Sony DVP-CX777ES 400 disc DVD/SACD changer, this thing rocks! (1 Viewer)

I have finally got all my DVD, SACD and DTS discs cataloged and loaded into my new 777ES changer and have interfaced it with my home computer with DVD Lobby. The setup took a full weekend and I had to make my own RS232 Null cable as it needed to be 60’ to reach my computer via attic and up and down the walls, but once I got that behind me everything else was pretty easy. I must say this is so much better then anything I have had before for Movies selection, the DVD lobby interface is very easy to use and looks good too. You can select Thumbnail view to see cover art of your entire collection, or sort by Genre, Alphabet or Category, all I have to do is point and click and the movie starts, most will even skip the intro and menu and go right to the movie. This makes it so easy to just watch what you want on a whim, it has already changed the way I watch movies, now I watch movies I usually would never pull out of my collection, and I don’t spend 10 minutes deciding rather or not I’m really in the mood for this particular movie, if I change my mind I just click on another movie. I already have a 400 disc Sony ES CD changer and SuperNudeList broken down the song level on my Pronto, so now I have my entire 400 disc collection loaded in 2 seperate changers with instant access and room to grow, this is great. I’m just now building my SACD collection and already have many DTS music CD’s, so now I can have instant access to them as well, which is wonderful, love the DTS Music discs.

I know a lot of people reply (concerning changers) that it only takes a few seconds to load a disc into a single changer and they don’t mind, well until you try this the automated way you really don’t know what your missing, trust me on this. I also hear a lot about sound and picture quality being better on single players, well, hogwash, total BS, there is hardly any difference between any players in the mid-fi category anyway, and this Sony changer has the same Laser pick-up assy as all of there ES players, adding a carrousel don’t hurt a thing, maybe even helps with all the extra weight. Anyway this thing sounds and looks (picture wise) as good as anything I have ever heard or seen auditioned or other wise, and I never have to touch my disc’s again, some of those DVD cases make me want to hunt down the plastics engineer and flog them, I have a few that have a ring around the disc that keeps you from getting your finger under it when you push that center button thingy down, what were they thinking. Anyway I so happy with this thing I just had to brag a bit.

BTW for those who have passed up on any kind of Mega-Changer because of the terrible interface, and slow selection, take it from me, don’t bother beating your head against the wall using the factory interface or crappy “Sony Disc Explorer”. Go to a third party solution like DVD Lobby or SNL form Remote Central, these make the Mega-Changers work the way they should and IMO there worthless with out one of these kind of interfaces.

I've always been intrigued by the concept of a changer, never having had any idea why I would possibly want one.

What on Earth do you do with all of your DVD cases and jewel boxes?

That’s one of the great benefits of a changer, you can put those space hogs up in the attic or shed and free up a lot of room for other things, maybe even Books!

In addition, every DVD cover I import into the computer comes with the synopsis, audio options, rating, release year, director notes and on and on. It automatically downloads everything you wanted to know about the film and even has a link window for the original trailer, no need for the cases anymore. However I do keep mine (for now) in the bookshelf’s that they were in and have put a sticky label on each box with the coinciding slot # that the DVD is in, that way when my girlfriend needs to borrow I can easily find the disc and box. I wish this place allowed picture upload I have a good screen shot of the interface that shows the thumbnails of my SACD/DTS collection.

Hi Mike, I'm very seriously considering making the same purchase, but the only thing that has stopped me thus far is the interfacing. Hopefully you could clear this up for me!

You got DVD Lobby on your PC, and the PC is connected thru the RS232 port and you control everything from your PC?

If you dont mind, could you talk a little about your experiences with the set up and operation?

No Problem;

First off I had to make my own cable because it needed to be 60’ and you will find it very hard to locate a RS 232 Null cable that long. After cable assemble I routed the cable down the walls and through the attic from the DVD player to a open 9 pin serial port (comm2) on the computer. I then went on line to cinamar and ordered the DVDLobby Pro 3.0 (Full Version) & MainLobby 2 (Price: US $109.99) package. The instruction link below will explain how to register the CX777ES plugin that you download on that page, basically you install 3 programs and 1 plugin DLL. Once you have done this you open up Main Lobby and check to see that the unit is communicating with your computer by entering a command like this MLServeCmd.MLCX777ES|DiscDirect~12~1~0~0 in the command line box, the #12 in the middle of the command is the disc slot # that you are directing the changer to select, the Direct Disc command tells the player to Autoplay that slot #. If it don’t work at first then go into the Main Lobby and find DVD Lobby settings and select another comm. Port, keep trying different comm. Ports until the command works, when it works you have handshaking and everything else is downhill. Now the next step is to catalog all your DVD and Music Collection, to do this for DVD is quite easy, you just go to the DVD lobby settings and select add movie and in the title field there will be a box next to the title, click on that and it will ask you for title of UPC search and then select which way you wish to search (I use UPC) then enter the appropriate info and hit enter, Viola, a thumbnail of the box cover and all the movie information will automatically fill out the DVD info box, then hit Save and go on to the next. After you get acclimated to this procedure it only takes about 10-15 seconds per movie, the program will automatically put them in Alphabetical order. Then I went through the alphabetized thumbnails and put sticky labels on each DVD cover corresponding to the slot # I was going to put the DVD in, also I used a sharpie to mark the disc’s with the slot #. Then you copy the direct disc command and open up each DVD info box and paste this command in the Play command box, then edit the disc # to match the actual slot # that the DVD is in. This took me a full afternoon to catalog 130 Discs, then you open another dialog box for the transport controls and paste in the appropriate commands for Play, Pause, Display and so forth, this only takes a few minutes. Now your set, just open Main lobby and leave it running in the background then open DVD Lobby and change the display to the Skin you like best like the Thumbnail view and start the fun, just select the thumbnail you want and it will enlarge then select again and it will play. If you decide to go this route just let me know when you are in the setup stage and I will help, there is a lot of steps but it’s not as hard as it sounds, also there is a specific help forum over at cinamar. once your done it's the coolest thing, you'll be amazed how easy and glitch free every thing works, except for Eagles Hell Freezes Over DTS, the Direct Disc play command skips over the audio selection screen that allows you to select DTS, but I'm working on a fix for that.





Instructions for setup
http://www.cinemaronline.com/mlserver.cx777es.html

Order page
http://www.cinemaronline.com/dvdlobbypro.html

I have recently bought three of these units for the HT I'm building in my new house - the best storage for 1200 discs you can find! I also got the Escient DVM100 controller to provide one interface for all three units.

When they are all set up and working I'll post a review on the system.

Peter

hmmm..i was looking at this and trying to decide on this unit or the denon 2200 or 2900...i now have the toshiba sd9200 which has dvd audio...i am also very pleased with the picture quality for watching movies...i am really just looking for a good sacd player with bass management...any suggestions anyone???

Thanks for the review.

I have a quick question. Once you've connected your PC to the Changer and have inputted all of your movies do you still need to interact with your PC to play movies or is all the control done through the Sony but with a new interface?

Once your connected you can control your DVD player either way, but of course it's much easier to control through your PC, just select your DVD cover art and click on it, then I go to my seating position to change any audio options or what have you, although you can do all of this from your computer as well. I have a TV near my computer so sometimes I use it as a monitor to get everything cued up and playing then I go to my living room and watch.

Mike, thanks for the great info.

I have another question for you, have you noticed any problems with layer change? Other reviewers have said that there is a noticeable delay.

Thanks!

Layer Change, yes it is noticeable, but not more than 1 sec I would guess. Anyway it doesn’t bother me at all once you connect via 232 all the Direct Disc commands are much faster then the Remote IR commands, everything operated much better through 232.

Peter - any updates on your system installation?

--curtis

There was a Sony firmware upgrade that I found on AVS forum but that went away...I dont know why?

I have the older 865 and the new 777ES. Does the SW allow you to control more than 1 changer?

I have two changers working with the Escient Fireball, So far very happy.