Why doesn't anyone make a Blu-ray Changer now?

[NY Yankees 23 2]

I guess I will chime in on this since I was looking for these discontinued Sony models the other week. There should be someone making these things. People will buy them, especially with the bluray market in a much better situation than it was however many years ago when these were made. Heck, I bet people didnt even own 400 blurays then! And they were upwards of $30 each! HA!

So anyway, the reason I was looking into getting one of these is cause I find myself looking at my shelves more and more looking for something to watch. Then sometimes when I do find something... I start watching it then 10 minutes into it I dont want to watch it and would rather something else. I also understand the OP's thoughts on the shelving being YUCK in the room. I dont mind mine but would I rather it not be there.....maybe.

I would worry about my whole collection being trapped in there if something went wrong but LIKE HELL they would be in there very long. Time to bust out the screwdrivers and saw zaw if I had to (This is assuming the player only cost $500 or so cause otherwise I wouldnt own one.).

[dib2]

Originally Posted by pksmith74

People still make bluray changers, not just Sony. Try your luck here:

http://blu-raychanger.com/

Yes, but I know many if not all of them require additional hardware which makes the cost in $10,000 range. I've seen some where you have all these changers but all the media is played off a server's hard drive but you need to keep all the disks in the changer anyway. Sony was the only cost effective changer. When they were discontinued they cost $740 and now the only way you can get them is on ebay or other used ones and they cost more than $740. Unfortunately they jammed on defective blu-ray more often than they should. On the other hand I have had a Sony DVD changer for years (5 or more) and it never jammed on me.

I think on reason they don't make changer is also because some believe that the video and audio is superior with a single disk player. I never noticed any difference between my single player (pioneer and oppo) and my sony mega changer. I think the biggest reason for few blu-ray changers maybe just the size of them.

I think the best way to go, is to build a HTPC. I found a ASUS motherboard which has built in support for mobile devices. So you can see your desktop and work with the computer via your tablet or smartphone using wifi-go

[Flatnate]

Yeah I've been kinda looking in to an HTPC build or possibly a DLNA enabled Network Attached Storage box connected to a Rasberry Pi running XBMC at each TV in the house. Great alternative but your looking at about a 10 Terabyte storage solution to rival what the Sony changer could hold. Hopefully H.265 encoding and some other things in the near future can help make this a far better solution.

[PaniqL]

It may be expensive to have all the components in one box which is why they are high in price,

I don't know much but this is just my guess,

lets look at Kaleidescape for an example,
Along with all the mechanisms etc to place a disk in and organise them digitally and eject a specific disc at a certain time may be hard,

Along with the OS that they use which displays the cover art and metadata, they also need a database that is stable and a contract to import blurays for playback, kaleidescape also offer scenes and no trailers on their installs which means they have a team going through as many films as possible which may be time consuming ti set up and cost alot of money for employment, It may it be possible to run a system with metadata and cover art without importing the blurays, which means alot of storage is needed which can cost alot of money.

As I said i dont know much but this is my best quess

[nando820]

hey what not putting them in binders!, Binders full of movies, u can save on shelf space for sure, easy to browse too

http://www.randombuy.com/c-34-cd-dvd...e-binders.aspx

http://wherenorthmetsouth.blogspot.c...anization.html

[Flatnate]

Originally Posted by nando820

hey what not putting them in binders!, Binders full of movies, u can save on shelf space for sure, easy to browse too

http://www.randombuy.com/c-34-cd-dvd...e-binders.aspx

http://wherenorthmetsouth.blogspot.c...anization.html

Yeah, I'm liking those binders on your randombuy.com link.

[DoubleDownAgain]

Originally Posted by Flatnate

Yeah, I'm liking those binders on your randombuy.com link.

Binders??

[dib2]

Originally Posted by PaniqL

It may be expensive to have all the components in one box which is why they are high in price,

I don't know much but this is just my guess,

lets look at Kaleidescape for an example,
Along with all the mechanisms etc to place a disk in and organise them digitally and eject a specific disc at a certain time may be hard,

Along with the OS that they use which displays the cover art and metadata, they also need a database that is stable and a contract to import blurays for playback, kaleidescape also offer scenes and no trailers on their installs which means they have a team going through as many films as possible which may be time consuming ti set up and cost alot of money for employment, It may it be possible to run a system with metadata and cover art without importing the blurays, which means alot of storage is needed which can cost alot of money.

As I said i dont know much but this is my best quess

They use gracenote or some other service just like everyone else including control 4. They do not reinvent the wheel. Infact with control 4 I had the option to do my own cover art which is what I did most of the time. All the cover art for control 4 said it was 3D or some other edition which it was not. The cover art is stored on your ipad or other tablet not the changer. It is only retrieved when you ask for it not everytime you start the changer or watch a movie. The HDDs are only used for holding the 'ripped' copy of the movie and you pay a premium for these solutions because there are very few not because its expensive. When you buy something that is as high end as Kaleidescape or even sony ES there is 66% markup or higher by the retailer alone. Sony's DVD player had the same feature of no trailers, it went strait to the movie. When you copy a blu-ray to a HDD many software solutions copy only the movie itself and not the rest of the extras and previews. This is common for applications which copy blu-ray to HDD. It is only $60 for an application for a computer to do this. They just charge you a premium for their solution. This is not guessing by the way. I know for a fact that I could make something work better and take less space for far less money than their solution.

[dib2]

Originally Posted by Flatnate

Yeah I've been kinda looking in to an HTPC build or possibly a DLNA enabled Network Attached Storage box connected to a Raspberry Pi running XBMC at each TV in the house. Great alternative but your looking at about a 10 Terabyte storage solution to rival what the Sony changer could hold. Hopefully H.265 encoding and some other things in the near future can help make this a far better solution.

Using Raspberry Pi sounds like a interesting solution but I would not want DLNA to stream movies to my big screen. Any interference could ruin the experience and I'd want to have my DTD-HD 7.1 surround sound uncompressed. I think it would be good for other TVs in the house.

I think that the ASUS motherboard supports DLNA and they do have DLNA MBs if not the one I mentioned. I have looked at DLNA blu-ray players to combine with the ASUS system for movies. I noticed the OPPO 103 has something that is not DLNA but say it is DLNA compatible or something to that effect.

Let me know if you do use Raspberry PI. I think that would be really interesting but I don't think the XBMC works very well from what I have read. That is why I went looking for another solution for controlling the computer using wi-fi. If the ASUS wi-fi go works as well as they show in the video, I think that would be better.

Oh and you probably don't need 10TB of HDD space sine the actual movie will take up less space. If you really wanted to see the extras you could get the disk out I suppose. I don't care much for the extras. I do like the previews minus those anti-piracy videos and blu-ray and game advertisements. That's just a waste of time and space.

[blujacket]

I store all my dvd's in these http://www.slappa.com/90-dvd-case-bl...2&category=132

I am probably going to move my Blu-ray collection to these in the future also

[Flatnate]

Originally Posted by dib2

Using Raspberry Pi sounds like a interesting solution but I would not want DLNA to stream movies to my big screen. Any interference could ruin the experience and I'd want to have my DTD-HD 7.1 surround sound uncompressed. I think it would be good for other TVs in the house.

Well I have a buddy who already has a Rasberry Pi on the way in the mail. Supposedly we can load a Rasberry Pi optimized version of XBMC on it using an SD card to just play around with. He has a basic network attached storage device and a good router so we will give it a whirl at varying resolutions and bit rates and then report back (that could be a week or more out). We could possibly make it work with UpNp or some other protocol rather than DLNA. Your right, I won't be hooking that up to the projector. That's why I'm leaning more towards a full HTPC (as opposed to a basic NAS box) near the projector that can also host the files to those other places in the house. Either way the Rasberry Pi is so cheap and so small it will be worth playing around with.

@DoubleDownAgain.. I know binders... right... even when I do get the HTPC built they might make sense for me. lol.

[nando820]

I think I could use a changer too.. I have more than a 100 DVDs and blu-rays of concerts and music videos and sometimes I just wanna watch the Police perform one song and then change to Gorillaz and its kinda annoying to have to stand up every 5-10 minutes to switch to another disc

[cds1834]

I've been using the Sony DVD changers for the better part of a decade now and have not had a single issue with them. None of my DVD changers have ever damaged a disc in any way shape or form. I've also never had a disc get stuck in any of the changers. The changers also take up far less room than having DVD cases lining the walls of my home and having them in the changers eliminates the need to even handle them. Prior to DVD's coming out I had never collected movies before, but had always wanted to. As my DVD collection was approaching the 900 disc mark I decided it was time to find another way to store my DVD collection, a way that didn't involve DVD cases running from floor to ceiling in my home. That's when I purchased my first 3 Sony DVP-CX985V 400-disc DVD changers. As my collection expanded I simply added additional changers to my setup. Granted today I would go the hard drive route instead. For a great number of years after the DVD format was introduced however, this simply wasn't a feasible option for a number of reasons obviously. That being said, I presently own 6 Sony DVP-CX985V changers and could think of no better way to physically house my 2,159 DVD's. All 6 DVD changers fit on a standard A/V cart which includes all the other equipment that was needed to integrate the changers into my setup. Quite a small footprint in contrast to having a couple thousand DVD cases lining the walls of my home. In fact, I've since purchased 6 Sony BDP-CX7000ES Blu-ray changers and plan to replace my DVD changers with them. Currently I've just added a single Blu-ray changer to my existing setup which has finally been filled to capacity, so in the near future I plan to finally switch out my DVD changers. Pics of my current setup can be seen here, the last pic being of my towering stack of DVD changers. :-)

Browsing my DVD/Blu-ray collection and initiating playback of a given disc can be done in couple of ways, each of which are automated. The first way is with my Pronto remote. I created an activity for my Pronto remote called "DVD Juke" which allows one to browse my entire DVD/Blu-ray collection by cover image via any one of 24 genres/categories. When selecting the given disc the remote ensures that all the equipment involved is powered on, then loads the disc from the proper changer, lastly taking you to the activity for controlling that particular changer. I even have the remote remember the last changer activity that was in use in the event you'd like to go back and resume watching something the following day or whatever without having to remember which changer the particular disc resides in. From day one I've been using Pronto remotes with these Sony changers. In fact, I actually created the "DVD Juke" activity before even purchasing my first Pronto remote and before purchasing my first 3 DVD changers as Philips has always made the remote editor software available online for anyone to download. Once I created the "DVD Juke" activity I had 'proof of concept' and took the plunge. Purchased my first Pronto remote, my first 3 DVD changers and have never looked back. Should note as well that my entire DVD collection is cataloged in DVD Profiler. It has been since day one. In my case I gave each individual disc in my collection it's own "Collection ID" in DVD Profiler which is how I determine which changer and changer slot the particular disc is to reside in, i.e. Collection ID's 1-400 (Changer 1), Collection ID's 401-800 (Changer 2) and so forth. Will also mention that quite often I'll browse my collection via the DVD Profiler application in cases where I want to browse by more than just cover image. Have the DVD Profiler application installed on my laptop and other computers throughout the house in addition to having the DVD Profiler app installed on all of my mobile devices. Once finding a particular disc to play it's then just a simple matter of browsing to the cover image using the "DVD Juke" activity I created for my Pronto. To learn more about the "DVD Juke" activity I created for my Pronto hit up the thread found here over at Remote Central which offers tons of screenshots, including a slideshow which shows you the progression of screens you would see on the remote if you were to browse through all the discs for X-Files: Seasons 1-9, then selecting the last disc of Season 9.

In the case of my Blu-ray collection I have implemented a second solution as well. There is a plugin for WMC7 called My Movies which supports any of the Sony DVD/Blu-ray changers which have RS-232 ports. So while I can still use the "DVD Juke" activity for my Pronto and DVD Profiler for more detailed browsing, I can alternatively use the My Movies solution instead in the same fashion. The My Movies solution comes with a PC based program called "Collection Management" which is very similar to the DVD Profiler application. The cool thing with the "Collection Management" application is that it also serves as the backend for the My Movies WMC7 plugin. I've always wanted to have an on-screen solution per my primary display device in addition to the "DVD Juke" activity I created for my Pronto. The My Movies solution fitted the bill perfectly, especially considering the fact that I already had a HTPC with WMC7 in place. The cost of the My Movies solution was negligible as well. Cost only $100 to unlock all the features, most important of which was the changer support. Is very cool to be able to browse my Blu-ray collection via WMC7 up on the big screen. Links provided below to a couple slideshows I worked up showing what it looks like within WMC7 to browse through a couple of my Blu-ray boxsets.

Alien Anthology (....as seen in My Movies for WMC7)
Indiana Jones: The Complete Adventures (....as seen in My Movies for WMC7)

Just as with the "DVD Juke" activity for my Pronto, the My Movies solution will also initiate playback of the given disc of course. This can be done from the My Movies mobiles apps or from WMC7. When selecting a given disc My Movies will ensure the particular changer is powered on, then initiate playback of the given disc. Once playback is initiated I then simply go to the particular changer activity with my Pronto remote to control the actual changer. Unfortunately the DVD changers that I own don't have the RS-232 port. The Blu-ray changers I purchased do however, so once I swap out my DVD changers for the Blu-ray changers I plan to use the My Movies solution with my DVD collection as well though I always plan to maintain the "DVD Juke" activity I created for my Pronto. I'll make the point here as well that for me this has been and continues to be a very fun hobby that in the end provides for a very cool experience in my opinion, an experience that I'm able to create from scratch the way I see fit thanks to my trusty Pronto and with the advent of smartphones and tablets I've been able to take things to the next level which I've really enjoyed per the My Movies solution. Personally I do really find it a shame that Philips stopped making the Pronto and that Sony stopped making these high capacity changers. Thankfully I've stocked up on plenty of extra Pronto remotes and related equipment and scored enough Sony Blu-ray changers when they were on closeout for pennies on the dollar that I can replace all 6 of my DVD changers with the Blu-ray changers. And who knows, perhaps in the future Sony will once again sell a high capacity Blu-ray changer, because as of right now the only alternative solution is for people to rip their Blu-ray's to hard drives if they want a similar experience, certainly not something Sony or any of the other studios would ever advocate.

[mcgavinj]

Slightly off topic......how bout an Xbox game disc changer. That'd be sweet!

[Taikero]

I would go for a 2 (LOTR EE or other large movies spread across two discs), 4 (hold entire quadrilogy like Aliens, Mission Impossible, Underworld, etc.), or 8 disc (Harry Potter collection) changer. Any more than that is IMO silly for the average consumer (hardcore enthusiasts might enjoy hundred+ disc changers for collection management), but I could see the desire for any of the above for marathon viewings. 2 or 8 disc would make the most sense at this time.

[cbargar]

I'm not what you'd consider a fanatic, but there is another reason for keeping discs in a changer.... EVERY time you take one out of a case and insert it into a player, there's a chance for getting a scratch of smudge. When they're kept in the changer, there are no chances for "Fat Fingers" screwing up the discs. (Sony BluRay juke box ower). All my BluRay and DVD cases are stored in a closet.

[cds1834]

Originally Posted by cbargar

I'm not what you'd consider a fanatic, but there is another reason for keeping discs in a changer.... EVERY time you take one out of a case and insert it into a player, there's a chance for getting a scratch of smudge. When they're kept in the changer, there are no chances for "Fat Fingers" screwing up the discs. (Sony BluRay juke box ower). All my BluRay and DVD cases are stored in a closet.

I like the fact that the discs aren't handled as well when used with the changers. All the DVD's and Blu-ray's that I purchase go straight from the original packaging to the particular DVD/Blu-ray changer not to see the light of day again. In my case I use the boxes that all of my changers came in to store the DVD/Blu-ray cases. Keep those in the garage. And for those interested, since posting to this thread last I did finally integrate all 6 Sony BDP-CX7000ES Blu-ray Changers into my setup. Turned out really well. Free free to hit up my gallery if you'd like to take a look. I also posted a quick walk-through with screenshots of the activity I created for my Pronto which can be found here.

[gwayneg]

I joined this forum just so I could add my two cents to this discussion. I have had the Sony DVD changer for years. The only problem I ever had was it needed a firmware update when I finally got a TV that could use the HDMI. The reason for the changer is simple, four granddaughters and their friends. I admit I had the changer before the grandkids but it is great. Grandma has a basket of the empty cases that the kids dig through. They pick out the movie, the slot number is on the case, punch up the number and play. I guess that puts me in the only touch the disk once camp.
I almost missed getting the Blu-ray changer. My collection was not extensive so I almost waited too long. Fortunately I got one as they were phased out. I wouldn’t want to go without a changer. I’m spoiled by the ease of scrolling through the possible choices and hitting play. I’m as confused as everyone else as to why they are no longer available. I hope Sony, or someone, sees the benefit and starts producing them again. I worry that something will happen to the one I have and then I’ll be out of luck.
I know size can be an issue, but once you have experience the convenience you won’t want to do without. That’s my two cents.

[roar]

I owned the BDP-CX7000ES, I sold it... too slow... failed to play discs too often and the HTPC I replaced it with is superior in every way. The media I play is 1:1 with the disc, I compress nothing, I don't see the point in owning blu-rays and not getting 100% of them when I watch them. An HTPC may not be everyone but it works for me.

[lucv13]

I've had my BDP cx960 now for a few years and yes it is not the fastest player out there but it has been problem free and I love it...