Hello,as any fans of laser disc,for players there is only one brand for me: pioneer!!
But I am lucky and get a gift a sony player absolutely free ......... why complain??
Thanks to my friend came in possession of a mdp-850D, were about to throw in the trash, think that is like new!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! that ignorant!!!!!!!!
Fortunately he was reminded of my passion for the format,and brought a surprise to my house.
Not having paid nothing, I could ignore my dislike for Sony LD players, and I must say it is not so bad.
I connected to the video projector, which I did not have an LD player,and video quality is quite good ,better than I thought .
My pioneer players work better obviously, but I'm happy anyway.
Then there is the auto reverse, that in the three players that I was absent, I have never bothered to manually change the side, but it is a convenience which especially useful with films of 3 or 4 sides.
Now I have a player virtually anywhere in the house , the cld-v2300d in the bedroom with a CRT, the cld-1500 in the living room with lcd sharp and this with the video projector. I also cld-950 but is not working.
I hope not to have bored too
Daniele

Well you can't be bad to that!

My first player was the Sony MDP 850D. The picture was fuzzy and it sometimes jammed when changing sides but it got me started on the road to laserdisc heaven!
I still have that player although it has been a good 6+ years since I've used it. Should I blow off the dust and give it a second chance to redeem itself?

ok the player is free,already gives problems .
Yesterday, I used to see the third Indiana Jones film.
Everything okay in the movie, even the auto-reverse was fast and gave no problems.
After the movie I turned it off, then on again to do some tests with the audio outputs (RCA connected to the amplifier and I wanted to connect the optical), after a few seconds turns off by itself!!! !
there's no way to restart it after several attempts it switches itself off!!!! what bad luck!!
maybe he's a blown fuse!!
Let's see if I can get it repaired, because the video quality was not bad!! and auto-reverse is nice but not indiapensabile

The Sony seemed well built when compared with some other machines however the picture quality was a real letdown in my opinion.
When I first played a LD on the 850 it seemed a very soft image that wasn't even remotely sharp. I have to admit it nearly put me off the format completely and you
need to remember that this machine was highly praised in reviews as the flagship Sony machine to own. Moral of the story - don't believe everything you read!

Add to this the unreliable mechanical side change mechanism and the Sony really became a pain to use.
50% of the time it failed to play side B if you used the side change.
I've never seen that happen with any Pioneer player no matter how much I used it.
So for me it was an easy decision to scrap the Sony and stick with Pioneer who seemed to know what they were doing.
When I switched to a Pioneer CLD-2950 the difference was like night and day - it made the Sony look so poor I never used it again.

The 850 was supposed to be the best and most reliable Sony made, interesting. I never liked the grainy picture from Sony players.

I much prefer the earlier Sony industrial lasermax players and the MDP1700AR, the only dual side player they made with the industrial lasermax design. These simple component output players do not have the problems with picture softness etc. caused by the later addition of so-called enhancement circuitry.

The only other Sony I'd ever recommend for home use is the MDP-V series made for the Asian market, meaning Hong Kong and Japan, and the last players Sony made and much better than the US models, and even have AC3 output. I have two from Hong Kong that are superb players and use the same voltage as the US. Also, due to the popularity of VCDs in Asia, they play both PAL and NTSC VCDs.

I agree on everything, already knew of the problems of sony.
however thought worked for more than two days
Fortunately, I always have my players pioneer, but I want to try to repair the sony
bye

Actually, considering the flaws of some Sony models, yours is a pretty decent build. It does have a superb side chamge design that utilizes a U-track and makes for less problems changing sides and quicker side changes. And it supposedly has a better picture than the sonys before it.

It's unfortunate it konked out so quickly.