Sony DVP-CX985V Multi-disc DVD Player

Having over 300 DVDs in my collection, I was looking for a unit that could hold all my DVDs for quick access.

I have owned two CD-only changers previously - a 300 disk Pioneer unit and a 400 disk Sony Changer unit. I still have the Sony CD Changer for audio CDs (CX400) and it's a great unit.

I am using the 985V exclusively for DVD storage (my other Sony CD changer holds all my audio CDs). I am using the unit's Progressive Scan outputs to a 42" Panasonic Plasma.

The Sony CX400 has a much better and more intuitive interface for navigating audio CDs. The 985V is much better for DVDs.

Positives:
- The units holds 400 CD/SACD/DVDs/VCD and plays them all
- Video signal is clear and accurate
- Deinterlacing looks good but not as good as Faroudja versions in Pansonic RP82 or Denon 1600/2200
- Has child lock to prevent accidental opening of the unit
- Plays DVD-R, DVD+R disks (important if you plan to make backups of your DVDs using your PCs DVD writer)

Negatives:
- Selecting a DVD to play is painfully SLOW using either the FILER or the unit's rotatry knob
- The unit only recognized 5-10% of all my DVDs, for all other disks, I had to enter info using a PS/2 keyboard (hope you have 4-6 hours of time available for typing)
- Finding DVDs stored is very slow. I recommend creating an Excel Spreadsheet with all your disks numbered for quicker access
- Loading/Unloading disks is slow
- User interface is very basic and feels very archaic - I wish Sony looked at how elegant and neat the Apple's Ipod operates
- Does not play DVD-Audio disks
- Displays only 5 DVD titles at a time - scrolling through all 400 disks would be a slow and painful experience

Bugs
In order for the unit to recognize your disk, you must load it. Sometimes, if you tell the unit to re-load all the disks, it may erase the title that your entered for those disks. I found a work-around. When you load a new disk, load just that disk and press STOP immediatle after. This avoids the problem of clearing the memory for other disks.

Conclusion
Despite all the negatives, I like having all my movies and shows instantly available. It's still faster then me loading and unloading using a single disk player.

I have a print out of all my DVDs handy so that I can punch in the slot number of the disk I want to play.

The DVD Player has lots of other features but most of them are not very useful.

I liked the design of Sony's 400 CD Changer (CX400) better as it had two separate knobs: one for CD acess and one for track access. It was also much faster.