JVC XV-M555BK 3-Disc DVD Player

• 3-disc DVD changer
• 10-bit video, 24-bit audio digital-to-analog converters
• Component-video, S-video, and composite-video outputs
• Optical digital output for Dolby Digital and DTS decoders
• Multibrand remote control

This was an absolutely great purchase. As far as I'm concerned it can go head-to-head with any of the more expensive models. As the author of the June 30, 2000 review notes, it handles many of the "problematic" titles with a breeze. This is truly a great machine. Another great JVC product. A company, which in my opinion, is leading the market!

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This is the first, and so far only, stand-alone DVD player I have owned, and I have to say, I'm very happy with it.

The convenience of having three separate loading trays means that one disc can be playing while the other two are being loaded; not really very useful for many people, I've noticed, but very handy when you're browsing through those multi-disc DVD packages. I've had some people complain about the lack of eject controls on the remote, but I've never considered that to be a significant problem--it's not like you can accidentally record over a DVD, like you can a VHS tape. Incidentally, the loading mechanism is hardly quiet, but it's not all that difficult to ignore--it's not really as loud as other reviewers make it sound. It's not the fastest loader I've ever seen though.

The picture quality is excellent, although I haven't seen a top-of-the-line system to compare it to, and I've had no complaints about the audio (note, I have this hooked up to a JVC 31" S-Video TV and a JVC Dolby Surround 2.0 4.1 [3.1 technically, with a subwoofer crossover] channel component stereo system; the S-Video hookup makes a significant difference in picture quality, especially on those freeze-frames; incidentally, this unit outputs video on both the S-Video and RCA-out connectors simultaneously. I assume it also outputs on the component connectors too, but as I don't have a component TV, I don't know).

I don't know how well CompuLink works with this unit, as I have an older JVC stereo system that doesn't recognize the DVD player as a component.

The unit is trivially easy to set up, especially by comparison to the rest of my setup, but I still recommend reading the manuals (all of them, including for your TV and stereo components) before starting to set it up--it may save you some grief, and might also remind you of features you've forgotten! Make sure you match up Left/Right pairs properly!! That's about the only tip I can offer.

This unit has only ever had problems with a tiny handful of discs, out of the hundreds that I own; I have played both region-locked (region 1) and region-free discs without any problems. Actually, I've had problems with two discs, but the second one turned out to be defective; the replacement worked perfectly. The only other discs that have given me *any* problems were 'Key The Metal Idol' discs one and two--and that was just in the menus. Disc three worked perfectly. I have also played VideoCDs on it, although I had to use a CDRW disc, rather than a CDR disc; it doesn't seem to like CDRs. It tended to lock up after finishing playing VCDs, however, and I had to eject and reinsert the disc before it would recognize it again.

I've had the unit lock up on me very rarely, and the few times it did all I had to to was turn it off (it did take a while to actually turn off--about 20 seconds) then on again--I have never had to unplug it or contact JVC, and I hope I never will.

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It's nice to have 3 discs in the machine at once, but this machine has very limited programming options, the remote control IR emitter is weak, and I frequently get the universal "NO" symbol (a red circle with a red line through it) whenever I try to do *anything*. This is the first DVD player I've bought, so maybe they are all like this, but I hope not. My recommendation is to either spend the extra four or five hundred and get a 200 dvd changer jukebox, or spend the price of this model on a high-end 1-dvd player that has more useful features.