Great picture. Starts nice, Smooth running. fast loading, No problems!! Optical and Coaxil hookup and S-video!!

Off Gold color. Remote not bad,, but can be better!

I like this DVD player. It gave me no prob's. It has Optical and Coax hookups and S-video also!! A/V link too!!

It has never freeze on me yet watching any movies and starts up w/o given me crap in anyway!!

DVD plays ZOOM kinda sucks! Only can zoom 1 time!

The Theather pic setting is nice. makes the TV set darker colors w/o messing with the TV's color settings. Also has a sound button where u can listen to movies is Theather sound, Drama or Off mode. Espically I have it hooked up to an Onkyo 494 and 6 speaker and 2 sub setup this puppy rocks!!

Also the color reallly don't bother me.. at least at night or in day time I know which one is the DVD PLAYER :) !!!!

All I have to say is "I love it"
Now I want to get the new JVC DVD player thats really skinny, that just came out this year 2001!!

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Samsung 711 (YUCK!!!)!!!!!!!!!

Plays VCDs

While watching many DVDs (approx. 30%), the unit begins skipping and pausing. Usually 45-60 minutes or so into it.

I started with rental DVDs and attributed the frequent problems to scuffs or scratches. Then after I bought a brand new DVD (The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly) the DVD became unwatchable approx. 1 hour into it due to the pausing and skipping. Because of this, I took it in for repair work. Had to wait 6 weeks (!!!!), and when I got it back they claimed they could find nothing wrong with it. Sure enough the problems still occur. It's gotten to the point that I resort to my VCR when I want to watch a movie. In fact, tonight I tried a DVD for the first time in several weeks. 38 minutes into it, it once again became unwatchable.

none

pile of junk. skips and chokes on almost every disk

Avoid this model and JVC at all costs. It has become an expensive dust catcher in the living room. Even new disks skip and pause. JVC tech folks no help

All-around great DVD Player. NO skips, NO freezes.

Long load times on menus, etc.

I've read some of the other reviews, and the reports of skipping and freezing came as a suprise to me. I have been using this player for about a year; I frequently watch DVDs and have never (ever ever ever) seen a skip or freeze. The players I tried before this would all just up and stop playing in the middle of a long movie.

Nice picture, no jagged edges.

The only downside is everything is sluggish to load. Audio CDs take a second or two to be recognized and DVD menus are kind of slow when going from one menu to the next.

That's just a minor downside, though, because most of your time is spent watching the movie- not navigating the menus.

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Looks. Picture is outstanding.

Pauses sometimes when trying to pick up next sound clip

Well I thought I would offer my follow up review to this unit. I have owned it for a year. It is really a shame that JVC missed the boat on consistency of this model. Mine fortunately does work and works well. The picture is absolutely outstanding. Has played every single DVD that I have thrown at it except those that are dirty. After a wipe or too no problem. It does hang-up on sound sometimes when their is a pause in sound. A click on my Receiver fixes that. I agree that the remote sucks. Sorry for everyone who bought one and it didn't work. Good luck on future purchases.

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None

image & sound quality.

remote control sucks

I'm really glad my 523 worked fine out of the box, since I brought it to my country (argentina) and I would not be able to return it...
No problems at all, some freezing with dirty DVD's but I don't expect any player to handle that. With clean or new DVD worked perfectly. Sound is awsame too. Remote really sucks. Designed poorly, akward to use, you have to aim PERFECTLY to the DVD player to make it work even with new batteries.. only weakness I found.

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none

superbe colours!!!, component output very usefull, fast enough.

very bad design of the unit, the remote, and the welcoming screen. sound mediocre. remot not user friendly

cool dvd player, works well, but not user friendly with the remote at all, and the unit is ugly. anyway his picture is fantastique, especially the colour distinction, better than the others even at higher price (eg onkyo 535).
well the sound isn't so good, but who care, there is a digital out so the only need is a good ac3 decoder.

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marantz 4100, onkyo 535

superior sound quality to other products in its price range, cd-r & cd-rw compatibility, excellent dynamic range, universal remote.

none that i've seen, performance-wise. some may not like the color (platinum?)

overall, an excellent value. i bought this based on some research i did on the net, combined with the recommendation of a pretty knowledgable sales guy. my primary concerns in purchasing a dvd player were: 1. audio quality (i took for granted the picture would be great on most dvd players, based on the technology of the medium) 2. ability to play cd-r and cd-rw media 3. stay in the price range of <=$300.

since i don't currently own a receiver or preamp with digital inputs, it was very important to me that the audio quality was excellent coming from the analog rca outs of the dvd player. this is where the jvc appears to be superior to other players in its price range. sound quality with regular cd's is significantly better than the pioneer dv-333 or sony dvp-s360. i a/b'ed the jvc to these players and was suprised at how noticable a difference there was. on paper, the jvc has a dynamic range of 106 db. the next highest spec. for this that i found in this price range was from the pioneer, at 102 db. picture quality seems every bit as good, also. the player has no trouble playing burned cd-rs or cd-rws from my computer. haven't had any experiences with lockups from any of the dvd's i've rented yet... hopefully, i won't encounter any; i know this is a problem area for some players. it has a very comparable set of features for its price range. can't comment on the long term ruggedness yet... i've had it less than a month.

overall, an excellent player for the money that appears to perform as well as units costing much more.

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pioneer dv-333, sony dvp-s360

Picture quality
Price
Plays VCDs (great for HK action fans), CD-R/RW my older player couldn't read.

No navigation buttons on the player
poor design of remote control (buttons are hard to locate)
Doesn't seem too solid because it's so light!

The only reason I bought this player was to watch VCDs (imported video CDs) my RCA DVD player could not read. I also didn't want to spend a lot of money, and, after reading mostly positive reviews about this product, I decided to purchase it. I think I've made the right decision. The picture quality is visibly much better than my RCA--when hooked up to an LCD projector using an S-video cable, I was surprised to see how good the picture quality was. The player is also quieter, making it an appropriate player for a bedroom. I have it hooked up to my Dolby Digital receiver through an optical cable. It sounded great. Even with the VCDs (non digital sound), selecting virtual surround cinema mode significantly improved the sound output.
The remote on the other hand, in my opinion, is not designed well. The navigation buttons (u,d,l,r) are packed together so tightly in an elipse shape, that it kind of requires precision to make the right selection. I also have a problem with not being able to visually recognize easily which is a play button, pause or stop.
In addition, I don't like it that on the player, there is no menu or navigation buttons--which means if you lose your remote, you will have to get a replacement or else you won't be able to navigate the DVD menus.

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RCA DVD/DIVX- RC5223P

chassey is smaller than my other components, small display, terrible zoom capability (not that I use it!), iffy remote

I have the JVC XV-521 by the way, I could not find it in the review list. No worries though the 521 is just a different colour, besides that it is the same player!
I am happy with this DVD player. I have it hooked up to my JVC 32" D-Series (not as happy with the TV) via component video. The only people I wouldn't recomend this player to are the ones who like to use the zoom in function, it is rancid! Buy yourself a Toshiba if you feel the nead to zoom in on your movies to reduce the "black lines"(I will bite my lip and not say anything else about these people).
The only other complaint I have is the screensaver is crumby to, but if you find a DVD player with a good screensaver e-mail me because I have never seen one!!
Besides that this player is a great buy for a basic DVD player, very nice picture. Thanks.

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