3 trays, zoom, shuttle, good looks

picture is dark, kind of loud when switching between trays, the green indicator lights are annoying, doesn't play CD-R's (at least not mine).

I have watched DVD's on my powerbook for a while, but I eventually wanted to be able to view DVD's on my t.v. of course. I liked the looks of this unit, and wanted a DVD player with multiple trays since this will be my only CD player also. It does not play *my* CD-R's, which is a disappointment. I read that another reviewer was able to play CD-R's though. I would like to know what media type he was using, and what program he used to burn his CD's. I used Verbatim 80 min., with Toast 4 on a mac to make the CD's I tested the unit with.

Overall, I'm happy with the unit, though there are a few things I'm disappointed with:
1. The picture on my t.v. is darker than it should be, in my opinion. Even on it's brightest option in the controls. I feel like I'm missing out on about 20 to 40 percent of the detail in scenes that are already dark to begin with. This was my biggest disappointment with the unit.
2. The trays are a little louder than I would like when first putting in DVD's/CD's, and when switching between the three trays.
3. The green indicator lights to the right of the trays, are always on when there is something in each tray, which is a good way to tell you where you put something, but when a DVD or CD is playing, the light flashes on and off. If you are watching a DVD in the dark, this quickly becomes annoying, or even distracting, constantly watching this flash to the right or left of the t.v. It could be a nice, if it wasn't so bright, and if it was more subtle, like a current Mac G4 desktop's power button, in how it pulsates warmly, instead of bluntly flashing brightly.
4. The volume is lower than any other component I have, but the sound quality is fine. Just turn up the volume a little bit more than usual and it's fine.

Oh, and just to let you know, I didn't have the best experience with xtremeshopper. It took three and a half weeks after I ordered this unit, before I received it. I only received two emails, each right after I placed the order. They didn't even send me one to say it had been shipped. I called after about a week after placing the order, and they gave me a couple of excuses. They never responded to an email I sent concerning the order. I don't know whether my experiance is commonplace with them or not, but I won't be ordering from them again. But you can't beat the price, right? (It was $212 with shipping btw).

Similar Products Used:

none

Separate construction throughout: Power supply, Digital circuitry, Analog Video and Analog Audio circuits are physically separated

noisy transport

In addition to readibility to DVD-Video, Video-CD, SVCD and Audio-CD I've found that this unit is capable to read CD-G, CD-EXTRA & CD-TEXT. Not many DVD and/or CD-player(s) on market can do this for this price.

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Denon, Onkyo, Philips

quality of sound

loud trays

overall its a great product .
does anyone know if its progresive scan video output

Similar Products Used:

jvc

Outstanding picture clarity. No specs, grains, or color problems. Heavy duty construction and excellent craftmanship

Gold color -I wish it was black to match everything else

Compared to a Sony S360- the JVC is superior. Picture quality and audio is outstanding. 3 disc changer is very convenient for multiple movie days. Easy to read manual. Suggest connect Svideo or component and digital audio. Overall as an avid DVD consumer, this is an excellent middle range player. Much better than Sony equivalents

Similar Products Used:

Sony S360 - way too loud and audio problems with chapter tranfers

3 Disc changer, jog control, zoom features

Gold color doesn't match rest of system, tray is somewhat slow changing, lower sound for DVD then any other component in my system, DVD's sometimes don't lay in tray very good.

Overall it does what I want it to and that is Play DVD's and have more than one available so I don't have to get up and change movies as often. Sound so far is fine. Just not crazy about the gold color but I guess I can live with it. People are right about how much the sound decreases as opposed to the rest of the systems components. But it functions fine so I guess I can't complain too much about it.

Similar Products Used:

RCA

Integrated system 3-Disc's

Transport (i.e., tray maybe to noisy)

Overall very good. I have Nakamichi receiver and Accuphase CD-player, however for this kind of cost this equipment just sound great both in audio and video.

Picture quality. Sound Quality. Features.

Sound volume. 3-disc changer.

I just want to start out by saying that this unit DOES PLAY homemade CD's!!! Secondly, I have had no problems at all with mine. It is the first DVD player that I have owned, and I find it to be a very good buy. I do agree that the sound volume may seem a little low, but after eading reviews for other players, I think that this may be on purpose: if the level is too high, the digital signal peaks out on the loud parts. If you have ever had that happen on a CD ( ie., Aerosmith is notorious for recording things too hot) it is very annoying! Much better to have to turn the volume up a little and keep the quality. After all, this is not a tape, it will not get hissy when you turn it up. Now to my complaint about it being a 3-disc changer... I did not buy this for myself, it was a gift. Personally, I had wanted a single disc player, but what the heck, it was free. 'Just my preference.

Similar Products Used:

Sony 5-disc CD changer, Rotel RCD-855 CD player (awesome!)

3 CD tray,can change DVD while another plays, DTS/digital outs

only plays factory DVD's/CD's, tracking errors on long DVD's (2nd layer errors), fumbles occasionally loading & changing trays, DVD audio output at least 6db below other components

Mine is a M565 changer, identical except it's black, not gold. Bought at vanns.com, as a first time buyer they took $25 off 1st purchase so i got a replacement only waranty for $6.(normally I NEVER buy those, but I figure a changer is more likely to fail just from more moving parts alone)So far it works OK - I've had some tracking errors on long rental movies (Green Mile and Patriot)but not on long ones I own, such as Gladiator or T2 collectors. I'm ass-u-ming it doesn't suffer non pristine discs very well. It doesn't have a warm fuzzy sound to it when it changes discs (kinda sounds like when a VHS tape gets stuck ejecting)but other functions have a quality feel and function to them
The analog and digital DVD audio outs are noticably lower thru my Yamaha CX-1000 digital pre-amp than the fixed outs of my Sony CD or Tascam rack-mount CD burner, which sucks if you forget to lower volume when source switching! I'm in the process of turning my stereo into home theater w/ DTS decoder/etc, so I can't comment on pure sound quality, but when the stereo track gets busy, my JBL sub/Paradigm Titan system brings it home. I'll add an addendum when I get the rest set up. All in all for the price it's a changer in a sea of single disc players-for that reason I'd recommend it, but not as a purist/videophile piece

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Toshiba, Aiwa

Triple tray availability. Gold color blands in with my other GOLD JVC components ( AMP/CD/VCR/TAPE players).

Loss of picture quality during ZOOM mode; and the annoying "ZOOM" word displayed on screen.
DVD audio output weaker than CD.

Great addition to my HT setup/ experience. Wish I was aware of this forum. I could have researched the product; prior to purchase; at least for comparison purposes with other brands.

I would still recommend this model as a initial DVD player purchase.

Similar Products Used:

AMP; CD CHANGER; VCR; TAPE PLAYER.
Sony TV for enhance picture quality.

Decent look, picture and sound.

Extremely unreliable, poorly designed remote, slow tray changes.

I don't know what percentage of JVC DVD players are duds, but mine sure is. Potential buyers should pay attention to the cons listed by the remaining opinioneers. They are all accurate, though I didn't want to be redundant. As I stated above, I have now owned it for three, nearly four months and it did provide satisfactory performance until it broke! The trays are very slow to change, but that didn't bother me too much. And really, while I thought that having the three trays might be handy, they turned out to be more of a pain in trying to recall what disc was in which tray. In any case, I will be returning mine tomorrow in favor of an APEX DVD Player. They cost on average $125, have a single tray, and not only plays CDRW music CDs, but also MP3s as well.