Sony CX 985v. 400 disc DVD changer

[walls]

I have the opportunity to purchase two of these in like new condition with original remotes both for $150. This seems like a good price and I was thinking that I could load them up with all of my dvds and store all the cases. I have around 800 dvds so this would be a nice space saver if not anything else.
Any of you guys hav experience with these? Are they worth it?

 

[Huey]

That's a good price as one time they were going for pretty big money on Ebay. I have one that I should have sold at the time, although mine might be a 995. Mine worked great except that it kept losing the disk info that I had typed in. Twice I reentered the disk info, and for whatever reason, it would just delete everything. Very frustrating. Ended up buying a Harmony remote that would store the info instead. Other than that, it worked great and you got a good deal.

 

[walls]

Good to know, I won't waste time loading all the info will just ke p a spreadsheet instead.

 

[Flint]

I had a friend who back when those DVD library players were cutting edge technology. He loved using his rig which consisted of three similar units.

That said, I've abandoned DVD and discs in general as a medium. I keep a few which are special to me, but otherwise there is so much amazing and interesting content available to me via streaming that I am essentially done with video discs. That's not the case with music. So, for me it is more about how I value the art form.

 

[walls]

I would love to abandon dvds, blu rays and even cds but streaming just can't put out the same level of audio quality, or at least none that I could find.

 

[Flint]

I would love to abandon dvds, blu rays and even cds but streaming just can't put out the same level of audio quality, or at least none that I could find.

Music CDs versus Streaming: Generally, yes, I agree. (exception for the high end lossless streaming services)

BluRay audio versus Streaming: Potentially yes, but for me I cannot consistently hear the difference as the audio encoders have gotten much better and the visual content is a massive distraction from our ability to concentrate on the audio. But, streaming can provide all the channels, frequency bandwidth, dynamic range, and such with a loss of masked and minute details which could be audible in the right conditions.

DVD audio versus Streaming: I believe streaming has the potential offer higher quality audio than the old DVD standards available.

But, none of this matters. I am just sharing my views on it. I think the DVD library changers are very capable and you'll enjoy them.

 

[walls]

I seriously wish I could just down load everything and be done with the actual discs but besides the audio the other problem for me is that if done that way then you can only view or listen to that content on one tv. I have setups all over my house as well as my shop so being able to grab a disc and roll with it is also a convenience.

 

[Flint]

I seriously wish I could just down load everything and be done with the actual discs but besides the audio the other problem for me is that if done that way then you can only view or listen to that content on one tv. I have setups all over my house as well as my shop so being able to grab a disc and roll with it is also a convenience.

I don't follow this logic. Streaming devices are so cheap that you could put one on every TV and stereo you own. I have three TVs in my house, each has a variant of the Amazon Fire TV connected to it. I have eight audio systems in my house with Amazon Echo voice assistants attached which can play any internet radio stations, streaming service, or in my case I use Amazon Music for music streaming. Each of my PCs, be it a tablet, notebook, or desktop, has the Amazon apps loaded so I can watch all of my streaming content on all of them. And my phone also has all the apps loaded for all my streaming content. I can even connect my phone, tablet, or notebook PC to my Bluetooth speaker when I travel and listen to or watch all of my streaming content anywhere I am while traveling, hanging out somewhere, or whatever.

Moving almost everything to streaming has allowed me to get my content, and billions of hours of other content I may or may not care about, on everything I own damn near everywhere in the world. I am never without access to it all.

That said, I still use CDs or lossless music on my phone or my portable media player to do serious critical listening - because I do prefer full resolution audio when seriously listening to music. But for background music while cooking, cleaning house, while eating, working in the shop, or whatever, streaming of plenty good enough.

But, I do get it. I felt exactly the same way as you. I've done the math, I was spending well over $1,000 a year on video discs back when that was my main content source for high quality movies and TV. Even if I include all of the devices I purchased to get streaming everywhere along with the subscription services, I am paying far less than that today. On top of that I get the benefit of having everything I am paying for readily available everywhere in my home plus on my phone and portable computers. This is the magical world I never thought would come.

Basically, I have i

 

[Huey]

I seriously wish I could just down load everything and be done with the actual discs but besides the audio the other problem for me is that if done that way then you can only view or listen to that content on one tv. I have setups all over my house as well as my shop so being able to grab a disc and roll with it is also a convenience.

Talking about strictly dvd's only, it really isn't that hard to burn a disk to the hard drive and then share it wherever. Time consuming yes, but once it's done, it's the same quality as the dvd in both sound and picture. Pick up a couple of cheap Roku's and you'll be good to go.

 

[Haywood]

I ripped all of my music to high bit-rate MP3, using a quality encoder. This took a LOT of time, especially curation, but gave me a very nice experience on Plex. I could have done lossless, but I've seen no evidence that I can tell the difference and MP3 is just easier to deal with. Plex now has tight integration with Tidal, but I have not tried it as I already subscribe to Google Play Music.

I moved most of my video content ownership to Vudu and ripped the rest. We almost never use physical discs.

 

[walls]

Talking about strictly dvd's only, it really isn't that hard to burn a disk to the hard drive and then share it wherever. Time consuming yes, but once it's done, it's the same quality as the dvd in both sound and picture. Pick up a couple of cheap Roku's and you'll be good to go.

I have Roku son all my tvs, how would I view the content from tv to tv without moving the hard drive around?

 

[Huey]

I have Roku son all my tvs, how would I view the content from tv to tv without moving the hard drive around?

You would have to setup a network and a server, which isn't that hard to do. If you've ever had a squeezebox, you probably half way there. @Haywood is one of the experts around here, and could probably help you much more than I.

 

[walls]

So I picked up the players, checked them out in my shop and they work perfectly. Bonus is that one of them is actually the 995 with hdmi so that one will be loaded with all the movies while the 885 is component so I will load that with all the tv shows.
Also the guy failed to tell me that they came loaded with over 600 discs and came with huge boxes filled with all the cases. I looked at the movies as I took them out of the player and I have about 90% of them. I am gonna donate the rest to our little town library.