JVC XV-BP1 Blu-Ray Player

dblizzard — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 08:02:17 +0000

I read some great reviews about this BluRay player and I really wanted something that had a fast startup time and BD Live 2.0 so I put the JVC XV-BP1 on my Christmas list. My wife was feeling like Santa this year so she got it for me and I was like a kid in a candy store, or maybe a kid on Christmas day would be more appropriate. The first Blu-Ray movie I tried was The Mask with Jim Carrey and Cameron Diaz. It played great and the load times were as advertised, I was excited. Then I played another movie and the audio didn’t work on pass-through. It only worked if I set it to PCM-Multi. So now I’m nervous, I did my homework, my Magnavox Blu-Ray was junk so I justified the JVC. Let me try something else, so I pop in John Mayer’s Where The Light Is – Live In Las Vegas… Still no audio on passthrough it only works on PCM setting.

So I start looking on the Internet for others having this problem and it comes up blank, no hits. This can’t be true, am I really the only one? Next I jump over to the JVC site and search for firmware and I see that my firmware is 6 months old. Apparently this thing has been in the warehouse for awhile. I download the newest firmware, put it on my flash drive, boot the player, it installs and BAM! it works. Man am I happy. If you have this same issue be sure your flash drive is formatted FAT not NTFS or it won’t work.

You can get the firmware update for the XV-BP1 Blue-Ray Player at JVC Firmware Update.

Harman Kardon AVR 247

dblizzard — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 22:45:45 +0000

I have owned and used a Harman Kardon AVR-140 and and HK AVR-240.

I currently own and use a Harman Kardon AVR-247.

AVR 140 – While this is an “entry level” receiver I like to think of it as the minimum for anyone that cares about audio in a home theater. You just can’t compare an HK to the low cost AV receivers from Sony, Pioneer or any other name brand AV receivers that are not high current. Start looking at other high current offerings and you will realize that HK is not overpriced. Don’t be afraid of HK receivers with low wattage ratings. They don’t make a low performance amp. They rate their amps honestly. HK tests their amps at full range from both channels at the same time. Believe it or not that’s not the standard. The AVR 140 – 147 has more stereo power (50 watts) than my 1978 Pioneer SX-780 stereo (45 watts per channel). It only has about 5 watts less at 40 watts per channel power than the Pioneer when driving 5 channels. The AVR 140 is obsolete and the current comparable model is the AVR 147. It features the same power but also has 2 HDMI inputs and 1 HDMI output.

AVR 240 – Let’s take it up a notch. 65 watts per channel stereo and 50 Watts to 7 channels, impressive. Like the 140 it too lacked HDMI switching, let’s move on.

AVR 247 – Worth the extra price tag over the competition? Most definitely! Compared to the Onkyo TX-SR605 you get what I feel is cleaner sound. I love the onscreen input assignment. I can’t stand turning on a receiver without custom naming and my DirecTV receiver displays as DVD or VCR. It sure makes it easier for my wife when the display shows the actual device that’s selected. EZ setup works great, it even adjusts equalization. Of course you can always manually tweak the settings.

My Complaints:

1) Remote codes are limited. They should allow any code they support to work on any input selector, but they don’t.

2) Could use more than 2 HDMI inputs.

That’s it, this audio / video receiver is available for under $499 and well worth it.

David Blizzard - Vintage Audio - Home Theater - Movie and Music Reviews » Surround Sound

JVC XV-BP1 Blu-Ray Player

Harman Kardon AVR 247