JVC XV-S500

This JCV XV-S500 is full featured DVD set top player which sold at 2001 AV on sale for $200. CDN in January 2003. I would not recommend this unit unless you are willing to set up the brightness/contrast controls as instructed below, willing to put up with the fussiness of this unit & willing to put up with the other design shortcomings. In my opinion this unit is not designed very well.

Likes:

• Plays VCDs from CD-Rs & plays Super VCDs (SVCD).
• Can be set for "progressive scan" output. Nice feature but many high definition televisions already have a similar feature called "reverse 3:2 pulldown".
• The tray speed is faster than most.
• The disc resume feature can remember where to start on up to 30 discs.
• This unit does allow black detail in the 0-7.5 IRE range (footroom or pedestal) & white detail in the 100-108 IRE range (headroom) to display if present on the DVD disc (assuming that you set brightness to +4 & contrast to -3 for the proper North American setting).
• Will play PAL (European) DVDs & properly convert them to NTSC to display the correct raster height, if the DVD is regionless or region 1.
• Full raster width is displayed (nothing cut off).
• Y/C (S-Video) & component out connections work "concurrently" which simplifies setup & the need to set a switch for one or the other.
• Plays from CD-RWs.
• The optical & coaxial audio out works at the same time as allowing analogue stereo out.
• Will support multi session writing of music discs up to 5 sessions.

Dislikes:

• The NTSC black level pedestal output on this unit is incorrectly designed at the Japanese setting (which is zero), not at the North America setting (which is 7.5 IRE). This is a very serious design flaw which JVC should have caught before they unleashed this unit on the North American public. It effectively lowers the black level 7.5% too low & if your television is set correctly, the blacks will be too black & you will lose a lot of detail in the blacks. JVC has made no attempt to explain how to workaround this problem in the manual or their web site. Fortunately with a waveform monitor & calibration DVD disc with SMPTE bars I was able to determine that if you set the software of the DVD player (press VFP, then menu to User1 or User2 & adjust) at brightness +4 & set the contrast at -3, this will adjust the output to the correct North American NTSC levels. Shame on JVC for letting this unit reach the public without even getting this basic function correct. It just goes to show how little effort & brains are put into design & quality control at JVC these days.
• The colour saturation is too strong on this unit. When using a calibrated DVD disc with SMPTE bars & a vectorscope, I was able to determine that the correct saturation setting on the DVD player was -2. Possibly other units are not misadjusted like this, but I doubt it.
• Doesn't play DVDs with subtle authoring or burning abnormalities. This DVD player is fussier than most regarding what it will & won't play, although it does play fussy Hollywood discs like "Bandits", so it's not the fussiest player I've seen. This is a very practical reason why not to buy this unit.
• Doesn't play slightly defective DVD-R burns, won't even load them.
• There is a software control on this DVD player that is mislabeled as "gamma". The control really should be called "black stretch/crush" because that's what it is. Gamma has a NONLINEAR effect on various levels of gray between black & white, & gamma never clips detail, but that's not what this control does. This control centers it's adjustment at black zero IRE (with brightness & contrast at 0) or at 7.5 IRE (with brightness at +4 & contrast at -3) & bumps the entire gray scale up by a LINEAR amount & clips white detail at 100 IRE wherever it was just under 100 IRE. The "black stretch/crush" adjustment can be useful if set to the positive numbers for very dark movies, because it can help give you a bit more discernable detail in the very darkest areas, but it really isn't necessary if a DVD movie is made correctly & might make black detail look too gray. Not only is this adjustment mislabeled, but it shouldn't even be on a consumer level DVD player because of the chance of misuse.
• There is a "sharpness" software control on this DVD player, unfortunately it has way too much range for the average consumer. It seems to be set in 100 lines of horizontal resolution increments. The default setting is +3 which yields 500 lines of horizontal resolution & in my opinion, this is the only setting that should normally be used. +2 gives about 400 lines, +1 about 300 lines & 0 about 200 lines. I can't think of an instance when anybody would want to roll off the sharpest to below VHS quality (VHS is 240 lines) & so this zero setting shouldn't even be on this unit in case a consumer accidentally used it. Very bad design in my opinion.
• Doesn't show the menu for VCDs despite what the manual says on page 5 (some authoring programs like Nero allow a basic menu).
• Doesn't play DVD-RWs or DVD+RW discs.
• The audio dynamic range control can only be set at "auto" or "on" for Dolby, there is no "off" setting.
• There is a zoom control with 13 positions which is more flexible than most units, unfortunately it leaves the very annoying zoom icon on the screen while in zoom mood (no way to turn it off). You have to ask yourself if the morons who designed this unit ever bothered to actually try the zoom control while watching a movie.
• There is a Y/C (luma chroma) software alignment adjustment which is very poorly described in the manual & completely unnecessary. Video producers sometimes use this control on a Time Base Corrector if the luminance (black & white) portion of the picture is not aligned with the chrominance (colour) part of the picture. It is highly unlikely that a consumer will ever need this type of control on a DVD player & it's just another adjustment that the consumer can set incorrectly. This control has no place being on a consumer level DVD player & it just shows once more that the JVC designers of this product are operating in a vacuum without any reality check with the real world.
• Doesn't come with a Y/C cable which is a very common cable (most TVs have a Y/C connection), but it does come with a component cable which is not very common. Perhaps this is because this unit has progressive scan, which typically only high definition televisions can play back using the component connection.
• MP3 music is not played in the correct alpha/numeric order it was recorded.
• Cannot play more than 150 MP3 songs from a disc unless they are in separate folders. In other words, you could put 250 songs in the root of a disc without folders, but it will only see the first 150 (bad design).
• No menu buttons on front of unit, so if you misplace the remote, you're sunk.
• JVC customer service in Canada is very customer unfriendly in my opinion, so don't count on good service if you ever need this unit repaired.

By Doug Hembruff.