Anybody own a JVC 500 or 600 who used to have a 70..? (1 Viewer)

[Dave Mack]

Hey Y'all! I am about to upgrade from my good old 70-bk as I want to get a modified codefree player. Am thinking of the 600, good deal at moment... My question, I have heard rumors that the video mode quality was a little better with the newer chip on the 600 than the 70. Is the 600 ANY improved over the 70 in VIDEO mode???
Thanx in advance, guys!!!

D

 

[Dave Mack]

Anybody?

If not, can any modified 600 owners tell me how the converted pic. looks and what Progressive mode you would use when watching a PAL disc? Say "Buffy" for instance?
Are there any "combing" or "shimmering" issues?

Thanx! D

 

[JasonLC]

I compared my XV-SA70 to my XV-S500(Same Pantera II chipset as SA600 minus DVD-A)and the VIDEO mode looked the same to my eyes. Then I woke up and bought the RP82 and compared it to the XV-S500 in video and film mode and sold the XV-S500 immediately because it wasn't worth the upgrade over my XV-SA70 in my setup like the RP82 was.

 

[Dave Mack]

Thanx, Jason!

Bummer re: Video mode... Unfortunately I need to get a Codefree player that converts PAL to NTSC, which the Panny's can't do... I know the Panny smokes the JVC in Video mode...
How do you deal with Non-annie WS dvd's or 4x3 dvd's with the RP 82??

D

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Dave,

Did you consider the Philips 963sa? It has the guts needed for great deinterlacing (from Faroudja) AND scaling, but as of now, it only offers 4x3 shrink (ie. pillarbox mode), but not proper letterbox scaling. There are also other bugs and issues w/ it, including concerns about quality control. However, it can be hacked (via certain types of remotes) for region-free, PAL->NTSC playback.

If you can live w/ 4x3 shrink, instead of full aspect ratio control, and issues like the angle icon bug and reliability concerns, you might want to give it a try.

_Man_

 

[Dave Mack]

Hey again, Man!
Seems we are chasing the same ghost! I need a Region-free converting player as fiancee is from England... R2 discs a necessity. I think I'd miss the windowboxing of 4x3 in the JVC... Puts black bars on sides. Mits TV puts bright grey (UGH!) on sides. And yes, I do zoom occasionally and the auto-scaling is good.
How about the new High end Malata 600 that is soon to be released..?

D

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

The Philips can do what you want sans letterbox scaling -- it can put black side bars for non-16x9 DVDs, ie. pillarbox mode.

I guess it depends on what's most important to you. If complete aspect ratio control is a must for you, then you might want to wait for the upcoming Malata 600. However, from what little is known, it's going to use a new revision of the same all-in-one chip (dubbed Pantera III) and doesn't sound like any improvements will be made on PQ. The main focus sounds to be in the audio section, not video.

So if I were you, I'd probably just get a cheaper Malata for DVD-V unless the rumored audio improvements (and maybe better reliability) is worth the wait AND the much higher $$$ to you. Of course, the Malata will still likely be inferior to the Philips for PQ.

Personally, I just don't feel great about reliability w/ Malata. Otherwise, I'd probably get the 520 myself. Of course, the Philips doesn't inspire much faith in that dept either. There's also a small part of me that's hoping Philips will do right by the 963sa (and all their customers and prospective customers) and offer a firmware upgrade to enable proper letterbox scaling. And for a while, I was also hoping the Samsung 931 would offer what the Philips lacked, but alas, Samsung is an even worse offender by completely skipping(!) the Faroudja chip for analog output. :frowning:

_Man_

 

[Dave Mack]

Hey again, Man...

Did some EXHAUSTING searching last nite... AVS etc...
The Philips sounds decent. Pillarboxing is great (The Panny's (xp-30, 50, RP82) won't let you do this, right...?)
I could probly live without the zoom as my Mits. can vertically stretch, (called EXPAND mode) and it's acceptable for non-annie WS like "Titanic"...
Questions... How easy is the Region-freeing procedure? I have a VERY temperamental lapptop. Also, how much are 1 of these remotes that can do it? Have they fixed all the glitches in the newer 1's? Like the Angle icon? Banding?
The SACD isn't really that important. I have DVD-Audio on my 70 and have never even tried it. 6 more cables back there... AGH! Can the CD upsampling be accomplised solely from the player with a coax digital (single) audio cable?
Also, would the Philips 985 DVD recorder have the same pic. quality, de-interlacing and PAL to NTSC converting and region-free ability? The Philips site and the J and R sites don't go into enough detail... and I can't even zoom the pic. to see if the Farouldja logo is on it. Seems that at that price, I might as well get a Recorder if possible. Once again, SACD is not important.

Sheesh! Exhausting!

And since the Philips CAN out put PAL prog., if I ever get a PLASMA or projector with PAL in, I would see the higher resolution. The JVC's as I understand, cannot output PAL P...

What to do, what to do... I am JONESING for Buffy..

D

PS... Also, how much better IS the pic. on the PHILIPS? The JVC's have an EXCELLENT FILM mode... Video mode is watchable...
I really haven't read a proper review.
And after a PAL to NTSC conversion, say on the JVC, what mode would the player use? FILM? VIDEO? If it can be used in FILM, pic. would be decent I assume. Video, less so... I have read that only 1 of the Malata's 5 modes produces a good pic. with the PAL discs. Since that has the same chip as the JVC, would that be the equivalent as the 5 pic. modes on the JVC? FILM, VIDEO1, VIDEO2, AUTO, SMART?
I asked a guy who owns a JVC and he says he leaves it in AUTO for PAL... I NEVER use AUTO as the disc has to tell the disc what mode to use. I always use Smart, or Force Film or Video for tricky (Titanic...) discs...

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

LOL! Dave, did you try to wade through that record-shatteringly long thread over in AVSForum?

Anyway, I never took the plunge on the 963sa myself -- came very close a couple times but J&R kept running out -- but I did follow pretty much all the threads for it over here and over in AVSForum.

To answer your questions:

1. You SHOULD be able to do the region-free hack (and PAL-Prog if desired) easily enough w/ a One-for-All remote. One of the cheaper ones (maybe $20) w/ the magic button should do from what I read. OR you could probably use a Palm Pilot w/ OmniRemote shareware. Anyway, do a search in AVSForum for "RC6 hack" and you should probably find one of the posts w/ all the details. If I do get the Philips (later), I will try either route.

2. RE: bugs, so far, it seems that they have NOT fixed any of the major bugs, eg. angle icon bug, although the banding/striping issue seems more like a QC issue than something inherent to the player. Also, it seems like it's more of a problem for the units sold overseas than here. I think I've only seen a couple reports of a US unit having this or other QC-related problems.

And actually, I'm beginning to think the banding/striping issue is more common amongst player/TV combos than people think. Might not really be isolated to this player. I think I've seen similar banding/striping w/ my old Tosh interlaced and the new Panny S35 when using certain settings under certain situations.

RE: the vertically shifted 480p image, seems like this is TV-dependent(!). Not all are affected.

3. RE: music playback, you don't have to go multi-channel to appreciate SACD. There are plenty of hi-rez 2-channel recordings worth owning in SACD me thinks although it all depends on your tastes in music since title selection is key w/ DVD-A/SACD. Heck, I'm beginning to be swayed towards a 2-player setup even if the Panny RP91 does all I need for DVD-V. I never expected to dive into DVD-A/SACD when I first started shopping 6 months ago.

RE: upsampling of CD playback, yes, you can output digitally, but your decoder will have to be able to handle it though. Given your questions and disinterest in the hi-rez formats, I suspect you'll be best off just using the Philips' DACs until you're ready to upgrade and dive into hi-rez (and MC audio) head first.

4. RE: the 985 recorder, I also briefly considered getting a recorder instead, but I really don't think the 985 is what you'll want. For one thing, I don't believe it uses the Faroudja fli23xx chip, so probably no pillarbox mode and no PAL->NTSC conversion. You might consider looking into the upcoming new recorders to see if they offer what you want. They should generally be better recorders anyway.

For myself, I'm more interested in an HD PVR than a DVD recorder -- I'd rather use a PC for the kind of DVD burning I want, eg. post non-linear video editing. Also, I wouldn't really want to use a bleeding edge recorder for regular DVD playback; will wear it out too fast, but then again, most people's players probably don't get the kind of wear that mine do.

5. RE: the PQ, from what I can gather, the Philips should offer PQ similar to the Panny RP82, but a tad softer (or more film-like to some people). It should definitely be better at deinterlacing than the JVC, if nothing else.

And if IIRC, the AVSForum regular poster CKNA(?), who regularly does region hacks for people, thinks it's the best PQ for PAL->NTSC conversion (and he's seen them all).

RE: PAL DVDs, normal (ie. NTSC) film mode deinterlacing does not apply, so you would not want the same mode for both NTSC and PAL DVDs for the most part unless it's smart enough to handle both automatically. PAL would use 2-2 pulldown, not 2-3 pulldown like NTSC.

Phew... Talk about exhausting... :wink:

_Man_

 

[Dave Mack]

Hey Man! Thanx for getting back! Well, good news... Since my JVC 70 naturally plays PAL Region 0 discs, I decided to check out how a convereted pic. looks before taking the plunge. I went to Kim's Video and bought "Panic in Needle Park" PAL R0 for $12.99.
And....... the Pic. looks awesome! Truly! And this is a 4x3 pan and scan disc made by some teeny company, ilc.dvd.
I can only imagine how good a proper 16x9 annie transfer would look. I experimented with the Prog. modes, and yes they DO apply since the pic. apparently is converted to 480i in the player and then de-interlaced. Pic. looks great in 480P, decent in 480i. In FILM mode, pic. looked indistinguishable from any 4x3 NTSC (film mode authored) discs. that I have, quality of the actual transfer notwithstanding. When I watched the documentary, there WAS combing so I switched player to VIDEO mode and wala...! No combs! Granted pic. was a tad softer as we know of mediamatics video de-interlacing. (The JVC's have a color coded light telling you which mode the player is in...)
But the movie in FILM mode looked great. And the JVC's DO have a great FILM mode, even the shootouts attest to this. Many people actually prefer it to the Panny's, claiming that the Pannys are too harsh and digital looking, not filmlike.
So, I am very happy and I think I'm gonna go for the JVC 600. At $259, I think it's a great deal. I also am wary of the Malatas QC-wise after these threads. I would of course LOVE to own an RP82,(which ARE still available modified!) but then a PAL-NTSC converter is needed, and they only output through S-Video NO component, so NO 480P. And NO zooming or windowboxing. At least the Philips has pillarboxing.
The Philips is VERY temping for the Faroudja, but honestly, that 70 pag. long thread at AVS spooked me. And I do own quite a few multi-angle DVDs...

Anyways, I think I'm gonna go for the JVC... If you are in Manhattan and need to check out the JVC I do have currently with my settup, (Tweaked Mits. 55908 Diamond) you are more than welcome!


Peace and happy hunting!!!
edit...: Now I'm a bit more confused... I read this on the homepage of 2 of the codefree player sites... "
. Currently the CMD-850 we offer is the best video converter on the market today! With a name brand DVD player and a CMD-850 you will be able to play any DVD movie on any TV in the World! Plus you get much better product and conversion quality than models that have a built-in video converter..." and "Better conversion quality than Samsung 500, Aiwa MX100, Samar USA converters, Tenlab converters, emerson converters, and ALL converters built into a dvd player. "

Now, I am a bit confused, since this converter only outputs an S-Video signal or composite and NO component, that means that there would be no 480P output. How would this make the pic. better than say the JVC which converts internally and outputs through component at 480P??? Then it would be up to the line doubler in your set... And the JVC native 480P signal looks WAY better than 480i doubled by the Mits... Also, we know the JVC will not stretch the annie signal like the daewoo, apex... How do we know about the converter...??


AGH! Just when you think you're makin' progress...!
However, if this did indeed produce a better converted pic. I could get a Panny RP82 modified and this. I would be dependent on the Mits. doubler for PAL, and would sacrifice ANY auto-scaling, zooming, (are we SURE ther is no window or pillarboxing for 4x3 on the Panny...?) but I'd have the Faroudja for my R1 and R2 NTSC (Japan) Dvd's... And by running the converter into my JVC-SVHS VCR with it's superior Comb filter, I could get a decent PAL pic. And would be able to copy to VCR... No copyguard deactivation on the modified JVC-600...

D

 

[Dave Mack]

Hey again, Man

Well I emailed both sites about the convereter and their claim and received this back...
"Yes you are right, the JVC actually offers a better conversion than the converter, but most other dvd players don't do such a great job of the conversion..."
and...
"Most customers do not notice the difference. The CMD850 is really for high end professional use. For you the JVC player is fine. That is why I never brought up the CMD850 issue before. You did not seem to need it in my opionion."

I think that the 2nd guy is a bit off as component should offer better res. than S-Video.

Sounds like I'm gonna grab this...


D

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

RE: the "professional" bit about the converter, one would have to ask what that really means. Sometimes, "professional" does not necessarily translate to top notch quality. It might just mean that it was designed and marketed for use in business applications. For example, nobody here will likely want to buy an FP unit designed and marketed strictly for normal business presentations. Such projectors would almost certainly be far inferior to the ones that HT enthusiasts tend to buy.

And oh, I may have a nice "Software Engineer" job title or somebody else may be a "VP" in something else, but that doesn't make either of us as smart or resourceful as many hackers, entrepreneurs, etc. who don't have fancy degrees or fancy titles. Heck, wasn't that guy who owns that little known company in Redmond just another Harvard dropout?

_Man_

 

[Dave Mack]

Well, Man

You are right! The "Tech" at 1 of the companies didn't even know that the JVC's could output the converted PAL as 480P. I assyred him that they can as I watched a disc last nite. After last nite's positive experience with my current JVC, I decided to take the plunge and have ordered the mod. 600. Should be here by Mon. and I will post my observations. I was leaning toward the Philips for a bit but after reading EVERY page of EVERY thread on AVS, I got spooked. To me it shouldn't have been released without the Angle bug and the ability to zoom w/o the pillars. From people's posts re: customer service, HA!
I have had my JVC for a yr. and a 1/2 and am overall VERY pleased. I know how the player works, quirks and all. Like Titanic... If you Force FILM mode, no combs, problem solved. Some players won't let you even force a FILM mode.
The shootout said some pos. things...
" Even with the quirks and the non motion-adaptive video mode, given that the video quality is so good, and that most movies have good flags, this JVC might well be one of the best solutions in its price range. You may need to experiment with the modes for certain DVDs, but if you’re willing to do that, you can usually get something reasonable. And when everything is correct, the picture is excellent..." Very true. The Film mode pic. is amazing.
And, believe it or not, when a DVD is well authored in VIDEO mode like "Bruce Springsteen Live at MSG" which is 16x9 WS, it looks VERY good. And since I can force the player into Video, I can avoid the combs on edits for shows like "Buffy" which annoyingly are flagged incorrectly for FILM.

So all in all, for $259, I HIGHLY reccommend world-import.com. They were VERY professional and answered every Email I sent promptly. I'm happy and will let y'all know the results! Have ordered Buffy R2 from Amazon UK and am looking forward to Flash Gordon from France and SE ROLLERBALL from Japan!

Peace and happy hunting!

Dave