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JVC XV-F85GD 7-Disc Progressive-Scan DVD Player (Gold)

JVC XV-F85GD 7-Disc Progressive-Scan DVD Player (Gold)

List Price: $399.95
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: People who have not got a clue..putting people off a product
Review: Ok...I do not have this Dvd player but I was interested in reading the review's before I put down some cash.The guy CGRAY2 HAS NOT GOT A CLUE..!!I dont normally respond to bad review's just take them as is.....but this guy is going to put people off this product by giving out just plain wrong information.
First off any Dvd Audio product even the most expensive and high end product will only output the Dvd Audio signal in analogue...that is why you need the 6 Rca outputs from the player to your reciever.For some reason the people behind Dvd Audio decided not to output the signal in digital...this will change within a short period of time once certain details regarding copy protection are ironed out.
Secondly the Rca connections are ordinary composite connections..(I dont know what he meant saying they were different..???) but only those people with recievers that have the 6 Rca input connections can use the Dvd Audio signal that this Dvd player outputs.Almost all recievers made since 1999 have these input connections....Just wanted to clarify these two issues so people are not put off by totally wrong information.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Best CD-R/RW disc compatibility so far!
Review: Okay, so I am really bothered by some of these reviews. Obviously your ignorance should not make a product inferior. Many people do not understand what multi-channel out is. This player is special because it plays DVD audio discs, and not many players do. DVD audio is a 6-channel audio format similar to DTS but it is NOT compressed and it is higher quality. The quality of DVD audio will blow you away. In order to accomplish this, any DVD audio capable player will have an internal decoder. So yes, this player DOES have OPTICAL and DIGITAL COAX, which you would use for a home theater type setting. The multi-channel output is used when you are using the players internal decoder. And yes, you could use this for DTS decoding if you so desired, but if you use optical/digital coax you are using your reciever's internal decoder instead. The picture quality and sound on this unit are superb. The gold-plated outputs on the back are a nice touch too. The multi-channel outputs should be hooked up with analog RCA cables, yes, standard audio cables. But you only need to do that if you plan on using this for DVD-audio. Its sad when people berate something they don't understand.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Some poeple are clueless
Review: Okay, so I am really bothered by some of these reviews. Obviously your ignorance should not make a product inferior. Many people do not understand what multi-channel out is. This player is special because it plays DVD audio discs, and not many players do. DVD audio is a 6-channel audio format similar to DTS but it is NOT compressed and it is higher quality. The quality of DVD audio will blow you away. In order to accomplish this, any DVD audio capable player will have an internal decoder. So yes, this player DOES have OPTICAL and DIGITAL COAX, which you would use for a home theater type setting. The multi-channel output is used when you are using the players internal decoder. And yes, you could use this for DTS decoding if you so desired, but if you use optical/digital coax you are using your reciever's internal decoder instead. The picture quality and sound on this unit are superb. The gold-plated outputs on the back are a nice touch too. The multi-channel outputs should be hooked up with analog RCA cables, yes, standard audio cables. But you only need to do that if you plan on using this for DVD-audio. Its sad when people berate something they don't understand.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Random play?
Review: One word of caution for anyone wanting to randomize audio cds with this player. I bought this model and loaded it with six cds. After hearing multiple songs (in random order) from the same cd I started with, I checked the manual. The manual states in a small note at the bottom of the page that explains the random function that random only works on the currently selected cd. What good does a seven disc changer do you if you can't randomize the whole set? It seems like a really strange choice for JVC to make.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: CD Users Beware!
Review: The lack of true "random play" across all discs, while hardly an issue for DVD users, is a major deficiency for those used to loading up a bunch of your favorite CDs and getting several hours of randomly selected and therefore varied tunes. JVC should call what it offers "single disc random play" to better apprise internet buyers who can't test the machine in person.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great CD/DVD player with many features at a Great price
Review: The main reson i bought this player is because I have always wanted a carousel cd player, and i figured i might as well get a good DVD player along with it. I had a [bad] samsung dvd player before, and this one is way better. It has progressive scan, so when i take the plunge into the world of HDTV, i'll be ready. The 3D-Phonic sound really works well to make movies sound great, and the mp3 player works good, even though the random play would have been nice. I love that it plays VCD's, which my old player didn't. Some people can't live without true random CD play, so if you need a carousel with total random cd play across all cd's, don't buy this one. If random play on only one cd at a time is fine for you (it is for me), then this player is a bargain.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great CD/DVD player with many features at a Great price
Review: The main reson i bought this player is because I have always wanted a carousel cd player, and i figured i might as well get a good DVD player along with it. I had a [bad] samsung dvd player before, and this one is way better. It has progressive scan, so when i take the plunge into the world of HDTV, i'll be ready. The 3D-Phonic sound really works well to make movies sound great, and the mp3 player works good, even though the random play would have been nice. I love that it plays VCD's, which my old player didn't. Some people can't live without true random CD play, so if you need a carousel with total random cd play across all cd's, don't buy this one. If random play on only one cd at a time is fine for you (it is for me), then this player is a bargain.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Correction of correction
Review: Unfortunately for vic white, Digital audio out over Toslink/optical/cable is a feature that's available on other ...players ... and is needed for connection to a digital reciever. If someone wants to make this part of a digital entertainment center, this model is not for you. It is odd, with the model having progressive scan, that it doesn't output the Dolby Digital information directly. Definately a killer lack of feature for me.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Top-notch product, at a reasonable price.
Review: When I picked up my F-80bk, I had some concerns. I had ordered the unit as a replacement for my JVC XV-501bk, which was an absolute disaster of a unit. However, I was soon to discover that my fears were all for naught; this model is one of the most sound investments I've made in electronics.

DISC MECHANISM: Thanks to the independent tray loading system JVC has developed, this player fits seven discs into the space of five...and allows you to open the drawer and change every disc except the one currently being played without interrupting playback. Tray opening/closing and disc selection are both a little slow, but the high capacity more than makes up for it.

LASER ASSEMBLY: Part of the reason I bought a JVC is because they just seem to have better laser setups. Playback--whether it be audio CD, DVD, MP3 disc, or a homemade VideoCD/Super VideoCD--is consistently flawless, with no stutters or glitches even when the disc has small smudge marks or blemishes.

AUDIO PLAYBACK: The audio is crisp and clean, which is very important to me as a musician/music teacher. Since my amp is older, I use the analog outputs. I have also tested the digital audio functions with a friend's equipment; the quality is perfect, with no static or signs of audio compression. True, you cannot hear MP3 playback over the digital stream, but that is due to copyright issues regarding the MP3 file format, and JVC had no control over that. Also, some complain that the randomized/"shuffle" playback only works on one disc at a time...but, given the way CD changers work, the pause between songs is excruciatingly long when the player has to switch discs after every track, so the exclusion of this feature is understandable.

VIDEO PLAYBACK: This player has the best image quality I have seen thus far on a DVD player. For those who have the proper equipment, this player is one of the few models that has a true, "digital-direct" progressive scan mode (which means that it reads the high frame rate straight from the disc, rather than trying to reinterpret the extra frames back into a standard-quality scan). Even with the composite out, the picture is crisp and clean. This player also has a better-than-usual video filter, which results in a smoother image on large screens or with low-quality source material. (This is easily seen when you zoom in on the screen image, or when playing back a VideoCD).

REMOTE: The remote is lightweight and easy to use, and it doubles as a universal remote for whatever television you may have. The fact that the "key" playback controls glow in the dark is a nice feature; my only complaint is that it does not have any VCR functionality (I'm not a fan of juggling remotes).

EXTRA FEATURES: This player provides easy and high-quality playback of all major formats you might expect to use: DVDs, audio CDs, Video CDs, Super Video CDs, and MP3 discs. It will also read CD-R and even CD-RW discs without any problems. Also, the user-adjustable video filter is great for those who like to tinker with things in quest of the "ultimate" quality setting, and the ability to zoom in and out on the image is quite fun...and useful, if you're trying to find something specific in a scene. You can zoom in up to 1024x, and the image stays remarkably clean, and you can zoom out to 1/8x (although I have yet to find any reason for doing this).

PRICE: This is not an inexpensive unit. But there are several out there that are more expensive, and--in my opinion--no player currently on the market offers you a better movie experience. If you are looking for a high-end DVD player, or especially if you're looking for a device to serve as the heart of a home audio/video system, look no further.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Wait for something else...
Review: Where do I start?

Ok, first of all, neither mp3 playback nor DVD-Audio function through what JVC calls the "Digital Output" (read Toslink/Optical/Coaxial) channel. If you want those features you'd better make sure you have a receiver ( such as Harman Kardon's AVR7000 or AVR8000 ) that's capable of six individual composite/RCA hookups that send the signal to the left front, center channel, right front, sub-woofer, left surround, and right surround speakers (JVC calls this the Audio Output). The six previous mentioned cables are not the traditional composite/RCA jacks that you are used to seeing where you have the video, left audio, and right audio.

I always run all of my components through optical/toslink cables if the hardware supports it, so I was a bit perplexed to learn that the optical/toslink cable would not suffice when playing mp3 music or dvd-audio.

The mp3 player feature was pretty weak. Unless your tv was turned on, you will not be able to see any track information on the panel of the dvd player. As well, you could not fast forward through an individual track while in mp3 mode.

The progressive scan features were fairly impressive, however, with so many other obvious negatives, I'd stay away from this player and wait until they can deliver a more robust and dependable product. I've been a longtime fan of JVC's products, however, this attempt at being the swiss army knife of dvd players falls quite a bit short.


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