Sony BDP-CX960 400 Disc Blu-ray Disc / DVD MegaChanger (Black)

I thought it would be kind of like the sony dvd changer , it loads quite abit slower and it don't have any way to add thumbnail pics for the menu when it is not in the grace notes. Other wise it still has a good piture a sound and you don't have a bookshelf of moives on the side of your tv.

The player will not decode Dolby Digital 5.1-7.1 audio from a Blu-Ray DVD if connected to the optical port on your amp/reciever. It will decode standard Dolby Digital audio from a non-Blu-Ray DVD through your optical port. Thought I should mention this since most of the other reviewers seem to be focus mainly on the size of the player, BD Live, and loading of movie titles. The player stores and play DVD/Blu-Ray DVD with not much else added than any other "typical" single drawer DVD Player.

First, the good. The player works very well, and the loading of my first 21 discs went okay (although slowly).

The user interface is easy to use and the sorting / grouping of discs is descent (although a little limiting).

Here's the bad for me:

Parental Controls on the player are bad. Firstly, the "ratings" on the system are setup via very generic numeric ratings. While this may make "technical sense" it doesn't fit the expectations of a parent (namely me). I'd want to see things like PG, PG-13, TV-MA, etc. However, once you get the idea that "lower is more restrictive", you can guess your way though it a bit.

So I set the options for both DVD and BD playback, set a parental password and then tried to load 2 discs that should have been restricted. Shrek (DVD) loaded the disc and then I got a clear warning about the parental controls not matching between the disc and the player. It prompted me for the password and everything was good.

I then tested Tru Blood (BD - TV Series, and very TV-MA). Gracenote labeled as TV-MA, yet oddly enough, it allowed this to go through right to playback.

Thinking I had done something wrong, I double checked everything. It looked okay to me. I contacted Sony support. Basically the answer I got was that the disc itself is responsible for parental controls. So Tru Blood doesn't have the content protection flag set. My other players treat discs that don't have parental information as "unrated" and in the most protected category of discs. Instead, Sony has opted for the opposite, and allows any disc to play if it doesn't mark itself as restricted.

One other thing Sony mentioned was to use the "Child Lock" feature. This basically stops the front door from being opened by the front panel or remote. This is good to restrict access to the discs in theory. However, turning off the option doesn't require the parental password at all. So, it's good to stop your 2 year old from playing with the door but not for restricting any older child from circumventing the player.

This is all very backwards in my opinion.

Of course, I can restrict this by not having the discs in the changer, but that defeats the purpose of the changer itself. I now have to check every single disc I put into the changer to see if it properly identifies itself.

It seems to me that Sony should consider some of the following to make this player more usable:

1) Discs that are unrated / not protected should be treated by default as "playable", but rather as the most restricted type of disc. Relying on the content producer to label the disc appropriately is not a good idea.

2) If Gracenote has a rating for something, allow it to restrict playback of the discs.

3) Allow setting a disc manually to "restricted playback" (or set the rating directly) so that discs that aren't protected properly aren't allowed to play.

4) Restrict the list of discs in the UI to only show properly rated discs (this may or may not be appropriate).

5) Require the parental password on child lock being turned off.

We are basically reconsidering our purchase of this player due to this limitation, since it means that I'm not able to restrict my library of movies from my children except by storing the discs separate form the player (which I could have done with any other player on the market).

I previously owned the Sony DVP-CX995V 400-disc DVD changer, and it was so-so: If you wanted to use the unit's directory for selecting a DVD and then play it, you had to fiddle with a slide switch on the remote!!! Other user interface issues were just as archaic, and it missed getting the titles of many (about 65%) DVDs off the media (whereas my PC did just fine).

The new BDP-CX960 is a MAJOR improvement:

1. The on-screen menu is much more extensive and capable, although a bit confusing when you first turn it on. Getting to the "home" (directory) menu screen when playing a disc is instantaneous (unlike the DVP-CX995V).

2. The ability to retrieve DVD/Blu-ray disc data from the Internet is a big improvement, and it only missed for about 2% of the discs.

3. Applying a firmware update over the Internet was seamless (with the DVP-CX995V, you had to order or burn an update CD).

4. Finally, better options for controlling the aspect ratio. I know there are idiots in the universe that want every movie (no matter the aspect ratio) to fill the entire screen (no matter the distortion), but I'm not one of them.

5. The remote control is a LOT easier to use!

6. The claimed ability for the unit to control a compatible TV ("Bravia" ?) seems nice, but I don't have a Sony TV.

Minor criticisms & suggestions:

1. What's with the bright light that shines in the display when you play a Blu-ray disc? Is that to impress your friends??? I had to set the display to "dim" to make the "Blu-ray" light not be distracting in a dark room. Feature suggestion to Sony: Option to disable the !@#$% light. Sony, if you are going to go to the trouble of having a bright light, why not have it shine on the numbers in the carousel tray when the door is open (duh ...)?

2. Nit: Yes, I had a 1GB USB memory stick laying around, but how much money did that save Sony for extra memory?

3. What this unit REALLY NEEDS is an embedded web server (like virtually every other Internet-capable intelligent device on the planet) to provide a web interface over the Ethernet port for:

a. Controlling the device.

b. Keying in disc titles/genres/actors/etc. This would solve the keyboard interface issue without any additional hardware, and embedded web servers don't take much memory or computing power. You could also import images for the discs that don't have one (or the wrong one).

c. Saving & restoring disc titles/etc (preferably in XML format). Once my DVP-CX995V lost power, and the several dozen titles I had entered were gone (this was a MAJOR incentive to sell the DVP-CX995V). Granted, the Gracenote DB found virtually all of my current titles, but still ...

4. Nit: When playing music CDs, the remote's "TIME" button cycles between displaying on the TV the track time played, the track time left, the disc time played, and the disc time left. Ah, Sony, isn't there enough room on the TV screen for all four times???

5. Why oh why does this player (like the DVP-CX995V) think it has to load some disc (any disc) before it will respond to the remote control? Still, it's not as bad as the DVP-CX995V.

6. Nit: The unit displays (on its own display) the titles of music CDs when loaded, but not DVDs. Why??? This would be especially helpful if the title would be displayed as you rotated the carousel with the door open ...

Other comments:

1. This is a 1080p-capable HD device, primarily intended for HDMI output, although there is component output (won't send 1080p signals, though). Accordingly, there is no S-video output (although strangely enough, there is a composite video output).

2. Verizon's FiOS remote control worked with the DVP-CX995V, but has no compatible IR codes for the BDP-CX960, and the BDP-CX960 remote knew nothing about the Verizon FiOS STB or my Harman-Kardon receiver. Time to look at the Logitech remotes ...

3. Some reviewers (not here) have commented as to what's wrong with just having a well-organized bookshelf to hold your CDs/DVDs/BDs, instead of this unit? Answer: DISK HANDLING.

All in all, this is an excellent product for my purposes, and the nits are only how to make the product better (all but one of my suggestions could be solved in software).

After owning two previous versions of Sony's multi-disc players I was very disappointed in this player. Sony seems to have left out some simple ease of use features that are offered in previous players. I thought you were supposed to improve features in newer models, not remove them. Here are the features I thought should have been included.

1. Ability to jump to a certain disc number. This system makes you thumb your way down a list to select a disc. This can be very annoying if you are heading to disc 350, since the menus do not roll over. This feature is on other Sony 400 disc players.

2. Ability to disable/enable Blu-Ray live for a single disc or on the fly if desired. The player setting for Blu live is ON/OFF for the system, it could have an "ask" feature also. The Playstation does.

3. Ability to load only unread discs. This player allows you to load (get info from gracenote) from one disc or ALL discs. There is no "unloaded discs" option. So if you add a group of discs you must load all discs in the entire player or each one added individually.

These features are simple to include and hopefully they add it to a future software release. If these simple time saving features were added it make my review go from 2 stars to 5.