Official Sony BD Mega-Changer Thread: BDP-CX7000ES & BDP-CX960 - Page 108

Very interesting thread,
I also sometimes get the invalid disk error on every disk, but only after a "off/on" after I've used gracenotes. It really looks like gracenotes screws up the machines program.
To fix this, I unplug the machine out of the mains, press the on button to drain the power supply, plug it back in and its all back to normal, nothing is lost. these days I use gracenotes sparingly, infact I leave it off the internet in normal operations.

One thing I've noticed is that if I use a DVD+r disk in the machine, all I can do is rename the movie, I cant assign that movie a genre. anyone else getting this ?
Edited by davelillis - 1/1/13 at 4:38pm

+1 I never could understand why a DVD+r would not allow all functions in the Edit mode. Anyone have a suggestion?

We have a client with 15 of the 7000ES. Earlier this year Sony replaced all 15 plus an additional unit we use as backup. Pretty big project just removing and replacing all of them. Now there are 5 or 6 that have failed again. Repeatedly showing "invalid disc". Having read the earlier posts about parts not being available for warranty repair I am going to ask for a full refund on all 16. This could get interesting!
Not sure what to replace them with? No changers currently available. To be discussed I guess.

I recently purchased a 7000ES with the known "Invalid Disc" issue with BDs. The unit has a 5 year warranty. I sent it to the warranty company who in turn sent it to Sony since they had the part that was needed to fix it. I attached a note describing the problem and offering the suggestion it may need the replacement part mentioned previously in this thread. Sony has now returned the machine stating that it is fixed and did indeed replaced a part. The paperwork that came with the returned player did not indicate which part was replaced but this is what appears to have worked for me. It will be a few weeks until I have this 3rd changer up and running and will post back if the problem is fixed or not. If not I will use it to hold DVDs and free up the slots on my other two changers.

Oh, taking a que from "Low Profiles" excellent post above, I turned off Grace note as I use a third party software solution (he uses My Movies while I use Cinemar Solution) and have no need for this service. The recognition service that is free from Cinemar works great. I did need to use the Changer's interface to turn off the Grace note and found the interface very simple to use.

If your "Invalid Disc" problem is only occuring with BDs, perhaps moving the BDs to the changers that are working with BDs will solve the issue and place DVDs in the 6 that are malfunctioning. Otherwise since 9 are working fine, why not consider keeping them and integrate a hard drive solution for the client's DVD's? The third party software solutions are seamless and can draw from either hard drive or changer on demand. Recently I had a disc that would not play the english language option in the changer. When I burned it and played it from the hard drive the option was fully usuable. Sometimes it is the other way around, doesn't like the hard drive so much but plays from the changer great. Having both gives you options you would not have otherwise and for BDs you can not beat the price of the changers.

Just a heads up that the repaired 7000ES with an "Invalid Disc" error does appear fixed after Sony repair. The BD "How the West Was Won" which was reported as having previously triggered the error plays fine now. While this is hardly a conclusive test, it does indicate Sony still has the parts, the ability, and the desire to repair these changers. The only thing I did diffrent was to disable gracenote upon setting the machine back up.

Elsewhere in the news, In the December issue of "Home Theater" in the article "West of Eden", a 7000 ES is shown in the rack of director Barry Sonnenfeld's home theater and is listed in his theater equipment. It appears to be operated with Control 4.

A quick note - I'll be posting my BDP-CX7000es for sale shortly - if anyone is interested, please PM me...

As noted earlier in this thread, this unit has received the upgraded drive from Sony (Laredo service center), so no Invalid Disc errors

Dumb question:

Will this changer handle old school 2-sided "flipper" DVDs or will it only play one side?

One side only.

It only plays one side. For flippers (i.e. "Amadeus") I have made a copy that incorporates each side on a separate layer, and I load that in to the player.

I'm really surprised these mega changers for blu ray & others discs are not more popular with the shortage of units made and all things considered, also the price point for them,considering how cheap it is to make this kind of stuff for companies like Sony & Pioneer etc., from what i see online i would expect some giant jukebox unit with flashing lights like the old 45 record players at the new retail price point of around three thousand dollars, considering what it costs to buy a PS3 for example which should have more than enough power to play all types of discs and manage a juke box style player unit at the cost of three hundred dollars, the cost of the mechanics of the rest of it to store discs and a arm to pick and put a disc in play should be fairly easy for a hobbist to build even, and then just shipp the basic unit to customers who could then insert their own PS3 into it and fill the juke box full of all types of their discs.

Is there a list of dvd's and blu rays that have gracenote issues?
I have about 40 out of 250 discs with no name or unrecognized and its very frustrating.
Knowing if its the disc rather than the machine would help.

That's a lot. Have you tried loading them individually? I have some music dvds that are not listed in Gracenote.

No I have not. I guess I can try and see if it resolves the issue.

Ok, so I tried one by one and I am down to 29 discs. That's almost 10 percent not reading. They all load and it says that Gracenote does not have the information in its database.

Any suggestions?

I'm interested... if it's not already gone. PM me.
Stoney

Try turning unit off. Unplug for at least 1 minute. Plug in and try them again.

Please note, you don't have to load each of the Unknown Discs one by one. Locate the group labeled Unknown Discs among all the separate groups in the main menu, highlight but do not click and open that group, intstead select Options from the remote, and when the options menu appears along screen right, select Load. The player will load each of the discs contained the Unkown Discs group one by one automatically for you.

I think he tried that. Sometimes they all don't find the Gracenote info that way. I don't know why. For the ones that Gracenote didn't find, sometimes if you load them one at at time it will find the Gracenote info. Also, unfortunately, not all DVDs are listed in Gracenote.

I own both a 960 mega changer and a 7000ES megachanger. Testing with the Spears & Munsil blu-ray disc, I am finding the 960 exhibits severe chroma clipping through HDMI, but passes the same test on the component video output. The 7000ES chroma clipping patterns look reasonably good on both outputs. Are there any other 960 owners who have experienced the same chroma clipping problem via HDMI. Luma pattern looks fine on this same Spears and Munsil clipping test screen, but all three chroma color patterns are each failing. The chroma patterns fail either if the player's output is directly connected via HDMI to the display, or routed indirectly through my Integra pre-processor using HDMI.
Edited by Jedi - 2/12/13 at 9:48am

Have you seen the prices for these units recently? Double original retail seems normal.

Where are you seeing that? E-bay sales seem to be $1000-$1500, which is more than I paid for mine but hardly double the original retail. I don't see any 7000s on audiogon.

I would consider selling mine if I can get enough for it. I want to replace it with an HTPC setup anyway.

I just looked at E-bay consignment sellers.... 50% commission??!?!?! Wow that's steep.

Just checked EBay performing a search on recent auctions to see what they are selling for. Some are going for a few hundred above retail, some well under retail. See below.

Sony BDP-CX7000ES 400 Blu-ray Disc Mega Changer
Time left:Mar-08 00:06
$1,775.99
17 bids

Sony BDP-CX7000ES Blu-Ray Player ***FOR PARTS*NOT WORKING***
Time left:Mar-06 12:40
$760.00
53 bids

Sony BDP-CX7000ES Blu-Ray Player
Time left:Mar-02 11:10
$786.51
35 bids

Sony BDP-CX7000ES Blu-Ray Player
Time left:Mar-01 17:52
$1,499.00
Buy It Now
Free shipping

Sony BDP-CX7000ES Blu-Ray Player
Time left:Feb-26 19:39
$1,025.00
21 bids

That being said, Sony really needs to consider bringing back these changers with a real commitment this time to the product. For me these high capacity changers make for an excellent poor man's Kaleidescape system when used in conjunction with front ends such as My Movies or Cinemar's DVDLobby. Heck, I even rolled my own having created an activity that runs self-contained on my Pronto remote. Granted a changer based solution doesn't support multiple zones, but it also doesn't require you take out a second mortgage on your home either. Clearly there are others out there that agree or the Sony BDP-CX7000ES wouldn't be selling for so much online these days despite the fact Sony discontinued them.
Edited by Low Profile - 3/9/13 at 10:41am

The production line for these is gone, the tooling and floor space allocated for other production.

No, while I'd like them to come back, it won't happen.


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Anyone in NJ looking to buy one in mint condition , hardly used I would say under 20 hours of use. It has been sitting in my av cabinet and rather sell it. I want to move my media to hard disk . If interested please pm or email, don't want to ship rather have someone check the unit and pick it up in person


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I am still using two of the "surplus or B stock" units from sony style store with no problems. I also use the Cinemar software so don't really care if the unit picks up name and covers on gracenote though most of the time it finds them ok.

I doubt this costs significantly more to make than your average Blu-Ray player yet Sony (or any other company) can sell these at a large premium. Yet, they don't. I guess they like us simply ripping blu-rays to hard disk.

They haven't been in production for years so any you now see on the market are all that's left. Naturally anyone selling them will do so at a premium. It's nothing to do with Sony unless I suppose one could argue that they should never have stopped making them, but apparently they didn't sell well enough, so I guess they found it no longer profitable.
I'm glad I got mine when I did because I see that they are fetching a much higher price than what I paid.

For anyone interested I recently picked up an A\V stand to house the 6 Sony BDP-CX7000ES changers I purchased a couple years ago from my local Sony Style Store when they were on closeout. Least I'm not trying to turn a quick buck for them on EBay for 3-6 times the price I paid for each. :-p Pics posted to my home theater gallery over at Blu-ray.com. Link action below. Tried to embed the link, but it's not working.

http://www.blu-ray.com/community/gallery.php?member=cds1834
Edited by Low Profile - 5/8/13 at 7:24pm

Has anybody tried playing disc 3 (Eagles 1977 concert) of the History of the Eagles blu ray set? It will not play in either of my 7000's and it freezes both players where they must be unplugged and reset to work. I called Sony tech support but I doubt they will release a new firmware upgrade after 2 years of inactivity.