Price Paid:  $100.00

Summary:
Excellent quality picture and sound. The $100 dollar(new)price tag didn't hurt either!

Strengths:
Picture clarity and sound

Weaknesses:
noisy when changing disks...no big deal.

Similar Products Used:
Yamaha,pioneer and sony

Price Paid:  $0.00 from Future Shop (Canadia

Summary:
very happy. Components Used with this product: -RCA 56" analog, s-video in -yamaha 5560 av receiver -Athena AS-F2 Towers -Athena AS-C1 centre -Athena AS-B2 rears -Velodyne 10" CHT-10 subwoofer using Acoustic Research Master Series Cable, And Line conditioner.

Strengths:
-great menu, loads of video adjustments for a/v geeks like myself. gamma correction, contrast, tint, colour, brightness, and some good presets aswell. (nice to play around with that from the source component.) - Awsome picture, much clearer and more film like than any of the previous players I've used. I dont have a hdtv set yet, so I couldn't comment on the quality of the progressive scan output. I am currently stuck using the s-vid out. Audio is also much clearer. I have tried the Digital Coax, Optical, and the analog outs. -It gives you a bunch of audio options to, for base management, speaker size, ect. Stuff I expect of my receiver, but am delighted to see on the dvd player.

Weaknesses:
-I think a more solid 5-disc carousel would have been a better choice for JVC.

Similar Products Used:
Toshiba 2800 Apex Digital 3201 X-box Sony Play Station

Price Paid:  $350.00 from Hippo''s

Summary:
This a great DVD player. It has everything I wanted in a multi player. Besides the fact that it can shuffle seven disc, it can play CD-R and CD-RW discs. I did not want the MP3 format which is in the XV-F90, because I wanted to use quality recorded CD''s that can be played in a 5.1 system. I''m using the digital coax output for both digital and analog signals. Some people might be turned off by the noise made when it changes CD, but that is the only way JVC could give the ability to hold more by making the carasole eliptical with three on top and four on the bottom.

Strengths:
Easy to use remote, Great sound and picture quality, Plenty of outputs, Looks Great.

Weaknesses:
None!

Similar Products Used:
JVC XV-F90BK or XV-F90GD

Price Paid:  $380.00 from Circuit City

Summary:
The video quality on this DVD player, hands down, beats my previous two Sony players. The picture is much more crisp and bright. I hooked them up side by side using two component inputs on my TV and I could not believe the difference ... and I wasn''t even watching in progressive scan mode. Setup was easy. The "Choice" [read "setup"] menu takes a bit more getting used to. (Not as intuitive as Sony.) But browsing through the manual answered all my questions. It has some nifty features: 1. Digest allows you to see nine thumbnail clips for opening scenes as opposed to the customary six on a typical DVD scene selection. 2. Strobe gives a nine consecutive still frames of the action. You can then proceed one frame at a time following each incremental step of the action. 3. Zoom allows you to zoom into the action up to 1024X! Incredible! I have heard of some players zooming in 8X, but at 8X this machine is just getting started. Zoom proceeds in a geometric progression (2X, 4X, 8X, 16X,...1024X) Granted, this extreme zoom is not used in typical viewing, but to scrutinize a particular scene of a movie or pick out a minute detail, it can be a lot of fun. Left, Right, up, and Down curser functions let you move around the screen while zoomed. Incidentally, zoom also will reduce images to 1/2, 1/4, and 1/8. Pretty cool! Last, it plays CD-R/CD-RW. Something the Sony players did not do. Regrettably, it does not play multiple CD''s randomly as did my previous Sony multi-disc player. I miss this feature. It is my opinion this is due to a slow shuffle mechanism and slow scan times. In short, it is too slow and too noisy to support this feature. (I will be looking for a muti-disc CD player when I get a new rack for my components.) Aside from this I can''t think of any other negatives. Since I use the unit mostly for DVD viewing, the sacrifice was worth it for the value and picture quality.

Strengths:
Plays CD-R/W. Very sharp picture! Brighter and more vibrant than my previous Sony units.

Weaknesses:
Noisy mechanism. Does not play randomly disc to disc.

Similar Products Used:
Sony DVD-S550D Sony DVP-C660

Price Paid:  $254.00 from etronics.com

Summary:
i wanted to replace my 5-disc carousel cd player, and i didn''''t have a dvd player, so i figured it would be wise to replace the cd player with a multi-disc dvd player since it plays both formats. so far, i think it was a smart move. it may not behave as naturally as a cd player (slower loading time, shuffle is difficult), but this should not stop you from making the same decision as i made. the 7-disc feature is ingenious, and is a little noisy, but i will sacrifice that to fit two extra discs in the carousel. even though i don''''t have a hi-def/digital tv, i wanted to buy a player with progressive scan, thinking that i may upgrade my tv in the near future. also, i''''m sure i will end up buying a surround sound system, but i wasn''''t sold on the dvd-audio feature (which the fa-90) has. to me, it''''s just another money pit, and i think the digital audio you get from standard cds and dvds is near perfection. you''''d have to heavily invest in your system to be tickled by dvd-audio

Strengths:
cost, features, design and performance. the best all-around machine i''''ve seen for the price (same goes for the fa-90) versatility: plays virutally every format except dvd-audio and sacd

Weaknesses:
remote control only operates dvd and tv a bit noisy, but isn''''t really noticable. no 5.1 outputs

Similar Products Used:
none. this is my first dvd player.