for one). Honestly, I would not have payed $1200 Cdn for this unit but for $550 Cdn its a steal.

Similar Products Used:

Sony CDP-230
Sony PS2 for DVD

I have always used Sony products with 100% satisfaction.

301 Disc capacity

Doesn't play CD-Rs

This unit is a must for anyone who wants all of their DVD's and CD's in one location. The picture and sound quality are excellent. The ability to play both sides of a 2 sided DVD is a nice plus. While the disc explorer feature still could use some work this is still a great unit.

Similar Products Used:

DVP-CX850D

Flips the disk if it is in wrong or two-sided. Ingenious.

No CDR support, period. Slow, noisy, quality suspect.

Santa left this for me and I was pretty happy with the big guy at first. Turns out his Sony elves really let him down.

This thing is not built like I expected from Sony. Other than video cameras, this was my first Sony audio/video equipment.

The Bad...

First of all, I could not get it to play CD-R. Says right in the book, no CD-R support. Couldn't believe it.

Second thing wrong is the response time. It takes it forever to open up. If you are impatient, and press it twice it will never open. And it has a motorized drop down door. Serious design flaw and flimsy. I couldn't get it to open and I had placed a 4 CD set on top of it. Turns out the door has to raise up a flap on top just a little before it will drop down. The weight of 4 empty jewel cases kept it from opening with no message.

Third is the noise. You can hear it in the next room when you change disks. And it sounds like the motor is really working hard. Does not sound smooth at all.

Fourth - Remote is somewhat confusing and doesn't support my 2-year-old Panasonic TV. Remote and on screen displays could be a lot better. Boring screen saver. And if you can't find the remote, you're in for more confusion on the box itself.

Fifth - I had several older CD's get kicked out when it hit a scratch. Gave a cryptic error number and just stopped. Didn't try the next track or even go to the next disk. Put the same disk in other CD players and no problems. Weird.

Sixth and it is a nit-noy. The spin knob to select a CD is backwards. Spin left, carousel should turn left. It doesn't, it goes right.

Number Seven: Although the keyboard connection is great, the response is very slow and requires to many keystrokes to get things done.

Eight: Too limited text for filing. If the CD doesn't have CDText on it, you get about 16 characters. Why can't I fill in the fields it gets off the CD? End up with a mix-mash of how the CD's are indexed.

Niner: Won't do home video CD's. Because it doesn't do CD-Rs, so this is kind of a repeat, but a big one.

Ten: Can't listen to it while you load it or program it. The Pioneer DV-07 will, plus it has 330-disk memory so you can move 30 disks in and out and it remembers them.

I could go on with some other minor issues.

Good stuff:
- Does an excellent job on the DVD side. Nice picture and great sound.
- Came with an S-Video cable, which I needed so that was nice. Which reminds me, the back of the unit was very nice compared to most I've seen. Lots of options.
- It'll flip the CD over if it is in wrong: Some genius figured out that if you let the center player be loaded from the front AND the back, you can "flip" a CD by rotating the carousel half way and loading the same slot from the opposite side. It kicks the CD out the front, rotates halfway, re-loaded it from the back (it is now "flipped") and then the carousel rotates back to the front with the CD in the player. If two-sided disks become common, this will be nice.

Overall: I was glad I bought it locally at Bjorn's. I returned it today. I can't afford the Pioneer Elite DV-O7 and I’m not sure the jukebox fits our lifestyle, so I skipped it and bought a Pioneer DV-434. With the money left over, I bought a Yamaha Receiver. Happy with both so far.

Lessons Learned: I will take every type of media I want to play in the machine with me next time. I will take longer playing with it in the store and getting into the details.

Similar Products Used:

Pioneer Elite DV-07