JVC XVN40BK DVD Player with Digital Direct Progressive Scan
Excellent bang for the buck!
PROS:<br />1) Screen zoom.  I love it for collecting widescreen movies for the future, but viewing them full or near-full screen now.  Wouldn't want to be without this feature now that I have it.<br />2) The 1.5x playback speed with audio is great!  Especially when watching somewhat boring interviews in the bonus material of a DVD.<br />3) MP3 playback with on-screen folder and track selection.  Works excellent!  There is a slight pause between tracks, but that is common with most mp3 playback devices.  No FF or RW support though.  Playing back standard CD audio doesn't have any on-screen info, but you can FF &amp; RW.<br />4) Less than half the thickness of my last DVD player.<br />CONS:<br />1) The jpeg playback is a nice feature, but my 2 and 3 megapixel images are are re-rendered at a blocky 640x480. You can zoom in on the images but it does not re-render, so you're zooming in on the initially rendered 640x480 image. Unit will not display images wider than 2400 pixels.<br />ALLEGED ISSUES:<br />1) &quot;Made in China&quot;: So what, everything is made there now.  My HP laptop, and my Motorola phone both made in China, and both of excellent durable quality!<br />2) &quot;Light as a feather&quot;: It's a DVD player not an amplifier.  Why should it be heavy?  They're not going to add ballast to it just to make simpletons happy with it's weight.  But ya know what?  This unit feels SOLID; and it's not *that* light.  Full metal casing except for the front panel.  'nuff said.<br />3) &quot;Comparable to APEX&quot;:  Not in the least.  Apex is junk and most units won't play the full gamut of DVD-R/-RW/+R/+RW.  This unit plays them all.  VCD and SVCD CD-R's too.<br />4) &quot;Horrible picture quality and jittering&quot;: Not that I can tell. The picture quality is on par with every other DVD player I've ever used, and the only &quot;jittering&quot; you might see is on text when using S-VIDEO--like on EVERY OTHER DVD player.  This is a non-unique issue.<br />5) &quot;Doesn't play some discs&quot;: Haven't experienced that.<br />6) &quot;Video streaking&quot;: Just played a fight scene from the Matrix and didn't notice that either.ay some discs&quot;: Haven't experienced that.<br />6) &quot;Video streaking&quot;: Just played a fight scene from the Matrix and didn't notice that either.