Customer Reviews

JVC Home JVC XVBP1 Blu-ray Disc Player

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

After hearing some promising reviews of the new JVC player, I bought one for a great price online ($230 shipped). It has been lauded for its fast load times and strong overall performance. While it appears to share some bones with the $1500 NAD player, it uses the same GUI my LG BH200, leading me to believe there might be some LG influence as well (or common providers).

Operation and load times are very comparable to the Oppo. In terms of the synthetic tests the S&M disc offers, its performance is nearly identical to the Oppo, only faltering on one or two sections (my results are posted below). In terms of realworld content, BD playback is very good and SD upscaling is excellent. I still think the Oppo is the best upscaler, closely followed by the Pioneer 320/23FD (i have a 50" pioneer kuro). The Oppo and Pioneer bring a little more color and detail to the table. Then again, I have yet to manipulate the features of the JVC. Unlike the pioneer (but like the oppo and panny 60/80), the JVC can output 24fps on sd dvds. I have not tested it enough to compare smoothness and audio synchronization yet. In synthetic tests, it seems to do better with film cadences and less so with video deinterlacing.

I will post multiple load times this evening to quantify its speed and try out a few more real world upscaling tests.

It does have a few cons in limited tweaking and the brightest damn blue lights on the front that make you think you're seeing a squad car in your rearview mirror. They are not dimmable (how do you not think this would be an issue JVC?)

All in all, if you're looking for a player that is about as fast as the Oppo and offers SD upscaling as good if not better than a Panny 80 and at a very great street price, the JVC is worth a look. If you're more of a videophile, the Pioneer 320 is the next option a step up, then the Oppo for about $200 more. Just my two cents. I own them all.

This is one of the greatest buy you can have when selecting a Blue Ray player. Those in the know will know that the Oppo BDP 83 is currently regarded as the top dog in the Blue Ray player market for its picture & sound quality as well as a versatile universal player in SACD and DVD-A playback.

For those who do not need SACD and DVD-A, the JVC XV BP1 offers almost the same performance at less than 50% of the Oppo's price. First off, the picture quality of all Blue Ray players are almost identical. The only difference is in their loading time. This is a department which the JVC shone as its loading times are comparable to both the Oppo and the PS3. No other players come close to these 3. As for compatibility with the BR titles so far, I believe that to date, the only title which JVC cannot play is 12 Rounds. Oppo also suffered from similar issues (although they have come up with Beta firmware to address this). Only PS3 managed to play this without problem. Operations wise, it is simple and straight forward without the need to dwell in the manual.

The player can also play media in Divx, MKV, VOB and AVCHD in USB thumb drives or hard drives so long as they are formatted in the FAT32 format.

For DVD playback, I would rank the JVC close to the Oppo, beating the PS3 soundly. The JVC can upscale the DVDs to 1080p and the scaler in the player is very good. It plays almost all the DVDs I throw at it. In this part of the world where I bought it from, the DVD playback is code free.

The only downside is probably the lack of tweaking options for the HT enthusiasts. It is a player whereby you load and play without too much settings as compared with the Oppo. It will certainly serve as an excellent choice for those looking for a second BR player at home as well as those who want a player as good as the Oppo but at half the price.

I strongly recommend this player !!!

I absolutely love this player!! I've had a Samsung BluRay player (BD-P1400) for a little over a year, and it absolutely drove me crazy with it's slow loading times, unresponsiveness, freezing, glitches, problems with upgrades...and their customer service is some of the worst I've ever dealt with. Recently I bought "Drag Me To Hell" & it wasn't able to load it, & they refused to admit they need to provide an upgrade for it...despite the hundreds of people complaining about it online. That was the last straw....so I got my money refunded and went looking for a new player.

I am so glad I found this one!! BRILLIANT picture for BD & some of the best DVD upscaling I've ever seen...it turns the colors and contrast up a notch on DVDs to make them look a little less faded. Finally the menus on BDs aren't all jittery and constantly freezing! They are as smooth as can be! Loading times are super fast...I'm so happy to be able to pop in a BD and be watching it less than 30 seconds later. Nice menu design, very easy to use...customizable enough for me. Anything it can't do I can do with my TV's settings.

A feature I really appreciate is the ability to zoom. For a DVD that is in widescreen but not enhanced for a 16X9 TV, I used to have to bear watching a small screen within a screen, with a black border all around it. This player lets you zoom in 16 individual levels, eventually making a 4:3 feed fit the width of your screen. ...This feature works on all DVDs but only on some BDs...it can be nice for a BD in 2.40:1, if you just want to zoom it a little to make the picture bigger.

Remote is good & easy to use. The player is very responsive.

Firmware upgrades are simple and quick...less than a minute. All you need is a USB flash drive...so much better than my last player, where the only alternative to getting it off the web was burning a disc, & then it would spend 20 minutes upgrading...sometimes freezing indefinitely in the process.

BD-Live works nicely. Takes a little while to get it to load initially, but that's expected.

...Oh, and another thing: it doesn't time out when you have it paused, and if it eventually does, it saves your spot. Those of you who have never had a blu-ray player may think these are all trivial things I'm talking about, but my last player did NONE of these things. It would time out after 5 minutes of being paused, lose your place in the movie, & then you'd have to sit through 5 minutes of loading the disc again, then fast-forward to find your spot. HORRIBLE!

Basically, this player is AWESOME. And I can't believe how affordable it is.

PS - I know some complain about the blue lights on the front being bright, which they are...but it's not that bad. I watch movies with all the lights out, and the light of my 40" LCD overpowers them by far. They don't distract me at all.

I replaced a 1080p upconverting Pioneer DVD player with the JVC to acquire Blu-ray compatibility. I wasn't disappointed. The upconverting 1080p function of the JVC is equal to the Pioneer and it's Blu-ray play quality is excellent. Sound reproduction much better with Blu-ray disks, and the fuzzy audio of many standard DVD movies is gone. Blu ray load time is also short, 15 seconds or so. Almost as fast as a standard DVD. A real bonus is the player's ability to randomly play mp3 music files on a DVD having 650 or less tracks. The JVC has good versatility, and will play several other formats. Highly recommend at the Amazon price.

I wanted to take the time and find the proper BD player for my needs, just like I did buying my HDTV's - which means a lot of reading on the AVS forums plus reading Amazon & CNET reviews as well.

I never burn my own disc, rentals and store bought blu ray's only, plus CD's. I have no need for the LIVE streaming content either, I have DirecTV for any PPV source. The HDTV display being matched with my first BD player is a Kuro plasma, using my Yamaha a/v system for the audio: HDMI to the Kuro, toslink to the Yamaha. My early research told me that load speed is the major variance of all of the major manufactures.

I wanted the Pioneer brand to match my Kuro, but their model 320 BD player was near $300, great performance but very, very slow loading times. My search on AVS led me to a forum posting which ranks the popular models: their power on speed, load to 'piracy' warning, load to the disc index, eject speed, etc, etc. The Oppo BD player was the fastest, plus the highest rated performer, and the most expensive @ $500. I had an Oppo up-scaling player, all of the company's players are top rated and excellent choices. I found the JVC listed as the second fastest player behind the Oppo on the AVS forum.

I eventually wrote the author ( winston9332 ) of the comparison BD player link on AVS and asked him directly, the JVC fast loading, the Pioneer 320 player or another choice, his response:

" I would narrow your choice down to the 320 or the JVC. The 320 has analogue pre-outs to connect to your older receiver for HD audio -that might be the game-stopper right there. If that is not an issue, keep reading.....

The 320 is a better player, but slower, more finicky, and $100 more. I doubt you will be able to tell a difference for BD playback b.w the two. SD playback will be better on the Pioneer 320 (10% diff). That said, you do gain MASSIVELY (50% diff) faster operating times on the JVC and a zoom feature, which I value to avoid abusing my plasma on dvd playback that is not quite 16:9. The JVC's zoom will work on non-java bds as well. The JVC also will remember the last position of a dvd and non java if you take it out (helpful for tv series dvds). This player has been a refreshing experience. Too many folks are pressured to buy solely based upon label and some of the lesser known players have been pleasant surprises. This player is a tremendous value and will work very well for you in my opinion "

I purchased in July @ my local Ultimate Electronics store for $200. Every disc I've played has been perfect, no rejections. The performance has been stellar, the video and the sound. Of course the Kuro display is the finest HDTV going, which helps. I was also told that 90% of the people would NOT be able to tell any difference in the PQ between the various brands of top performing players, its mostly a race of which player loads the fastest and the firmware updates as needed. The JVC has performed perfect, I wish the remote was back lit, its very plain/cheap looking - but works fine. Most disc load in under :30 seconds. Believe it or not, THAT is fast for BD disc, many models are double that load time +. It also powers on and off immediately - I've read that some other players take :30 sec just to power on.

For Christmas I bought my parents their first BD player as well, the same JVC bought online this time for $130 total. Theirs is also used with a Kuro display, same results - excellent performance. I have read that a firmware update is available from JVC, but I've yet to download that update - I've had no issues with any disc so far. Yes, standard DVD's are unconverted perfectly as well. The only set up was to put the screen format at 16x9, the resolution @ 1080p/24p playback (our Kuro's do play 24p content properly) and all of the audio sources for English. Simple, too simple.

video A++
audio A++
set up simple
No issues.
HIGHLY recommended.

If you have the desire to upgrade to Blu Ray - do it !! We all waited for the HDTV craze to become affordable, now the Blu Ray players are reasonably priced under $200.

Easy to use and plays blu-ray discs with great quality! We've also played our dvds and the picture is just superb! I'm quite pleased with this player!

All I can say about this amazing BD player is Wow! When I was originally shopping for BD players I was looking at brands like Sony and LG. I went to Amazon's website to make my purchase figuring that I would get the best price. That's when I luckily came across this JVC XV-BP1 player and noticed that it was getting extraordinary reviews. I went to my local Best Buy and other local electronics retailers and was surprised when I didn't see it offered for sale. As a matter of fact I couldn't locate it at any brick and mortar store, which left me skeptical about its quality. I am one who likes to touch and feel something before I buy it. Anyway, I was led back to this player's reviews and knowing that Amazon has a reputable return policy I figured I had nothing to lose except the return shipping cost.

This player had everything I was looking for. In addition to the button layout on the remote all of its main controls (Eject, Play, Stop, Pause, FFWD and RWND) are also found on its front display. This is great for me, since I have three children ages 3 to 5 that like to load and unload their own movies. They can easily work the front panel buttons themselves whereas they have trouble using a remote. I also like the fact that the disk tray is separate versus the whole front of the display having to fold down to access the disc tray as you see on most Sony and other brand name BD players. My kids would tear off those front panels in no time. I feel very confident having my kids load and unload discs with the JVC. This player has a nice solid feel and heft to it and the disc tray is well built and not flimsy.

Some people have complained about the bright blue LED panel lights on this player. In all honesty, this initially was probably my only concern. Now that the JVC is hooked up and sitting just below my 46" Samsung HDTV on the center shelf I can tell you that it is a non-issue. The lights are bright, but not overwhelming. I have been watching Blu-ray movies at night and the JVC's lights have never been distracting or have taken away from my HDTV, even though they are within view. As a matter of fact, if we are watching kids' movies it is easy for the kids to see the buttons, so that they could eject, load and play their own movies. I think that the front panel lights on this player are what gives it its character and separates its design from its competition. As I have already stated the JVC is solid and very attractive in its design. It appears and feels very well built.

From initial loading to playback this player is extremely fast. I would equate it to the speed of any standard DVD player. In comparison to my brother's Sony BDP-S560 Blu-ray player (the same model I was initially looking to buy) this JVC loads and plays in about half the time it takes his player. So far this player has been able to play any DVD I have loaded into it and it has played the few Blu-ray movies that I own so far without any problems. I didn't know what upscaling was until we started watching some of our old DVD movies. This player brings DVD movies into new life making the picture more vibrant and more exciting to watch. I'm not sure how you can take something that already exists in a format and make it look better, but this player certainly does it and it does it well. The Blu-ray movies are incredible; watching Angels and Demons in Blu-ray was like being in Vatican City. The blacks are rich and the colors are vibrant on our Samsung HDTV. Even the sound that this player reproduces is fantastic. You could hear every single detail. This player also plays all of our CD's and MP3 discs without any problems. Insert a flash drive into the front USB port and instantly start viewing your saved family photos and movies on your television. The JVC's user menu interface is user friendly and its remote control is nice and solid with plenty of buttons and functions.

As others have already mentioned you can pause a movie and this player will not time out. You will be able continue the movie right where you had left off, unlike many players where you would have to start all over from the beginning and fast forward/skip to where you had left off. It may not seem like a big deal, but try having to do it once or twice while you are watching a good movie.

All in all this was one of my best electronic purchases in a while. I am very pleased with its quality and performance. Thanks to the previous reviews I was able to make a sound decision. I felt the need to add my own review to the mix, so that others could also buy with confidence.

P.S. This player does not come with an HDMI cable. I purchased the MediaBridge 6 foot HDMI cables for $9.99 each from Amazon. I bought three sets, one for each of my components. Oh my God...they are a terrific value! Do yourselves a favor and do not spend $40.00 and upward for big name HDMI cables that add nothing but extra cost to your purchase. The MediaBridge cables are solid and well made. They work flawlessly with this Blu-ray player, my cable box and Xbox 360.

I rarely review, but I do feel like I should for this Blu-Ray player. Bottom line: up-scaling is so good that you do not need to rent Blu-Rays. I am somewhat of an audiophile, and overall I feel like I have good eye for differences in video, and so I have seen enough at this point to realize that I almost cannot tell the difference on this unit between regular DVD and Blu-Ray. The DTS sound that comes through my Marantz may be a little more accurate, but for 90% of us this is unnoticeable. I have decided to not pay more to rent Blu-Ray titles. For purchasing, which I do very little of, I may go the extra little expense, but overall I am am stunned by the up-scaling. Simply put, recent titles in DVD format look as good as the Blu-Ray versions.

Common issues I have read with Blu-Ray players is loading time, response time, and memorization of stop points. This player is as good as any high end DVD player, which have shown to be very speedy and accurate with last viewing point. Blu-Rays by nature load more slowly, but with this unit they are still reasonably fast.

Nice remote, intuitive controls. This thing has not frozen on me yet, has a nice easy to use main page, I can insert my USB stick and play music or look at photos and videos very quickly... great purchase. I paid $150 right before Christmas here on Amazon, but I would pay $300 for it if I had to. Do not hesitate.

Nice looking equipment that works flawlessly. Fast loading and reading of disc that produces exceptional HD content. For the price this Blu-ray player is one of the best I've used. Had Amazon mail the unit to my 90 year old mother-in-law and my husband tested the unit on his recent visit to his mother's home in Louisiana.

I have nothing bad to say about this Blu-ray disc player- works with regular discs as well as the Blu-ray discs.