JVC XV-D701BK DVD Players

JVC XV-D701BK DVD Players 

DESCRIPTION

Single Disc DVD/CD player with Dolby Digital/DTS - 10-bit/27MHz video DAC - 96kHz audio DACs - Component video, composite video, and S-Video terminals - Coaxial and optical digital audio outputs - Multi-brand remote

USER REVIEWS

Showing 11-20 of 142  
[Feb 07, 2000]
Jim Kane
Audio Enthusiast

Strength:

Great picture, good price

Weakness:

slightly cheesy remote, causes me to buy more A/V equip.

Full disclosure: this is my first DVD player, and the rest of my setup is a ~10yr-old Kenwood system. With that in mind, I have been incredibly impressed with this player. Thank goodness (and knock on wood), I have had mine for about 2 months and haven't seen ANY of the skip / lockup problems reported below. I do own The Matrix and Saving Private Ryan DTS, and have watched both several times (though I haven't yet watched SPR in DTS). The menus on The Matrix work a little more slowly than is normal, but the movie itself plays fine and I still haven't noticed the layer switch. Hopefully, the problems reported were early QA problems that have since been rectified.
Some have commented that they don't like the OSD and setup menus; I think they're pretty nice (I work on UNIX for a living, draw your own conclusions :).
As for comparison, the only other unit I have seen much of was the Marantz reference player that a relative owns (hooked to a system that will almost make you lose your lunch), so it's not really a fair comparison. I haven't noticed any flaws in audio or video yet that would cause me to question my player's quality. I'm hoping to upgrade my system to a HK AVR500 with full surrounds, so hopefully I'll be able to post a more complete review then.

Similar Products Used:

N/A

OVERALL
RATING
4
VALUE
RATING
5
[Feb 22, 2000]
Kiev
Audio Enthusiast

Strength:

Good sound and picture quality. Easy to use.

Weakness:

Remote sucks. SOmetimes it doesn't read fast enough and just stops reading.

Overall I think its a pretty decent DVD player. The picture quality is very good and sound is very good. I have it connected to a home theater sytem and has been very pleased with this product. The only problem seems to be if you press the remote butons to fast it gets confused and just gets stuck and not do anything at all. Other than that its cool! Later.

OVERALL
RATING
4
VALUE
RATING
3
[Feb 21, 2000]
larry
Audio Enthusiast

Strength:

great picture,great sound,very easy to use,

Weakness:

remote a little cheap feeling.on screen menu lacking info.

very good dvd player at at very resonable price($275).so far no lock-up or any problems.played about 15 dvd's

Similar Products Used:

none

OVERALL
RATING
5
VALUE
RATING
5
[Mar 06, 2000]
Larry
Audio Enthusiast

Strength:

Good audio and video quality

Weakness:

Poor remote, confusing instruction manual

I have been using the 701 for about 5 months and have not had any major problems with it. The onscreen menus and GUI setups are fairly easy to use, but the instruction manual is not. My only complaint is that on a few discs, I have gotten a jittery picture. If I shut the machine down and restart, it usually goes away. I called JVC tech and they had no answer. The problem is rare and I have played at least 150 discs with no problem. I feel that this is a good product and value.

I have noticed that the unit "seems" to run hot especially when playing 5.1 DVDs. It does not seem to affect the audio or video quality.

Similar Products Used:

None

OVERALL
RATING
5
VALUE
RATING
4
[Mar 11, 2000]
Brian
Audio Enthusiast

Strength:

None

Weakness:

Locks up on certain DVDs

Bought this unit at Sam's Club. Would skip/lockup on a few DVDs rented from Blockbuster. Took these DVDs to a stereo store and tried them on many different DVDs, they all played fine except for the JVC. This unit is JUNK. I returned it and bought a Toshiba SD-5109 with progressive scan. Do yourself a favor, stay away from this player.

Similar Products Used:

Toshiba SD-5109

OVERALL
RATING
1
VALUE
RATING
1
[Mar 21, 2000]
Craig Moore
Audio Enthusiast

Strength:

Ease of use

Weakness:

That damn Remote....and the "Angle" Button...

This is the first DVD Player that I have owned, I have operated quite a few but like the look of this one and it interfaces well with my JVC Integrated Home Theater Amp (RX-888VBK). The operating features of this player are sometimes strange...like the setup to a movie to select 5.1 Dolby Digital. Sometimes i have to do it twice to get it to lock in that mode. Never had any problems with skipping but try to play a burned cd in it.......Nada
I only wish i paid as little for it as some of the postings i have seen here. Hard to take this one on the cheek. My next Purchase will be a Sony.

Similar Products Used:

None used but many compared.

OVERALL
RATING
5
VALUE
RATING
3
[Mar 21, 2000]
SteveE
Audiophile

Strength:

Great picture & great Dolby Digital sound

Weakness:

DTS & customer support

I reviewed this (below) after owning less than a month. Back then, I only had a Pro-Logic receiver. Just bought an HK AVR300 DD/DTS receiver a few weeks ago. My impressions are still generally the same as before with a couple newly discovered exceptions (see weaknesses above).

I have not yet been able to play a Universal DTS DVD without some kind of problem--namely the drop-outs others have indicated. I tried contacting JVC's support center nearest my location & they were somewhat rude and totally useless. Being a relatively patient person, I contacted them again was offered a 1-800 customer support line. The person I talked to there (after 20 minutes on hold) new less than I did. In fact, I had to explain to him how to setup the Preferences 2 screen.

He muttered something about some models having a red sticker on the back and others not having this and admitted he had no idea what this meant. Wow...big freakin' help there buddy.

At this point, I think I'm going to keep the player as is. There aren't too many DTS DVDs available that strike my interest yet. The only one I own is Indoscrub by Mickey Hart which works great. I wonder if this is a Universal Pictures compatibility problem?

Another reason I think I'll stick with it is that the only player with a comprable picture that I've seen (as mentioned below) is the Sony 550 which is around $100-150 more. I would've bought the Sony had I known all this was going to happen, but the Dolby Digital performance and picture still have me sucked-in for now.

OVERALL
RATING
3
VALUE
RATING
2
[Mar 24, 2000]
Mark S.
Casual Listener

Strength:

Good picture and Dolby 5.1 playback.

Weakness:

Sporadic behavior on startup.

Purchased 8/99 from 800.com for around $300. Player worked fine initially but would sometimes freeze up when viewing a movie. Remote control could be better but works okay. What pisses me off is that it just quit working with the "NO DISC" problem referenced in several of the reviews below. JVC Services (1-800) was fairly helpful but they referred me to a local repair service. When I took the unit into them they said they couldn't do anything with it because "JVC DVD players don't include any diagnostics capability"! So had to ship the unit off to JVC in CA (cost me $38 with insurance).
Will I buy another JVC DVD player----- NO! I'll try to post a follow-up review when the player is fixed.

Similar Products Used:

JVC D2000, Pioneed 525.

OVERALL
RATING
1
VALUE
RATING
1
[Dec 05, 1999]
B
Audio Enthusiast

Strength:

Cool Looking Screen Saver, Picture dims when paused,
matches all my A/V Components. (heh)sweet ass remote.

Weakness:

None Yet, well, thick manual, need to sit down with a
sandwich and beer to read manual....may be just me, thats how I do things!

I got the player from ubid for 309, I had it locked at 269 but some people jumped on at the last minute and ran the price up!! DOH! anyways, I got the player, unfortunatly the optical cable I ordered didnt arrive so i hooked it up using the analog connectors and the "sample" disk that it comes with blew my mind, I never want to look a vhs ever again!!!! the picture is crystal clear and very sharp, the zoom is kinda cheesy, but you can see some details, like nudie posters in lockers on aliens SE, anyways, the pause, slow forward and back are excellent!!!! crystal clear, again.
the menus take some getting used to, and the remote is NOT as difficult as others had mentioned, maybe its preference,??
I watched the matrix SE, aliens SE, austin powers, eraser, navy seals, and wild wild west, the night i got it and hooked it up, I could not believe the sound and picture quality....top notch!
A Denon AVR-2700 is my Reciever and NHT fronts and center with them small ARs as surrounds....unbelivable!!!!
Homer Voice-> mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm SURROUND SOUND.
5 STARS, ALL AROUND, no problems, yet, I'll update if anything hapens, that I can not fix. but then again I have ALWAYS liked JVC. vcr and TV both JVC.

Similar Products Used:

First DVD Player

OVERALL
RATING
5
VALUE
RATING
5
[Jan 10, 2001]
Luc Gaudreault
Casual Listener

Strength:

Nice interface, great sound, controls on the player

Weakness:

Picture is too dark, runs way too hot, remote, cables

I bought this player AFTER I had read the other reviews! I bought it to complete my JVC system. Every piece of electronics I have is from JVC(receiver, vcr, cd, dbs and TV).

I'm not impressed by this player. It was the top of the line last year, but it falls rather short of it's original price tag.

First thing I did out of the box was to calibrate it using a test pattern DVD. On the first pattern there is a black bar on an almost black background. I was unable to see the bar, it was lost in the background. Tried same test on other players and could clearly see the bar on those. I was expecting this player to be leaps and bound ahead of my old 1997 Pionner, it isn't.

I'm not an engineer, but I would bet that 95% of the problems that people have had with this model is due to the player runnig way too hot. They should have left some grills on the side to let hot air out.

The remote is cheap and looks fragile. The "joystick" is a pain to use. Can't say much more, I don't use it, I use my learning remote instead.

JVC should be embaressed of selling their flagship unit with such poor quality cables.

Now the good part:
The on screen menu are good, they make using the less often used functions easier to access.

The sound is great, then again my old player couldn't even read DTS...

The best for last:
By far the best thing about this player is the fact that you can actually operate this unit without the remote.

Bottom line: Average player, wouldn't pay more than the $180 I got it for. I hope that if I can keep it cool that I'll avoid the misery some user had.

Similar Products Used:

Pioneer DV-500

OVERALL
RATING
3
VALUE
RATING
2
Showing 11-20 of 142  

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