Can anybody advise please? I have 2 of these units and I wish to link them in my home thatre set up to be able to play the 750+ DVD's I own.
I am currently using 1 unit fully loaded with 399 discs and this is controlled by my Harmony 900 with I/R. If they are linked how can I move from one player to the other to play the films and what are the connections required.
Any assistance or advice would be appreciated.
Thank you Jac h

Hi Jack and welcome to Remote Central. Unfortunately your changers can not be linked together. You will have to control each and browse the discs via the disc explorer feature within each separately. That being said, there are several things you can do to make control of each quite seamless with your Harmony remote. The Sony DVD Changers offer 3 different IR codesets called Command Modes. By setting each changer to a different Command Mode and updating your Harmony remote accordingly you will be able to control each independently with your remote. Page 16 of the Sony DVP-CX995V Owner's Manual found here outlines how to change the command mode of the changer and OEM remote. I would imagine that the Harmony IR code database already offers all 3 command modes for the changer. You will also of course need to run the audio/video connections to your equipment separately for each changer. You're then simply changing activites on the Harmony per which changer you want to control. My DVD collection is currently housed in the 6 Sony DVP-CX985V DVD Changers pictured below. I also own 6 of the Sony BDP-CX7000ES Blu-ray Changers, only one of which is currently in use and located in another room.



With my setup I'm actually controlling all 6 DVD changers independently while still using the same IR codeset. I'm accomplishing this by using a Xantech RT8 IR Router. Link to the user manual for the RT8 can be found here. If you click on the image above it will display a larger version of the image. Viewing the larger image you can see the RT8 which I have cable tied to the right side of the first shelf just above the second changer from the bottom. The RT8 allows for directing the incoming IR signal from my remote to any one of the 8 IR output ports or all ports at once. I have an IR emitter cable running from the extender of my remote control system to the IR input of the RT8. I'm then running IR emitter cables from IR outputs 1-6 of the RT8 to each changer. Control at that point is a simple matter of sending the appropriate IR code to the RT8 selecting the IR output that I want to use prior to sending the IR codes to the given changer. The RT8 also allows for selecting all the IR output ports at once via the "Group On" command. This then allows me to power all the changers on or off at once by sending a single power on/off command rather than having to send the command to each changer individually.

Now unlike my changers, the Sony DVP-CX995V offers a HDMI output. As such, I'd imagine you're currently running an HDMI cable from each changer to your receiver which is in turn handling the a/v switching for you. If you have a legacy receiver as I do you might be running HDMI to your display for the video and an audio cable from each changer to your receiver for the audio. In the event your current equipment doesn't provide for the connectivity that you need to support both changers you could always use an a/v switch. In my case I'm handling the a/v switching for my changers via two Zektor HDS4 Component Video Switches. Can't say enough about the Zektor HDS4. It has performed flawlessly for all these years. The product has since been discontinued, but there is now an enhanced version of the HDS4 called the CVS4 which includes a RS-232 port and hardwired IR jack for control as well.

As for browsing your DVD collection that resides in the changers there are a number of options that you could go with allowing you to browse your collection as a whole versus browsing your collection separately within each changer. Several options that come to mind are detailed below. Some would provide for loading the disc from the appropriate changer and some would require you do that manually.

1) The most basic of solutions would be to catalogue your DVD collection using something like DVD Profiler or even a simple excel sheet making a note of which changer and slot each disc resides in. You could then browse your collection that way. DVD Profiler would allow for printing out a nice report or coffee table book. Even better, you could purchase the mobile app for DVD Profiler and browse your DVD collection that way. Once finding the disc you'd like to play you'd then select the appropriate changer activity with your Harmony, then manually queueing up the appropriate changer slot.
2) If I'm not mistaken I'm pretty sure the Harmony remote supports an activity which will allow you to import a listing of the discs in a given changer and the slot each resides in. You're then able to browse the listing of titles on the remote. When selecting a title the Harmony then queues up the given changer slot by sending the changer the appropriate sequence of IR codes. I'd suggest hitting up some of the more popular Harmony forums to find out more information on this.
3) For an on-screen solution you could go with something like DVD Lobby by Cinemar. This solution would require a HTPC and other hardware and is the only on-screen solution that I'm aware of which could totally automate things for you with respects to the Sony DVP-CX995V. Once selecting a given disc within the interface DVD Lobby would be able to have your HTPC send the appropriate series of IR commands to your equipment both setting all your equipment to their proper states and queueing up the disc from the particular changer. The other on-screen solutions out there as far as I know only support the Sony changers which offer direct disc selection via RS-232.
4) In my case I created an activity for my Pronto Professional remote called "DVD Juke" which serves as an end to end solution. The activity allows for browsing my DVD/BD collection by cover image via any one of 24 different genres/categories right on the screen of the remote. Once selecting a given disc to be played the Pronto ensures that everything that needs to be is powered on, sets all the equipment involved to the proper inputs and so forth, loads the selected disc from the changer in question, then takes you to the activity for controlling that changer. To learn more about my DVD Juke activity just hit up this thread. While adding new titles to my activity is a manual process the great thing about my solution is that it is a complete stand-alone solution. No other hardware/software is required once you've downloaded the configuration file to the remote. All that is required at that point is the remote itself and of course the equipment you would need anyway to accomodate for control of the changers and a/v switching.

Another notable solution is DMX-3000 (for use with URC's MX-3000). This was written by Bracken Baker (www.triplebsoftware.com) and is a very cool and innovative way to not only track your movies by cover art, but to control the play as well.

I forgot all about the DMX-3000 software. Thanks for mentioning it. Definately a solution the OP should consider as well.