JVC XV-N5 Review

Good Points
Good Image,
MP3 Feature well done, good onscreen display,
Reasonably priced.

Bad Points
Zoom (9 levels): Only x2 is really worth using.
JPEG Viewing: Very very slow on large images, downsampling bad.
Blue front is not discreet, specially in dark room. Overall gadgets not worth it (zoom, strobe)

General Comments
Just got this JVC XV-N5 DVD player in to replace my PIONEER DV646 that did not survive a thunderstorm. The unit is very light and thin, the drawer is fragile (aren't they all), but the image is very crisp, lots of possibilities to modify display. Zoom mode very good, but who wants to zoom x64, x128, x256, x512, x1024?) You can move the zoomed part of the image around. The MP3 feature is great, but will not allow random play, nor will it allow fast forward/backward. The unit will NOT read playlists. It will handle embedded directories, but moves all directories to a single level. Max 150 songs/directory. I got this one because it won the european award for best DVD player 2002/2003. I'll do a second review in a few months! JPEG viewing is OK on small files. My CD's contain my picture libraries of 2272*1600, which are unusable here (display one picture will take >30 seconds), downsampling to low resolution is very bad.. I will have to convert my pictures on a special CD down to 640*480.