JVC DVD XV-N40 Review
Written: Jun 05 '03
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Pros: Low price
Cons: Does not work correctly with widescreen TVs.
The Bottom Line: Probably OK for 4:3 TVs, not acceptable for widescreens.
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| lesmoss's Full Review: JVC XV-N44SL DVD Player |
I purchased the JVC XV-N40BK DVD player to "upgrade" my 2 year old Pioneer DV-333 (standard interlaced player). The improvements I expected were: 1) Progressive scan playback with automatic scaling of non-anamorphic DVDs and 2) ability to play JPG files from CDRs. In addition , you should understand that I have a wide screen (16:9) TV.
The short story is that after about an hour of testing, I returned it as unacceptable. The long story follows:
First, I found one defect which is applicable all users. It fails to navigate the chapter selection menu for the "High Noon" DVD. My PC and old DV-333 had no problem with this, but every try to select a chapter via menu with the JVC failed.
If you have 4:3 TV and don't plan to upgrade in the near term, then, you can stop reading now. The N40 may very well be an acceptable 4:3 player. The single problem I found may not be significant to you.
The following comments apply to wide screen (16:9) TVs. I have a Pioneer PRO 510HD which "locks" in "full" with progressive inputs.
1) Progressive scan playback with automatic scaling of non-anamorphic DVDs
The product info I read seemed to indicate that the N40 could "automagically" scale non-anamorphic DVDs for display on 16:9 TVs. In fact it does that. But it provides black bars on the left/right sides of all non-anamorphic material. That is fine for 4:3 content, but
wide screen content has black bars on all four sides. I tried 5 anamorphic DVDs and they all got the same result.
There is a Zoom button which allows you to scale the non-anamorphic wide screen material to fill the screen. This seems equivalent to the Samsung "EZ View" feature (Have not tried a Samsung player). But I had expected more. The killer: the "zoom" attribute is lost if you stop playback (to take a break) and then resume. So much for expectation #1.
2) Ability to play JPG files from CDRs
I had been producing Video CDs on writable CDs as a means of showing slide shows on my TV. This is tedious since after producing 853x480 JPGs you need to squeeze them to 640x480 to get the "anamorphic" result. The extra step also results in the loss of resolution on playback. I had hoped that a JPG capable DVD player would save some steps and give a better quality result. Disappointed again.
The N40 may work correctly on 4:3 displays. But, on my 16:9 display, my carefully prepared 16:9 JPGs were first (apparently) scaled to fit a 4:3 form factor then stretched to fit my actual 16:9 display. The result was a picture that had the left and right sides cropped and black bars inserted top and bottom!!
I should also note that the scaled picture quality produced
(digitally) by the N40 was no better that produced (analogly) by my PRO 510HD. This was not evaluated carefully, since the thing was back in its box on return to Amazon in about an hour.
If you have a widescreen TV, This (nor its N44/50 brandmates) is not for you.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 95
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Epinions.com ID:
lesmoss
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Reviews written: 2
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