Rating: 
Summary: Cheap quality
Review: Is it just me or is this one of the most cheaply produced units on the market? The slide out cd tray is so flimsy that I fear putting any pressure on it for fear it will break in half. The unit is loud when the dvd is spinning, but otherwise the picture quality is good. I had to relocate the unit on top of the tv instead of the tv stand for fear my son might accidently bump it the wrong way and break it.
Rating: 
Summary: great player for the price
Review: Picked up a refurbished model from eCost for under $50. Plays my Nero-burned VCDs with no problem, and more importantly to me, it has built-in PAL-NTSC conversion. The remote might not be the easiest to use, but given the dirt cheap price, I am quite satisfied.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent bang for the buck!
Review: PROS:
1) Screen zoom. I love it for collecting widescreen movies for the future, but viewing them full or near-full screen now. Wouldn't want to be without this feature now that I have it.2) The 1.5x playback speed with audio is great! Especially when watching somewhat boring interviews in the bonus material of a DVD. 3) MP3 playback with on-screen folder and track selection. Works excellent! There is a slight pause between tracks, but that is common with most mp3 playback devices. No FF or RW support though. Playing back standard CD audio doesn't have any on-screen info, but you can FF & RW. 4) Less than half the thickness of my last DVD player. CONS:
1) The jpeg playback is a nice feature, but my 2 and 3 megapixel images are are re-rendered at a blocky 640x480. You can zoom in on the images but it does not re-render, so you're zooming in on the initially rendered 640x480 image. Unit will not display images wider than 2400 pixels. ALLEGED ISSUES:
1) "Made in China": So what, everything is made there now. My HP laptop, and my Motorola phone both made in China, and both of excellent durable quality! 2) "Light as a feather": It's a DVD player not an amplifier. Why should it be heavy? They're not going to add ballast to it just to make simpletons happy with it's weight. But ya know what? This unit feels SOLID; and it's not *that* light. Full metal casing except for the front panel. 'nuff said. 3) "Comparable to APEX": Not in the least. Apex is junk and most units won't play the full gamut of DVD-R/-RW/+R/+RW. This unit plays them all. VCD and SVCD CD-R's too. 4) "Horrible picture quality and jittering": Not that I can tell. The picture quality is on par with every other DVD player I've ever used, and the only "jittering" you might see is on text when using S-VIDEO--like on EVERY OTHER DVD player. This is a non-unique issue. 5) "Doesn't play some discs": Haven't experienced that. 6) "Video streaking": Just played a fight scene from the Matrix and didn't notice that either.
Rating:
Summary: nice dvd player but doesnt play some stuff
Review: this dvd player is one of the best out there for the price but i tied to play some CDs on it and it would not play em infact i tried to play lord of the rings dvd on it and it wouldnt play tht
tht was the only weird ting
evrything elseis perfect
picture quality and everything else is very nice
Rating: 
Summary: Great DVD player
Review: This is a great DVD player. I read the negative reviews, and looked for each problem others had. I did not find any problems with picture or sound. But the best thing about this great dvd player, it is inexpensive. A great DVD player at a great price.
Rating:
Summary: Can't beat it for the price!
Review: This is a great machine. I upgraded from an older Apex player and I'm glad I did. I immediately noticed much improved audio and the video is great too using the component connections. So far it has played every format I've tried, with no problems...DVD, CD, CD-R, MP3, and JPEG. One of my major complaints with my old player was that it took forever to load a disc, whether DVD or CD. This unit loads them up quickly. I've read some complaints about this player being light and cheaply made. It is a pretty slim machine, but come on, it just sits there! How rough can you be with a piece of electronics? One last feature I like is the remote. I can easily switch control back and forth between my JVC TV and DVD player. The buttons are well placed and easy to follow. I'm still looking for some negatives with this player, but have not found any yet. If you don't need a 5-disc changer, then buy this model now.
Rating:
Summary: What Can I Compare it To?
Review: This is my first DVD player. I've had it since June 2003, and it still works. It lives here with me, and there are no kids around to destroy it, and it gets played once or twice a week. Why wouldn't it work? It's extremely slim, has a cool blue light when it's on, and I've been able to play everything I've ever gotten from Netflix. So, as far as I'm concerned, this player is great! There are a couple of things I've noticed about it, and I don't know if this is common practice with VCRs or not. But not all my reviews are for ranting or raving; I like to inform, as well! So here's what I know: I don't have cable, and I've noticed that if I sit the machine on top of my TV, the reception on the TV gets very snowy. It took me a while to figure out why my picture got so bad, when I had a powered antenna that usually brings in a great picture for me. This problem went away when I moved the DVD player off the TV and onto its own shelf. I think the machine is very quiet. Mind you, I live in an apartment, and I watch my TV with stereo headphones, so machine noise as I'm watching a movie is not an issue for me. So if the DVD player is making noise, it's not enough to bother either me or the neighbors. The remote has more buttons on it than I will ever use. Six months later, I still haven't figured out what they all are. All the important buttons that actually play the DVD are in white. If you switch to TV, you can turn the sound up and down and channel surf with the blue buttons. Other than mute and video, I've never touched the gray buttons, and frankly don't understand why there are so many. On the other hand, I've bought more DVD player than I need, so it's not that surprising that the buttons are a little daunting. I have a JVC television (which I've reviewed some years ago), and that colored my decision to buy it somewhat. It ended up being a choice between the Panasonic and JVC, but ultimately, all other things being equal, I bought it for its looks. Being JVC, I knew it would be a quality device, and a delightful result of my decision is that it is already programmed to work with my three-year-old JVC 20" TV! I didn't have to program it or anything. I could have bought a ridiculously low-priced machine from APEX, but I'm old school and I don't like buying things figuring I'm just going to toss it later. I buy quality and I expect it to last. So far, the XV-N40BK is just what I need. If, heaven forbid, I'm ever crazy enough to spend more on a TV than I do my car, then the machine will be ready, since it is already progressive-scan. I don't know what progressive-scan is, and I cannot use that feature anyway. You don't have to use it to use the machine. Part of me wanted to wait for DVD recorders to get real cheap, because I have a lot of videotaped TV shows I'd like to convert. Well, I figured why wait for what could be years down the road, when you can enjoy DVDs now. Tomorrow isn't promised to anybody! And I was a die-hard convert, too. I didn't jump on the DVD bandwagon; I had to be thrown! But I'm glad I made the move. I love the fact that you get extra stuff besides the movie on the DVD; audio commentaries are the best thing since movies started talking, in my opinion. And when you pause the DVD, it's perfectly still and will stay that way forever until you un-pause it. (My VCR only paused for 3 minutes, and you had some flicker with it.) So, all in all, I think I've made a great decision on two counts: one, jumping on the DVD bandwagon (and if you rent you never really have to own any...no more bulky tapes! Imagine the storage space you save...); and two, choosing the JVC XV-N40BK, a beautiful little black machine that says hello to you when it's activated and shows every indication that it's going to be around a long time.
Rating:
Summary: Plays EVERYTHING!
Review: This little dvd player is great for two big reasons: 1. CHEAP
2. plays every single disc i've put in it - including stuff that regular players won't play (like vcds or dvds from asia) the quality of picture is great, and i haven't had any problems with it so far.
Rating:
Summary: Great product
Review: Worked really great in minutes. Can view my own CD's DVDs as well as the rented ones!!
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