Awesome Video ! DVD Audio !!

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Exceptional Progressive Video. Beats my SD-5109 hands down. If the disc has the proper flags this machine will kill the competition. No doubt about it.

Good clear sound with detail, real high crisp sound with Dvd audio discs.

Can't pull up set up menu on some Dvd's like music vids & can't use audio surround with 5.1 audio hookup like arena,hall when playing music cd's.

I mainly got this Dvd audio/video player to play back Dvd audio discs. I didn't find many if any reviews here on the Dvd audio portion of the player, but after reading the mostly positive reviews and affordable price I decided to buy one.

Most of the reviews I read were about the quality of the picture in the progressive scan mode which I can't comment on cause I can't use it cause I can't afford a $3000 digital Tv plus 5-10 years from now they'll be more advanced & have more features.

I can comment on the Dvd audio portion and regular cd playback of this unit. The positives are when playing back a Dvd audio disc the 5.1 surround audio is amazing sounding twice as good as a regular cd because the sampling rate is twice the rate at 96khz than a regular cd. 96khz in 5.1 mode or 192khz in stereo mode. I have 3 Dvd audio discs-a classic rock disc, 1 by Metallica-the black cd, and a sampler that JVC gives you with the unit. The Dvd audio discs cost $25 a piece from Sam Goody stores. The 5.1 mix on the metallica cd was great, like the band was in your room!

In order to get 5.1 surround sound you need 6 single cables or 3 pairs of audio cables with RCA plugs. I used monster cable. You connect the cables into the 5.1 channel output of the player first, then plug the other ends of the cables into the 5.1 inputs of a 5.1 channel input capable receiver. You select 5.1 channel switch on your receiver & your all set to listen.

The sound of regular cd's is amazing. Real good Digital to analog converters are used. I played Drop's of Jupiter by Train & also part of U2's All That You Can't Leave Behind cd and the sound was really clear and so was the clarity defining the instruments.

The things I didn't like was when the 5.1 channels are hooked up to the receiver & I played back a regular music cd I couldn't use the music DSP modes on my receiver like arena or hall. Only when I just hooked up the front left & right channels to an aux input on my receiver did it work.

Last, this unit has a built in Dolby Digital & DTS processors which work when hooked up to a 5.1 channel input on the back of a receiver, but I can't seem to play back 2 of my Dvd audio discs in DD format. The discs are also encoded in Dolby Digital. There's nothing on the Dvd audio discs menu to choose playback to Dolby Digital,only 2 ch stereo or 5.1 surround. Here's the weird part, when I play back those same 2 discs on my Sony s360 Dvd player, it reads the Dolby Digital signal and plays back in DD via the processor in my receiver. Can anyone explain why I can't pick up the DD signal through the JVC?

Similar Products Used:

Sony s360 Dvd player

Progressive Video

Lack of DVD-Audio Bass Management, Poor Remote

I decided to give the JVC XV-D723GD DVD/DVD-Audio player a spin. I wanted to give the DVD-Audio capabilities as well as the 480P output a whirl. I’ve been avoiding the JVC players after several friends with JVC players have had quality problems and inability to play various DVD had me worried. As an aside, a much more technical review of this player can be found at Secrets of HomeTheater HIFI. This review simply is my opinion on this product.

General Impressions:

The 723GD is a gold (hence the GD) colored unit. I would prefer the black version that goes by with the model number of XV-D721BK, but nobody stocks them. The build of the unit is fairly standard for mid-range components and won’t win any awards. The LCD display is quite readable at a distance, but does not allow dimming. The drawer slides in and out fairly sturderly, but probably won’t stand up to my 2 year old falling on it (but would many). The back contains the normal array of outputs and a switch with two options of 525i or 525p. Obviously, these should be labeled 480i or 480p respectively. For some reason someone was reading the DVD spec a little too closely when they did these labels. Guess what? Its a DVD player, no big suprises here.

Technical Performance:

I’m not qualified or experienced enough to give a technical evaluation of this product. See reviews at Secrets of HomeTheater HIFI or Sound & Vision for technical performance.

Video Performance:

With my Toshiba 40H80, I was pleasantly impressed. Running through a gammet of Dances with Wolves (DTS) at the beginning of chapter 4? the reigns of t, Titantic chapter 8 with the ship rails. All tests passed with flying colors. Everything was subtely better than I remembered it to be (my Pioneer DV-414 is a good steady player, but soft looking compared to the JVC. As I said, much has been said about this players ability to do video progressively.
It is really nice. You’ll really be amazed.

Audio Performance:

It was fine. Didn’t notice anything bad nor really good. The unit has built in DD and DTS decoders with some marginal bass management. The manual really doesn’t help you set it up very well and the built in test tones are rather useless (see usability for more information).
Again, check with other reviews for a more technical review of the audio performance.

Usability:

The setup and configuration screens, combined with very little description in the manual, make this DVD player a nightmare to setup and configure. What does DTS Bass Management compared to normal bass management? The manual does little to explain, nor does it ever inform one as to the what the fixed crossover point is when you set your speakers to small. It forces you to set speaker delays using time rather than distance. The LFE channel level is unconfigurable. It is impossible to set the speaker levels using a DVD such as Avia or Video Essentials because the setup menu is in accessable when playing a DVD.

This player suffers from the same problem afflicting all current DVD-Audio players, they don’t perform bass management on the data before sending the stuff to the analog outputs. Most recievers in turn don’t typically perform bass management on their 5.1 inputs. This means that unless you have 5 full range speakers, you’re losing some of the bass information in DVD-Audio. Many manufacturers are trying to address this need. Outlaw Audio, THM Labs and M&K are three companies that currently have or will have devices to perform bass management in the analog domain. These products are the Outlaw ICBM (release July or August 2001 for $249). TMHLabs Bass Manager at http://www.tmhlabs.com/ or M&K’s LFE-4 ($800).

The user interface is a nice graphical interface that simulates using a GUI on a computer. The onscreen display for each type of format was kinda cool. It was irrating that the setup menu was inaccessible while playing a disc of any type. The remote control is frustrating to say the least. Get a good backlit universal remote control and save yourself years fumbling.

The screen saver won’t kick in when paused during a movie. It just dims.

When in 16:9 Auto mode, it does cool things. It lets you leave your TV in full mode no matter the title, anmorphic, letterbox or 4:3. I was not really able to figure out how it scales letterbox images.

The player processes DVD menus very fast (compared to a 2 yr. old DVD player). This makes going through all the extra features a breeze.

I never got the “memo” or “bookmark” feature to work. The player never really gave me any indication of when to “press” the button on the remote and I never bothered to read the manual. Of course the real issue is that some DVD’s are just plain mastered incorrectly so that this feature doesn’t work, but players should try a little bit harder than JVC did on this one.

Similar Products Used:

Pioneer DV-414

Features:DVD-A,p-scan, nice picture quality..

some problems with dvd-menu displayed..

Seems like a deal for the price.. however I do miss playing CDRs. i am using it with a toshiba hdtv 61h70. picture is very nice.. however the black level could do some improving but then that might be a limitation of my hdtv. a really annoying this about this player is that a thin white vertical line of dots appear when I view the dvd menu and in some dvds which have less than stellar transfers. the line appears for ALL dvd menus but then the picture once the movie starts playing is superb. the picture quality is everything i thought it would be :).. dont know how i would rate it compared to the tosh sd6200 or sd9200.. bottom line is i could afford it and the pic quality seems great to me.. now if only jvc can get rid of that white line...
not used dvd-a on it yet..

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first pscan player i have used..

This is a follow up to my earlier review.

The 'blinking' display problem was quickly rectified after a visit to JVC's website.
A reset of the unit using the instructions they show quickly fixed this problem and it has not reappeared.

Very Clean picture, even with S-Video, and very good audio performance on DVDs.

Whenever a dvd would fade to a black screen during a movie, the player would stop sending a video signal to my TV, but would continue to send audio to my reciever. Also, the remote is not very well layed out and the buttons are too small.

First, I would like to say that after reading numerous reviews in many categories, many of the people submitting reviews are not audio or video-philes. In fact many people do not have the slightest clue what they are talking about so I think that people should research products much more heavily then many of these people claim to research and compare.
Second, everyone has different tastes and that plays very heavily in there reviews.

As the JVC player goes, I spent almost a month using it and I found that the picture was very good using S-video, which is what my TV takes. The audio sent to my reciever was also supurb. However, no matter what disc I played when the picture would fade to black the JVC would stop sending a video signal to my TV. The audio would continue throughout the "black out." When something other than black was displayed, the JVC would again send a signal back to the TV, but it would flicker for a few seconds before becoming clear again. I also experience some problems with certain menus, but this is a minor problem. I also know that there was a recall on this model soon after it was released, and I have a feeling it may have had to do with the "black out."
If JVC fixes this problem on all players, it would be a very excellent choice any one who want good performance at a pretty good price. The player also does DVD-Audio, which is not something that I am particularly interested in, but some people may be.
The bottom line is to make sure that you research what you buy before you buy it. Get a hold of a test disc like Video Essentials or Avia from Ovation software. Take these discs in to chech out speakers, dvd players, and recievers. The $50 is worth the expense. Also, I only used this player while waiting for my other DVD player to get fixed. It was a Sony DVP-S550. So I am really not in the market for a new player at this time, but it makes me realize even more that research is very important when spending money on anything in home theater.

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Poineer 434

3:2 pulldown, good build, silent transport

Not so good with problem discs, audio skips, soft pictures with video based material. No CD-R support.

I have the XV-D721BK which is the black version of the 723GD.

Build Quality:
Decent build quality with a little more heft than the average DVD players. Have rubber ring to keep the dust out. This JVC requires clean AC pwer to bring out its best in video. 4.5/5.0

Usability:
The menu is easy to navigate and clear enough for novice users. Disc loading is quick. Can output both PCM and digital stream at the same time. This is especially important if you want to use your home theater receiver advance features (THX, Re-EQ, ...) when watching movies and 5.1 channels music without having to switch modes on the DVD player all the time. Too many film modes which makes it to be confusing. 5.0/5.0

Video Performance:
The JVC provides 5 film modes which none of them works perfectly. The video1 and video2 modes is especially soft and is worst than any of the existing HDTV ready TVs internal line doublers. Movies without the right progressive flags will make the JVC output a subpar picture. On the other hand, when the progressive flags are OK, the picture is beautiful with a lean towards too much white. Leave the JVC in smart mode and more time than not, it will figure out the right thing to do. However, with video based material, it is best to use the interlaced mode and let the TV internal doubler do the trick (provided that your TV have a better doubler than the JVC :)). The JVC also have a difficult time reading problems discs which my Panasonic RV-65 have no problem reading at all. It also locked up and refused to eject the disc until I powered it off. I will have to give it a 4.0/5.0 because of the bad video modes.

Audio Performance:
DVD-Audio sounds is amazing although the top ends seems to be somewhat limiting. Listening to CDs seems to confirm this. The DAC in my Marantz seems to allow more top end frequencies to flow more freely. DTS and DD music are also good but then again does not compare to the internal decoders of the Marantz. The JVC that I have has a bug playing DVD-Audio. It sporadically stops output sounds however the counter on the JVC keeps going like everything is normal. Because of the buggy DVD-Audio and average DAC, I have to give the JVC a 3.5/5.0.

Price:
At $270, its the only progressive DVD player with DVD-Audio (with the coming Panasonic RP-61). Good video coupled with good build quality and the JVC merits a 5.0/5.0 for prices.

Conclusion:
Because of the DVD-Audio bug and the bad video modes, I am returning the JVC and replacing it with the Panasonic RP-61 which includes MP3 decodings and CD-R support at the same price point.

good sound and picture

remote not backlit,won't play cdr's

I don't have it hooked up with progressive scan so I can't comment on that.The player works well without any noticable problems(except a very short hesitation wihle changing layers on one disk).The sound on dvd-audio is outstnding!I still have a very good cd player,so the lack of cdr compatability isn't a major problem for me.

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first dvd player,unless you count playstation

test

Great picture....without the chroma bug featured in the Denon 2800

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Easy to use, full of features, and fantastic progressive picture. Why buy the Denon 2800 with electrical problems (that apparently can be fixed) and the chroma bug that CAN'T be fixed?

I have owned a lot of JVC products and they have been the most reliable (never need repairs). I owned a Denon CD player that went to the shop twice within 2 years. Ended up costing more to repair than it cost to buy. When it broke down a 3rd time I threw it out.

Similar Products Used:

Pioneer