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Review 2 of 2
Price Paid:
$214.00
from HKFlix.com Summary:
Well, I got this player to replace my XV-S500BK for the media compatibility. My XV-S500 was a bit finicky and unreliable when it came to DVD-R so I got this. Since it has the ability to view photos from different types of media, including memory cards, the jpeg viewing mechanism is much more sophisticated than the other JVC machines. You can view thumbnails and it's got a "Quick Scan" that loads the pics almost instantly even if they're on disc. You can do all sorts of things with them like flip and rotate the photo. You can even do a slideshow with music if you are viewing the photos from memory card. The JPEG viewing on this machine is head and shoulders above my previous JVC machines which would take between 3 and 8 seconds to load a picture, depending on it's characteristics. Another bonus about this machine is the zoom feature does not have the annoying zoom box in the corner blocking 1/8 of the screen that the older models used to have. It just zooms. Both of these things I love about it. There's also a dimmer so you can dim the front display and the display now shows the correct time when playing SVCDs. Before, all the JVC players would show a maximum of about 39 1/2 mins on the display for SVCDs even if it was actually 55 mins long or so. So, the timer would always count slower on SVCDs. That is no longer the case and is fixed now.
Now, what I consider to be negatives about it are that, first and foremost, there seems to be slight vertical interlace lines when viewing SVCDs. I don't know if something's happened to it or if I just started noticing it recently, but that's how it is. I've had it for a couple of weeks and just started noticing it this past week. I tried all the different settings and made sure progressive scan is off and they're still there. This is slightly bothersome and I'm trying to still figure out what, if anything, I can do about it. Another thing I don't like is the zoom only zooms closer. I liked the ability to zoom out so I could see how much of the TV overscan I was missing on differen pictures or DVDs. That's a minor thing. What really is a drawback is the Resume feature ONLY works with DVDs. It doesn't work with VCDs or SVCDs anymore, like previous models. This is highly annoying since I watch more SVCDs that DVDs. It also doesn't do slow motion play with VCDs or SVCDs. I have had some problems with a couple of older VCDs I made where it wouldn't register the remaining time so I couldn't, therefore, Time Search to certain points. You have to just fast forward the slow way. I think those discs may not have been made to "compliant" specs. Also, the forward search on VCDs and SVCDs isn't as smooth as previous players. It goes 3 jumps forward, then pauses, then 3 jumps forward, then pauses. This is just in the video. The timer keeps going so it's like the video is behind and has to pause and jump ahead to catch up with the actual time.
Over all, I'd say I prefer most of the functionality of the XV-S500BK because of how much better it handles VCDs and SVCDs. I do love the advance JPEG viewing though and if it weren't for that (even though I only have a couple of JPEG discs) I might try a different model to see if it handled VCDs and SVCDs better although I heard from HKFlix.com that the XV-N55SL doesn't Resume VCDs or SVCDs either. If I can find one that does resume VCDs and SVCDs AND has confirmed DVD-R compatibility, I'll go with that and forego the advance JPEG features. Strengths:
Great media format compatibility, superb advance JPEG viewing engine, no annoying Zoom box, fixed the time output for SVCDs to show correct time Weaknesses:
NO Resume on VCDs or SVCDs, no zoom out (only zoom in), minute vertical lines when viewing SVCDs (although it's possible it might be just my player or some other specific thing). Similar Products Used:
JVC XV-S500BK
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4 of 5
