Customer Reviews

JVC XV-523GD DVD Player

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

I recently purchased the XV523 from Amazon.com. The unit performs extremely well. I have it connected to my receiver (JVC RX1028) using the optical output and the sound quality is phenomenal! I have the video connected to my TV using the S-video cable and the picture quality is just as extraordinary! I read one of the previous reviews and have experienced none of the problems noted in the review and I have concerns about the validity of the person's claims. Another reviewer stated that he or she purchased the unit 6 months ago. This cant be true, the unit has only been out for 2 months. I think that the player performs exceptionally well for the price and would recommend it to any of my friends. In my opinion, JVC makes really nice products. All of my home stereo components are JVC including my TV and receiver. My receiver is the RX1028, which I noticed Amazon has for $499. I paid $799 at a local retailer when I bought mine in March of this year. $499 is a GREAT price! After my experience purchasing the XV523 from Amazon, I will start purchasing all of my electronics from them.

Thanks Amazon!

In my experience the JVC XV523GD DVD Player has excellent picture quality and sound output. In addition to playing DVD movies it can also play music CDs, CD-R, and CD-RW disks!

While the unit has a a jog-shuttle dial the remote control does not. Additionally the remote is bulky and unconventionally laid out making it very difficult to use in low light as it is not backlight.

I regret buying this DVD player because the drawbacks of the remote. I would suggest taking a long look at the remote's of other DVD players before making a purchase. Make sure that it would be easy to locate the buttons in the dark or that they are clearly labeled and backlight. I would also suggest purchasing one with the jog-shuttle on the remote.

I was a little nervous at first buying a JVC DVD player instead of a Sony or Panasonic simply because JVC is not really known for their dvd players. However the DVD players I looked at didn't have half the features this one does that are from Sony are priced around $350-600, and they don't play CD-R's either which was very important to me since I have a CD Burner. This model will play CD-R's, DVD's, CD's. I purchased this DVD player over a month ago and it all the features listed below have worked marvelously. I am more than happy with the performance of this DVD player and couldn't find any model from any other company at even double the price with all of these features. I have an RCA TV, an AIWA receiver, and the sound and picture quality has been perfect. I have tried about 50 DVD's on it and never had a single problem.

The XV-523GD is a capable addition to any home theater installation, offering superb connectivity with component video, S-Video and composite video outputs, as well as Dolby Digital and DTS Digital outputs. Thanks to the 96kHz P.E.M. D.D. Converter, the XV-523GD delivers high-quality sound with an extra-wide 106dB dynamic range. With an additional 8-times oversampling digital filter at the signal input section, and an improved VANS 4th Order Noise Shaper, the new P.E.M. DAC is designed for present and future format compatibility. The VANS 4th Order Noise Shaper reduces quantization noise to a negligible level. The Fine Pulse Interface insulates the master clock generator from analog stages and power supplies to prevent outside noise encroachment. The Balanced Buffer Circuit ensures low noise and distortion in the next analog state. In the new P.E.M. D.D. Converter, the VANS features a wide noise-shaping range. Separate circuit construction improves both audio and video performance. There's a separate power supply for the internal converters, and the PLL circuit is doubly insulated. Because the power supply, digital circuitry, analog audio and analog video circuits are all physically separated, interference is drastically cut, and degradation minimized, and digital signals are converted into analog with the highest stability and precision. GUI (Graphical User Interface) allows easy operation through on-screen menus. The "Illumi-Guide" feature illuminates correct keys to guide the user through various operations. The "Digest" function displays on-screen a grid of 3 x 3 scenes. The first scene is of a title or chapter for direct access at the touch of a button. Zoom and strobe features are also included, along with variable speed search both forward and backward. For full digital compatibility, there are component outputs (Y, Pr and Pb), as well as coaxial and optical digital outputs. S-video and composite video outputs are also supplied. 3D-PHONIC virtual surround gives a realistic presence from two speakers up front. There is a Multi-Brand remote control, English/French/Spanish OSD, a coordinated home theater "VCR matching" look and AV COMPU LINK for coordinated operation with JVC TVs and receivers.

Worth every penny and then some. I bought an RCA DVD player 18 months ago and had nothing but problems. A friend recommended Sony players but warned me that I would be paying extra for the Sony name. I couldn't be any happier with my choice. If this review helps than please let Amazon know.

The JVC XV523GD has an impressive list of features at a good price. Unfortunately, I found that the XV523GD was extraordinarilly glitch prone. White flashes and dropouts in the picture were common. I was unable to play a single disk in my collection without perceiving distracting visual artifacts -- sometimes dozens per disk. DVD soundtrack performance was similarly prone to pops and thumps. Audio and video glitches were linked and probably stem from inadequate processing power. By default, the XV523GD mixes Dolby 5.1 sound into 2 channels for the stereo output. Turning this feature off substantially reduced the video and audio glitches. Image color, sharpness and clarity were quite good. The black level was set quite dark and was not adjustable, so details in the darker parts of the image were easily lost. Visual fast forward and review were quite jerky -- which again points to inadequate digital processing capabilities. The gold metallic finish was quite attractive and stylish, however I fould that it stood out starkly in comparison when placed with other typically all black components. The unit did play CD-Rs and CD-RWs as advertised. Overall I found that XV523GD did not provide an acceptable viewing experience. The XV523GD was returned for a Sony DVD player which exhibited none of the XV523GD's annoying video artifacts.

Many reviews here have complained about fading in an out pictures and horrible image quality. I will assume they have hooked the composite video out to the input of their VCR and got bitten by the MacroVision Copy Protection bug and decided to blame the DVD player. If you don't know what you are doing, ask someone that does before u give an opinion that's based on user error. The Player is fine!!! Buy a TV with S-Video in or better yet Component Input. If not just stay with your 2 head Mono VCR. My only complaint is that some functions on the remote require 2 hands to activate. It would be nice to be able to zoom into a scene without having to move my hand from around my date after all the work that went into getting it there in the first place!!!

I bought this DVD player recently and had done my research. I read all of the reviews on amazon, but I have a friend who works in electronics and claims that it is really good and one of their best sellers. When I first hooked it up, it worked great. The exterior look of the player was impressive. At first I thought it looked out of place sitting next to all of my other components which were black, but soon I thought the gold exterior gave the player a nice touch and made it look very fancy and expensive. The remote wasn't a terrible design either. It just takes a little getting used to and before long you will be surfing through your DVD's menus. I even had the player running through my VCR with everything still working perfectly. At this point I thought all the complaints posted up here were foolish and unreliable. I almost even got on line to state how wrong everyone was and how great this DVD player was, but I was the one who was wrong. One evening I decided to watch Happy Gilmore on DVD. It played fine. I was watching it only looking away every now and then to look through a magazine. I then happened to glance up at a point in the movie and noticed a bright flash in the corner of my TV for about a second or two. I backed up the movie to see if it would occur again, and sure enough, there it was. I started getting concerned, thinking that the complaints I read about were in deed true. I tried to think of anything that I could do to test it and make sure it was in deed the DVD player. The first thing I did was test the DVD on another DVD player to see if I got the same results. My parents have an RCA DVD player, so I quickly skipped to the section of the movie where I noticed the flash. Unfortunately, it did not appear. Strike one. So that proves it wasn't the DVD. I then thought that maybe it was because I had the DVD player running through my VCR, so I hooked it up straight to the TV. Unfortunately same results. The flash of light was still there. Strike 2. I then disconnected the DVD player and hooked it up to 2 different TVs and in both cases the flash DID NOT appear. So, I came to the conclusion that it was my TV. I don't know why, but for some reason it didn't like my TV. It worked fine on the 2 other TVs I tested it on. I liked this player a lot because it had all the different outputs and features one could want in a DVD player, but I wasn't in the market to buy a new TV just yet, so I am returning it. This little flash wasn't hugely noticeable, but I knew it would eventually come to bug me and for the amount of money I was spending, I didn't want any regrets. In all honesty, I would have never noticed this little glitch had I not read the reviews on amazon, so definitely do your research. This is a good player. If it works with your TV, consider yourself lucky. It's not great though because it obviously doesn't work with all TVs. I personally would recommend sticking with more of a common brand like Sony or Panasonic. Hope this helps!

This was my second DVD Player with the first being a Toshiba SD-2109, which I loved but did not have the ability to play CDR's and CDRW's. After reading the technical readouts on various websites, I purchased this JVC Player for this particular ability. Additionally, the gold finish went well with my Sony WEGA. At first, the DVD player worked fine. However, after three months, this JVC started skipping on DVDs (New and Rented)and as a matter of fact, once, it completely jammed. It made a terrible sound (sort of like my DVD was being completely destroyed) and I was forced to unplug it and replug it back in. There was indeed some damage to my DVD. Now (about 8 months after purchase...I've been lazy about bringing it into a service center), it cannot go completely through one DVD without skipping. I am very disappointed with this product and am considering purchasing a new Sony or Panasonic DVD player.

Just like a number of people have said... a bunch of them break shortly after being purchased. Mine worked fine for about 9 months then started getting really flakey. By then the warranty only covered parts and not labor so I have decided now to just shell out [the money]to get a sony rather than pay to get this fixed. DO NOT BUY THIS DVD PLAYER!

Firstly by no means is this a top of the line DVD player, there are dozens of better models on the market. However, based on this price range, this is the best you will fine. Yes you will read reviews of people complaining, but as the old proverb says, "You get what you pay for".

This does what a DVD player needs to do. Play DVDs, pause DVDs, chapter search, slo-mo. and quick fwd, rwd. This comes with all the out puts you will need. The new three video output for televisions which accept this input, normal video outut, svideo outout, left and right audio out, and optical audio out.

The remote is decent. Have had no problems with operating it or a command not being recognized by the player. The design of the player is very good, for the looks this is a very nice addition to your home theater system.

This DVD player was purchased to replace a 2 year old Sony DVD model which no longer works correctly. Based on the price and its features it has been a very good purchase. It does not have all the features/bells and whistles of the other sony dvd player we have downstairs, but it is ... cheaper.

Bottom line, for the price range this will do what you need it to do. Minimal bells and whistles, just a straight forward DVD player. As long as you keep this in mind, you will be pleased with your purchase.

My JVC XV-523GD DVD Player stopped playing DVDs altogether a little over one year after purchase. The troubleshooting provided by JVC's web site did not solve the problem. It just caused more frustration because the machine responded to the onscreen troubleshooting, but nothing changed in its inability to play DVDs.
I found JVC to be highly customer unfriendly because the customer service available by phone can tell you nothing about solving problems with the machine (types of problems, costs of service), offers no understanding, and merely points you to a list of service centers.
Added note: I doubt the cleanliness of my machine or DVD condition affected its functioning. I store the player in a cabinet and it's been kept up well.