recieved this player as a gift from a friend (now best friend ;)
cant say enough good about it. very easy to use (manual? we dont need no steenking manual), great picture, amazing sound. remote takes a little getting used to. my one main "wish" was that it had a digital coax out. but other than that, color me happy.

gary

I was lucky enough to get this unit on clearance for only $199.00. Because of the discount I bought a 4 year warranty for $69.95. I couldn't be happier with the performance and the lack of any "real problems". There was one small problem however. The unit's display never showed all 5.1 channels working. JVC told me it was not designed to display anything but the two main channels. This sounds a little fishy to me. Does anyone know about this particular problem? All in all I give this unit a 5 for performance, features and value.

Though I feel a little foolish for paying the full $399 from Crutchfield, I still believe this to be one of the best DVD's in this price range. Even through the tiny little speakers on my Philips-Magnavox 32", the sound is still crystal and clear. The only problem I've noticed is that sometimes when I'm showing off the gazillion functions to my friends, the player will freeze in play mode if I try to jump from option to option too fast (e.g. zoom in, letterbox/p&S, different languages, subtitles, etc. in just a couple seconds). I guess the system can't handle that much function demand in that short a time. However, I've never noticed a problem if I just wait 5-10 seconds between activating different functions. I've heard that you can buy this player at www.computable.com for $319.99, but even at $399.00 I'd have to say it's a great deal, especially because it's both DTS and Dolby Digital ready.

I bought the 501 about three weeks ago after comparing features, price, and quality of like priced Sony, Panasonic, and Pioneer units. Well, when my local retailer dropped the price to $297 from $399 my decision was made. I also looked at the Toshiba 3109 dual tray. Nice machine but basic compared to the fine JVC i purchased for over $50 less at American TV in Madison (a local chain here in Wiscoansin and northern Illinois). After tiring of looking at whether all the different brands would play CD-R of CD-RW or whatever; I decided to focusa on what I wanted it mainly for: to view excellent movies on my Hitachi 50" Ultravision. This machine displays flawless videos. And the joy stick operated remote is a kick with all the interactive DVDs like Lost In Space And Austin Powers. No complaints, both Dolby Digital and Dolby prologic sound superb and I do have both the optical Digital cable and standard stereo analog audio cables connected to my Kenwood 1090VR prrchased at OneCall last year mail order. A great combo. But the JVC 501 or the JVC 701. All this other stuff avout DVD Audio is still up in the air and there are already DVD audio only discs out anyway ( try Lasersedge.com )If you can find this machine at under $300 you can't beat with anything else currently on the market for this price.

I read a good review of the 120 in Home Theater Magazine and was in the market so I went to my regular retailer "Wacky Websters"(don't ask).I loved the unit and headed out to buy my first DTS disk.On the "Eagles Hell Freezes Over" disk i could not get the one track to play(New York minute).I returned the disk as defective and got "The Jackal".When I played this one lo and behold it started freezing up around the same area.I took the player back to wackys and showed them.
They did not have a 120 in stock so I got the A JVC xv-501.After reading the reviews here I listened for dropouts that had been noted on DTS disks.Thsy dropouts were indeed there.

I returned the JVC and my new 120 arrived today.After a week with each player before I must say despite the cool features of the JVC.The spartan Panasonic has better Audio and video and a better feel(you audiophiles know what I mean by that).Panasonic was aware of the problem with the breakups and there is a fix available from a Panasonic service center.

Unbelievable! In a word, the best DVD player money in that range can buy. picked mine up for $169 on sale, and it included a certificate for a free pair of headphones ($129 retail value) and 4 DVDs. That, in total, makes this DVD player free. Therefore, I cannot recommend any other DVD player for $0 that would beat this baby.
About 1 out of 3 DVDs lock up for me, but it's easy to unplug and restart - scanning to the point where it dropped off. Audio glitches abound, but that might be because I drive my receiver full power - and the speakers are probably clipping or something. What is a Gooey? My JVC was not sticky at all when I got it... maybe it gets gooey if you use it in sunlight?

Also, my settings are not remembered when I turn it off and on again, so I have to go through "setup" each time I turn it on. No problem - only takes about 40 minutes when I use the manual.

I love this baby - can't imagine a better $0 DVD player!

AV

Picked this player up at best buy for 329.99. What can I say, great job jvc. The player performs flawlessly on movies, and sounds better than a 400 dollar cd player for music. It is a very attractive piece of gear, with the cool lights and the stylish design. I admit, the joystick on the remote could use some tweaking, but this does not affect how the player performs. Great load of features for the price, and good build quality (except the remote). No lipsync or pixelation, in your facer sony and panasonic. Buy this unit, not the sony, not the panasonic, not the toshiba. I love it. Ian

I just bought a JVC XV-501 because it seemed to have less problems than some of the other low-priced DVD players out there. The third movie I tried was "Cruel Intentions" and it froze up the machine. The machine would not respond to the controls and even the power off took about 10 seconds. I took the DVD back to the store to try in other machines. It worked fine in the Sonys and Toshiba and froze the store's JVC.
In general, the player has good picture and features although the interface is slow and unresponsive.

I'm returning the player but I'm not sure what I'll get to replace it. All of the models on the market are flawed. DVD is just not ready for prime-time yet.
I just spoke with Sony and they said they might have a fix for their audio/video sync problems in about a month.

I bought the JVC XV-501 a few weeks back and with the exception of one missing feature was very happy with its performance. The feature missing is the K2 interface which eliminates jitter on the optical output. I was rather disappointed to discover that had been left out of the 501's feature set since last year both of JVC's DVD players included the K2 interface. Since I found the 701 for only $10 more than I paid for the 501 I returned the 501 and ordered a 701. Since I am using it with a JVC RX-888 which already has a Digital Dolby/DTS decoder I really didn't need the builtin decoder but the added coax output on the 701 was a nice feature as well. So I give the 501 four stars. It would have been 5 stars except for the lack of the K2 interface and a coax interface. Jack
ps I also asked JVC support about the DTS dropout issues with the 501/701 and while they admitted to having heard some complaints insisted it didn't seem to be a widespread problem.

I bought the jvc 501 last week. Rented 10 dvd's only 4 out 10 played