Official Sony BD Mega-Changer Thread: BDP-CX7000ES & BDP-CX960 - Page 96

i could fill 13-4 at present estimations...

though for their current price they are out of purchase reach at present..

at the momement i'm betting they're trying to improve it to 4-8k

my whether it 7000es or the cx960 my opinion 2,000 is far to much on these units my opinion they should only be worth 500-750 at most.. even 1200-1500 is asking to much for a 400 disc changers

exbrit i meant by stacking them was to mount with clearences between units bolted in on rack mounts..

http://www.world-import.com/sony-bdp...ga-changer.htm

This is a little less and is region-free, however, disregard their claim it's 3D-Capable because it isn't.

By region-free apparently any BD will play but for PAL DVD's a PAL capable TV is required or a converter because their modification doesn't include that hardware. From my own research I don't believe the machine can be made totally region-free for DVD's anyway.

It appears this player can't be modded in such a way as to make the region-free aspect painless as with other brands. For instance my Oppo BDP-93 is region-free and doesn't require any special equipment although you have to physically switch the Blu-ray regions prior to disc playback using a key sequence on the remote. For DVD's you need do nothing. It has built-in PAL-NTSC conversion.
It's the same for this player with Blu-Rays however I am only going by what the seller states on their website regarding DVD's. It appears that PAL-NTSC conversion is not built in nor can it be from what I've researched on the web. There are many places selling the unit still and most are advertising region-free, but with the caveat that DVD's wont play unless a PAL equipped TV is used or a converter box.
It isn't such a huge issue unless you are in the habit of importing discs from abroad.

To make the Sony 7000ES megachanger play region free discs, then just remove the region code from that BD and burn it over again. I am not going to state on which software will remove the region code, but it is from a small island in the Caribbean. As soon as you modify the changer, then it removes the warranty. PAL discs on DVD is a problem, and the only solution is to put your movies on a Server and not worry about it.

Yes I know the software ;-)

lol you think i'm going to spend a year or more ripping the region encoding off a 5000+ disc dvd and bd collection..

better off looking through the interwebs for firmware to set the changer region free..


send me $10,000+ to build a server to hold my discs lol

The only problem with your own DVD's and/or Blu-rays, is that Gracenote doesn't work on those (the player doesn't even try to contact Gracenote which I find surprising when it's a direct copy) and one has to input the data using the remote. Plus it accepts the name only for such discs, no genre, actor, director or year info.

@mystic_sniper28, unfortunately there are limitations on the extent of region-free mods on this player, see my post #2855 above.

[quote=Ex_Brit;21857255]The only problem with your own DVD's and/or Blu-rays, is that Gracenote doesn't work on those (the player doesn't even try to contact Gracenote which I find surprising when it's a direct copy) and one has to input the data using the remote. Plus it accepts the name only for such discs, no genre, actor, director or year info.[quote]

If you have access to a computer with a good speed network or wifi in your home, have you considered Cinemar Solutions? You could control by your pc, laptop, ipad, etc. They are very familiar with changers. There is informtion regarding them in this thread or you can go to their website: http://www.cinemarsolutions.com.

They eliminate the use of Gracenote and provide a very good looking and personalizable interface.

I think I will have to start thinking about this type of solution. Thanks for the link.

[quote=Noah Winter;21857742][quote=Ex_Brit;21857255]The only problem with your own DVD's and/or Blu-rays, is that Gracenote doesn't work on those (the player doesn't even try to contact Gracenote which I find surprising when it's a direct copy) and one has to input the data using the remote. Plus it accepts the name only for such discs, no genre, actor, director or year info.
From my experience with Cinemar, they didn't seem to eliminate the use of Gracenote. It seemed like I had to actually have gracenote populate the changer's content first, then they pulled from that data. So if there was not a valid entry for the slot in the changer, it didn't have a match for it. You'd then have to add it by hand. Maybe I was missing some kind of setting, but that was my experience with them.

I went with the MyMovies approach. It seems to work well enough for a fraction of the cinemar price, but it doesn't support lookups for the DVDs from the cx7000es and it doesn't suppor the cx777es in x64 bit. But for the drastic price difference, I could live with manually entering the few DVDs that I had left.

Doesn't cost 10k to build a server. The one that I built was about $3500. You told me before that you have mostly DVD's. I have all my DVD's on the server now, but I replaced most DVD's that had Blurays out. You can build your server in stages, so basically just start out with a chenbro case. Then slowly add the drives, and hardware raid cards. I download this $5 app from Itunes called Constellation for XBMC seems to work rather well. Anyway, the region code was never a problem for me. Although, I do have some PAL movies. The problem with the firmware is that it can be hack. You download some firmware, and then see you expensive Sony 7000ES bite the dust.

I went with the Control4 setup, and basically, I can search based on the movie title. I use Control4 Composer HE, and it allows me to change the information. So, it will come up with a part of the movie in Gracenote. If the information is not filled completely, then I get it from another source. I can upload the new cover, or change the title to include more than 1 disc, genre, actor, director, year info, and synopsis. Works with CD, DVD, or Bluray. I use with my home computer and most of the time, it is a copy and paste. Rather quick!
The advantage of Control4 is that goes beyond just home entertainment, you can add lighting, security, etc. Depends on your needs.

my ntsc count is about 300-500 discs my pal count 4,500-5,000 discs in dvd

bd count 20 pal 18 ntsc at estimate...

thus is why i said spending a year or 3 just getting them to hdd.. nevermind conversion into divx, mp4 or mkv on top of that

50gb average for bd's and 4.5gb-8gb for dvd's..

[quote=waff;21858193][quote=Noah Winter;21857742]
Actually I narrowed my decision down to MyMovies and Cinemar. I needed all the control plug ins though to control the various system components and the professional support so it was the right decision for me.

You can turn off the grace note option I believe on the cx7000es, but I can't tell you what the megaserver might be doing with or without Grace note as I don't pay attention to it. I just enter the name of the movie and add the slot number into the software and all the data about the disc is downloaded from their free service. There is an automated option with their system but I like to tweak the outcome and get just the right front and back dvd art, and sometimes add fan art if it is a movie I really like. I also like to cut and paste an episode guide into the if the BD or DVD offers multiple episodes on a disc to allow for easy look up. All in all takes about a minute to add a movie this way and its just right everytime.

The only way that Cinemar can scan the entire carousel, get movie information, and populate its database is by letting Gracenote do its thing first. As I understand it this is a limitation of the 7000 itself. It does not provide any identifying information about the disc other than the title that it finds with Gracenote. The data that Cinemar uses to populate its database actually comes from AMG and is much more extensive (and accurate) than Gracenote.

The alternative to doing a full carousel scan is to do a lookup of each disc by hand (either by title or UPC). Once the title is found by AMG, Cinemar will pull all the AMG data down and add it to your collection. Cumbersome, and very time consuming if you have lots of discs. But actually more accurate as you can ensure that you are getting the data appropriate for the release that you own.

I don't know how MyMovies scans the carousel or if it even can.

Around 21 weeks based on 10 minute rip. Around 40 hours per week. Oh, I know it will take awhile. DVD is fine for a server and it is lower cost than changers. You probably would want at least the Sony 777ES DVD changers. So you have to buy them used and people seem to want to much for them. Average price is around 400US. It is rather rare to find the Sony 7000ES changers are going from 700US to 2400US. The advantage of the server is that you can upgrade it as you go, cost of the drives are rather low. I upgraded most of my DVD's to BD, but I still have around 1300 DVD's on the server. Actually, I got rid of lot of DVD's for bluray. Converting movies to another format is waste of time. I prefer to watch them in the highest quality available. Unless you watch it on a portable or car, then I can see a use.

I can play BD on my server, but I still prefer it on the changer due to image and sound quality. Nvidia is making a new video card that will do 4k video, so this is where a server will come in handy in the future. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...php?p=21833028

when I was ripping 5-6 yars ago, average rip time for dvd was about 45min to an 1hr 25min for dvd...


i haven't tried ripping bd yet


though ripping dvd isn't an issue, for multiregion though bd might be an issue..

Well, I'll be selling my 960 (going the Oppo route).

MyMovies gets the information from the carousel, but you have do a "load" of the disc for it to get the information. I'm not sure what technology it's using, but it doesn't require gracenote or the information to be loaded by the changer before hand and it is extremely accurate. I'm very pleased with MyMovies for the most part.

Well, that was in the past. The interface used to be PATA (EIDE) and was unreliable, so they changed it to SATA II. Although, I did have a SCSI-II interface on my old reliable Plextor. The old plextor drives were built to last. New DVD or BD-R's use lot of plastic parts and don't last that long. I haven't tried the new Plextor BD-R, but I have tried the Sony (worked for awhile) and the Pioneer has been very reliable for me.

Sata II Pioneer BD-R (Mine is only 8x), but the new version is 12X. Here is the new version. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827129067

Some members have already listed the software, but it is commercial. Works on both DVD or BD. Region code you can select or remove.

the dvdrom might of been eide though the hdd's were sata

not everything on that system was eide or pata it was a 2ghz 64bit amd and 2gb ram..

my 2 lg's are region free, by firmware change...

firmware upgrade is a must, these 8 (average) change firmwares are rediculas in this day and age...

hardware locking is stupid to begin with..

I also know all the standard software solutions as i've known it from years ago.. I also keep abreast of anydvd, nero and so forth to see what works for dvd/bd ripping..

Well, that was the standard back around 6 years ago. SATA II uses the same connector as the hard drive, and it is the most reliable today. Well, the same solution that is existed in the past. Exists today. Actually, the first DVD solution was based on the same creator of IMGBURN. If I am burning, then I use imgburn. On Bluray though, you have to change UDF revision number to 2.50, but there is a guide on imgburn site.

"BillyC26: Sony-BDP-CX7000ES-Blu-ray-Changer-Black
Is this a good price, or where else should I look?"

I never pay retail! I bought mine on eBay for $765.00 used. It works perfect.
There are always many for sale on eBay for an average of $900.
In my opinion, it's the best product Sony had ever come out with (next to Trinitron TV)!

Unfortunately I have some real old DVD's (not BD) that Gracenotes couldn't find in their database and had to enter info manually, which is no big deal. When you first insert all your movies, it searches Gracenotes which will take many hours since it has to load each DVD and get the info from the internet. I let mine run overnight and was completed in the morning.

The lowest price last year was 550us on Black Friday for Sony7000ES that price was new. I bought mine new for 700 us during Christmas, so it pays to look around in price. EBay is an option, but it could be a remanufacture unit.

This relates to something I've been trying to wrap my head around. When using an HDMI connection to your TV, why would the question of whether the source disc was encoded for PAL or for NTSC even make a difference?

I thought that HDMI carries a completely digital HD stream, not a digitally encoded analog signal (such as what is stored on DVDs). Aren't PAL and NTSC exclusively analog formats? Once the player has converted them for HDMI transmission, a digital television should be able to display the HDMI stream in native digital format, right? Isn't that why PAL vs. NTSC is irrelevant for Blu-Ray--because it was native digital to begin with?

Therefore, if you plan to use a multi-region player that lacks built-in format conversion (scaling), wouldn't a multi-format television (or external scaler) only be necessary if you're connecting via means *other* than HDMI (such as component or composite)?

Heck, as has been mentioned before in this thread, industry standards now even prohibit further production or sale of consumer AV equipment that can output digital streams over analog connections--that is why Sony had to liquidate the BD MegaChangers by the end of last year. Thus, if my understanding of HDMI as expressed above is correct, this prohibition has already sealed the obsolescence of scalers and multi-format televisions.

Someone help me out here.

Do you know I haven't actually tested that surmise. I will just as soon as get the use of my TV back...LG's firmware updates are very time-consuming. Watching paint dry would actually be a more interesting proposal right now...LOL.

Well it doesn't work anyway, sorry. Back to my Oppo for those discs.

pal looks better over hdmi than ntsc, as pal is closest to the natural film stock as possible, ntsc as a telecined 1.5 image..

not sure in the support situation in regards to pal format in the states, though over over here in AUS all tv's support pal/secam/ntsc..

I think the scaler option is more related to projectors than actual tv's..

DVD is just as digital as Blu-ray. Neither format uses a composite baseband signal (which is encoded differently for PAL than NTSC).

PAL is 625 lines and 50 frames per second (interlaced). NTSC is 525 lines and 60. That's the only difference that matters for DVD. If a TV or other display device can't cope with 50 fps and 625 lines of resolution then it will not be able to show a PAL source. NTSC versus PAL is irrelevant for most Blu-Rays because typically they are encoded at 1080 lines and 24 fps (which is the standard used for movies).

Footnote: PAL is 625 lines of which 576 are usable for content (thus 576i50). NTSC is 525 lines of which 480 are usable for content (thus 480i60).


Not entirely. Your TV needs to be able to show 576i50 if you are going to view PAL-sourced DVDs on it. Otherwise you will need a video processor to convert it in to something the TV can display.