JVC XV-F85GD Cheap but any good? (1 Viewer)

[Bill Will]

Comp USA has them on sale for $79.88 Your Thoughts.

 

[Steve Schaffer]

This is the single disc progressive scan dvd/dvd-A player introduced a couple of years ago if I'm not mistaken.

I have a 7 disc changer version of this generation JVC, has worked fine for 2 years. De-interlacing of video based material not as good as the now-discontinued Panasonics with Faroudja chips but film based stuff is fine.

The player also pillarboxes 4/3 material, putting black bars on the sides and letting you leave your widescreen set in Full mode. It will also scale properly flagged non-anamorphic widescreen dvds. Problem is that most non-anamorphic widescreen dvds lack the proper flagging. The Abyss is about the only one I have that enables the feature.

 

[Bill Will]

Steve, This model is the Progressive Scan 7 Disc model without DVD-Audio & it has a Gold Finish. What I really should have asked is there any real design problems with the changer & etc because $80 sounds like a really cheap price for this changer even though it's discontinued.

 

[Steve Schaffer]

Bill,

That is the exact same model I have except mine's black, model number XVF80BK. I've used mine for about 2 years with no problems whatsoever. I bought mine when that model first came out, and paid $279 for it. It has been a reliable player in every respect.

The changer mechanism is a little noisey in operation, always has been and has not gotten worse with use so I assume it's normal. Instead of a solid round tray there are 7 individual "petals" that sorta shift around inside during the changing process so it's not as quiet during disc change as a 5 disc changer. The thing has a row of leds above the drawer corresponding to the different disc numbers, and the one for the disc that's playing flashes constantly during play. I put some translucent material over these leds as the flashing can be annoying.

It's played every disc I ever put in it just fine. The one glitch is that during the commentary on the SWI disc it won't display the little subtitle that says who's talking on the commentary at the time--a minor problem that wasn't worth complaining about as I know what George Lucas sounds like.

This model was discontinued about a year ago, but the replacement had no real differences or improvements.

If this is a brand new unopenned unit I wouldn't be afraid of it. It's an older model number and that's probably the only reason it's so cheap.

JVC's first Pro-scan unit, a single disc model introduced a year before these, originally sold for $700 and was considered a bargain at the time. As recently as 6 months ago I saw a stack of them at Costco being sold for $139.

It is not uncommon for superceded gear to go down this drastically in price, especially if it's more than a year since it was replaced by a newer model.

The very early JVC's had a deserved bad rep for reliability, but the generation we're talking about here were fine.

 

[Bill Will]

Thanks Steve, that's the kind of info I was looking for & now I'll feel better telling the friend who asked about it for his family room for the kids to give it a shot for $80

 

[Jeremy Scott]

what is dvd-audio?

 

[Patrick Sun]

Here's what the Panasonic website says about: DVD-Audio.

 

[Walt Williams]

I've owned the exact player in question for almost 2 years now and have been really happy with it. It always plays any disc I throw at it and the funky changer mechanism has never jammed. Some discs require that you manually change the type of progressive scan filter used, but normally setting it to 'Smart' works well for me.
I wish it was only $80 when I bought it!