Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 54
 For so much money, I really expected more July 11, 2010
MW (Miramar, Florida United States)
I've owned the predecessor of this unit, the one that also holds 400 discs but only plays standard DVDs, plus I own the CD version. Despite reading the reviews of how large this thing is, I was still surprised at its size when I set it in my entertainment center. It really is a monster, so measure carefully. This aspect really doesn't bother me, though, because my shelving more than adequately houses it. Here are the two big drawbacks (IMHO) that warrant the three-star rating:
1. I am disappointed that the Sony software does not allow you to search Gracenote, find the title you need, and then apply that title to that specific slot for any backed up copies of movies. While the unit does play them, it simply labels them "No Name." Typing the names in with the remote is tedious, to put it mildly. So tedious, in fact, I've decided to just use an Excel spreadsheet instead of going to all that trouble. I highly advise you write down which discs you are inserting into which slots as you load. You may be sorry otherwise. Is this something you should have to do with such an expensive machine? Why in the world did Sony take away the keyboard hookup it had on the previous model? I've even tried putting the original disc in, which automatically links to Gracenote and uploads the movie data, and then carefully sneaking it out and putting in the back-up copy (not even using the disc eject button), but the data disappears and up pops "No Name" again. For those of us who prefer to keep the original disc in a safe place and only play backup copies,why can't the unit allow the user to do an online Gracenote search for the movie and save that data to the slot? Sony, are you listening?
2. I have several discs of HD family video that are in AVCHD format that the unit will not play. My one-year-old Panasonic BD player plays them beautifully, but this unit is unable to (yes, I have the latest software uploaded). What's the deal with that? It does play some AVCHD discs, but not all. The manufacture date on my machine is February 2010. To have discs that a player a year old can play and this one can't is unacceptable.
The things I do like about it:
1. The Gracenote interface, even with the hideous drawback above, is better than nothing.
2. The fact that it can link to the internet, albeit without wifi, is a definite plus for updating the software and, hopefully, adding future capabilities (like fixing item #1, above). I will probably eventually try to hook it up via the power line through an Ethernet adapter and connect that way, but for now, instead, I bought a short Ethernet cable in black CAT5E, UTP, with Molded Boot, 350MHz, Black, 3 ft, so it won't show, and let it rest by the side of the unit when I don't need it to be connected. I'm glad I got the 3-foot length, by the way, because the unit is so deep, anything shorter would not work very well. I also purchased a coupler Cables to Go 01937 RJ45 8-pin Modular Inline Coupler Straight-Through (Ivory) and a longer, 15-foot cable to reach my router Mediabridge - 15ft (4.5 meter) Red RJ45 Computer Networking Cat5e Ethernet Patch Cable. It's really not that much of a hassle to hook it all up, and it's a solution, at least for now, until I decide to take another approach.
3. One reviewer wrote that the up-converting is almost about as good as Blue-ray, and I tend to agree. The picture produced is really outstanding.
Anyway, generally speaking I like the unit. It's about your only option at this point. Prices seem to be dropping in various sites on the internet, so careful shopping and setting up price-watching should pay off if you decide to take the plunge. I may be wrong, but I fully expect a "better" unit to be on the way, with wifi and (hopefully) with better movie labeling capabilities. I mean, come on, even my tiny WD HD Media Player Western Digital WD TV Live Network-ready HD Media Player WDBAAN0000NBK-NESN allows me to put icons against movie titles. I remain hopeful that new software updates will improve this model, though. We'll see.
 Great Player July 4, 2010
Gerhard Gareis (NY)
Very impressed with this player and have had no problems with it. It's a awesome way to organize your dvd/blueray collection. It is a big player so make sure you have enough room to place it.
Pretty Good Product June 25, 2010
R. N. Frank (Taylorsville, CA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I was a little disappointed when I found that you had to connect the CX960 to the internet to catalog the discs. It would seem logical that Title info could be obtained from the disc itself. That said, I have been connecting the player to the net when I load a set of discs. It connects to the Gracenote DB, loads the info when available (about 80% of my discs have Gracenote data), then I disconnect the ethernet wire. The player retains the data w/o the connection. Everything else about the system works as expected. The disk catalog works well and load times are reasonable. Video and sound quality have no apparent deficiencies.
After RTFM, it appears that disks w/o Gracenote data may be edited. I have not pursued this yet. Disks w/o data just show up as "Disk # _ " and "title unknown". I would suggest taking notes on disks loaded and disk # when you add sets of disks. This would facilitate cataloging if Gracenote data is not available. Oh - another issue... this system is NOT ideal for double sided disks as it only recognizes 1 side. Not so bad if the disk is 4:3 on side A and widescreen on B, but when content is on both sides of the disk, you will only get Side A. I have NOT been loading disks into the carousel, with content on both sides. The system has a Single Load capability into slot 1 for rental disks and special needs.
Sony BDP-CX960 400 Disc Blu-ray Disc / DVD MegaChanger (Black) June 24, 2010
Carl Vanosdel (Arroyo Grande, CA)
This is a very nice unit, except for one exception. It is vary slow to boot up and load disc's.
A Good Place for Your Collection May 5, 2010
Carl F. Heinz (California)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
I purchased this player after a fair amount of debate.
My concerns were:
The variability of price over time. The price seems to be bouncing around quite a bit even on Amazon.
Lack of a WiFi connection. The Ethernet works, but you still need to have a bridge.
Gracenote. Does it really work? Yes it does--mostly. I've loaded 158 DVD's so far. It failed to find three. Two of these were documentaries which, I suspect, had a rather limited distribution. The surprise was the failure to find "Up". The assigned genre can be strange. I found one series of eight DVD's that included three different ones. However, it's quite simple to change genre and even create new ones if you'd like to group specific disks.
Lessons learned:
Read the manual. There are obviously sections that can be skipped but understand the load process and information editing. The actual play is pretty intuitive and should give you few problems.
Be careful when loading Gracenote information if you're not loading all of the disks at one time. Subsequent sets of disks are grouped together and you can load just those. It's pretty easy to accidentally do a full reload which could overwrite your edits. I think Sony should really have a "Do You Really Want To Do This" display prior to beginning this. It's simple enough to cancel, but it can be scary if you've gotten into a full reload by accident.
Things I like:
I disagree with some of the other reviewers about load time. I also have a five disk player and have to sample a disk to make sure it's the one I want. The menu display for the jukebox eliminates this and I don't think the time to load following selection is excessive.
It is fairly intuitive once you remember that the "Home" and "Options" buttons are your friend.
To my eyes, the HD upscaling when using an HDMI connect to a Sony Bravia TV yields a picture that, for me, is indistinguishable from the quality of BluRay.
I've reserved the use of this player solely for movies and I suspect that it'll be quite a few years before I come close to filling it.
The various ways you can sequence the disk find display makes finding a specific disk in your collection quite easy.
Concerns you might have:
Size. This is a large machine in height and depth. If you're putting it in a component cabinet, make sure that there's sufficient space. I also put mine on the bottom instead of one of the movable shelves because the weight potential of the component when fully loaded will be significant.
Price. Because of the variability, even on a day to day basis, shopping is worthwhile.
What to do with the emptied cases? I've found that the Iris media storage box works for me. I label each box with the slot number range it contains. (I also put a slot number sticker on each case.)
Advance preparation. In addition to component size, having an Ethernet/WiFi bridge will be worth it in time saved by using Gracenote.
Don't purchase two sided disks. Only one side will be available. (Note to Amazon-It'd be nice if the disk specifications indicated whether one was two sided.)
For me, this player was definitely worth it.
May 19,2010
I've finally got all the disks loaded. Sometimes a disk doesn't initially want to go all the way in. Don't try to force it. A little jiggling and repositioning the turntable will take care of this. I found that I occasionally skipped a slot and had to correct this.
It did have a hiccup yesterday and I apparently wiped a couple of titles that had previously been loaded. The unnamed disks show at the head of the by titles list so I just did a "Load" on them. This apparently took care of the problem.
I'm still glad I got it.
June 25, 2010
Well, the tally is now 230 I guess it's a hazard to have this capability. You just keep wanting to add.
I've noted in a number of other reviews a criticism that there is no capability to add/change disk icons. My personal feeling is that icons are nice, but I don't select based on them. The title and the ability to edit the title more than offsets this.
July 16,2010
I decided to get a second on to replace my old CDP-CX220 300 disk CD player primarily because information entry was quite tedious and I really like the Gracenote function. Unfortunately, the 960 does not have the ability to group disks and repeat play a group. An example would be a set of CD's that you play around Christmas. A call to Sony yielded the suggestion that I should get a CDP-CX350. Unfortunately, that unit does not have internet connectivity and, thus, no access to Gracenote. The 960 does have genres and you can create play lists of specified tracks. However, per Sony, there is no related repeat function and the genre process is an assist to find a specific disk and does not have the capability of playing a complete genre let alone repeating all the disks in a genre.
So, I'll be saying goodbye to the "Group" function. I'll probably end up creating play lists and just restarting them when they end. I haven't done anything more than study the information about playlists in the manual. Hopefully, a playlist can include multiple disks and allow the loading of all tracks on a disk at one time.
I'd suggest that Sony consider a firmware update to add the "Group" functionality to the 960.
7/19/10
The "Group" function has a parallel contrary to what the first Sony tech rep said.
I found that when you select a genre or artist and press the "Options" button, one of them is play. Do this at the genre display level and not the level of individual disks. This will cycle through the disks in the genre in slot number sequence. Keep in mind that you can create new genres and assign disks to them. This allowed me to convert my "Christmas" group on my old player for use on the 960.
I can't recommend the playlist function for trying to do a parallel because you have to create a playlist track by track and there's a limit of 99 tracks on a playlist. There are only eight playlists available.
You should also select "No" to HDMI during setup if you want to play the CD's through and A/V receiver and not use the speakers in the TV. If you don't, turning off the TV once you've set up a multi-disk will also turn off the player. I guess this latter is another reason to have your CD collection on a separate player.
Unfortunately, turning off HDMI has the side effect of also turning off the ability of the TV to determine the correct input source. This means that you have to use the TV remote to do this manually and adds to the complexity of playing CD's on this player. I had been considering replacing my rather elderly Sony A/V Receiver with a new one to take advantage of the multiple HDMI inputs on the newer Sony receivers. I decided against doing this after a discussion with Sony tech support because it wouldn't let me turn off the TV after making my TV selection unless I'd disabled HDMI. The Sony tech suggested just using alternative inputs for the sound, but this would have prevented me from being able to use the player menus on the TV for making my selections. Having this ability was my reason for getting a second player for CD's. It would be nice if Sony were to enable options within HDMI to selectively turn off/on various HDMI functions instead of having it all or nothing. I would probably have gotten a replacement receiver if I'd had this ability.
I'm getting to where I feel that the manual is really only a starting point. These solutions were only found playing with the machine and calling Sony tech support--and that's why I've added this comment to the review.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 54
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