| The new JVC XV-BP1 is a truly versatile high definition player, offering playback of high definition Blu-ray discs, plus playback of the AVCHD format, the high definition format widely used for HD camcorders, including the JVC HD Everio line. Among the many features of the new JVC XV-BP1 Blu-ray player, to be available in March, is BD Live (Profile ver. 2.0) compatibility when used with USB memory. With BD Live compatibility the player can be connected to the Internet to access BD Live 2.0 features, including easy firmware updates, new movie trailers, updated subtitles, online shopping, chat and gaming. Connections include HDMI ver.1.3 with Deep Color and x.v.Color, USB Host, LAN for BD Live, component and composite video outputs, and analog, optical and coaxial audio outputs. In addition to AVCHD, other playable formats are JPEG, MP3, WMA, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby True HD, DTS and DTS HD. Playable discs are BD-ROM, BD-R/RE, BD/DVD Hybrid, DVD-Video, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, Audio CD and CD-R/RW. |
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 The Poor Man's Oppo |
| Review Date: June 5, 2009 |
| Reviewer: WDH, |
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.
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An Oppo without SACD and DVD-A playback
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| Review Date: July 28, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Allan Tan, |
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 !!! |
TRULY AWESOME PLAYER!!!
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| Review Date: November 18, 2009 |
| Reviewer: T. Whyle, coraopolis, pa United States |
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. |
Excellent, versatile player for the price.
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| Review Date: October 4, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Norm Birndorf, Portland, OR |
| 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. |
the best performer/price/load speed ratio for a BD player !!
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| Review Date: December 27, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Anthony L. Mueller, |
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. |
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