The JVC XV-BP 1 is a Blu-ray player, on the market since summer 2009 and currently selling from 240 GBP online.

Florian Friedrich, tested on December 11, 2009

Quiet, economical, and fast.
Superb picture for movies and HD documentaries.
Bitstream HD-audio output.
Easy multimedia playback from a disc or via USB.

Weaknesses in DVD de-interlacing.
Incomplete DTS-HD decoder.
No picture controls.
Too few multimedia extras.

JVC’s first Blu-ray player leaves no room for criticism in the core disciplines, and draws a high score as a result: It’s fast and quiet and can play back multimedia content. Simple operation adds to the list of positives, as does the excellent overall picture quality. But some small errors did creep in (described below), and we would have liked to see more multimedia extras.

Multimedia

JVC’s first purebred Blu-ray player offer a USB connection (under the flap on the front) and BD-Live (via the rear panel’s Ethernet socket). But after JVC’s NX-BD 3, a full, Blu-ray-based, home-entertainment system with DLNA compatibility, hit the market in late 2008, we assumed we’d see the same functionality in the XV-BP 1.

But no, the new player only plays back MP3 music, photos, and DivX videos via USB — at least the playback is responsive and extremely easy to operate (see Other features and operation, below). There’s also a LAN socket that allows the player to access BD-Live bonus materials from the Internet. Although the Japanese manufacturer claims that the BD-Live function meets profile 2.0, we searched in vain for the internal memory that 2.0 prescribes — or at least a supplied USB stick for storing downloads. Very odd!

Other Features and Operation

The JVC’s rear panel provides only the most-important connections.

In the home cinema, the XV-BP 1 performs well, delivering modern audio formats as a bitstream and 24p film signals accurately. But you shouldn’t expect many more features from this puristic player — the simple design and sparsely populated connections panel should be an obvious giveaway. There’s neither a power switch nor a cooling fan — and the lack of the latter explains how the player is so beautifully quiet.

The JVC’s menu looks clear and attractive, and provides speedy navigation.

Operation on the XV-BP 1 is exemplary — every function is fast and clear, and easy to get the hang of. Photos play back flawlessly, right down to the finest detail, and also load extremely quickly — you can expect some fantastic slideshows! DivX-video playback, however, doesn’t fill the whole screen — meaning you’re left stuck with 4:3 format and side bars. The player also accepts AVCHD videos, but only from a disc.

User-friendly: The remote control allows direct resolution adjustment.

The Japanese model offers no extra-special video technology. The only possible exception is a choice between RGB and YCbCr colour spaces for HDMI signals. There are no picture controls, but a direct button on the remote control allows you to select any output resolution between 576i and 1080p. Especially noteworthy is the player’s loading time — even with no quick-start mode, it needs just 19 seconds to begin playback.

Picture Quality

Blu-ray:
Our test candidate performs almost flawlessly in the most important discipline of every modern Blu-ray player — HD cinema in 1080/24p format. De-interlacing of 1080i-format documentaries or concerts works superbly — we noticed no stair-step effects at all. The digital levels produced by the colour decoding are also totally correct. But there’s sadly no video equalizer for pepping up poor-quality discs.

The JVC’s HDMI frequency response is perfect.

Despite the truly excellent Blu-ray picture, we still have a few minor complaints: With the Panasonic TX-P 42 G 15 E plasma that we used for testing, for example, the player clips blacker-than-black and whiter-than-white content. It’s also one of the few players that are unable to play back a test disc using the three HDTV codecs, due to failing to detect the disc’s structure. Furthermore, a tricky, HD test sequence in the unusual 1080/30p format showed noticeable flicker.

DVD:
Here, we observed a few small weaknesses — films occasionally show slight flicker, for example. In TV material and concert recordings, slanted edges such as guitar strings look more jittery than on most competing players. The up-scaling, on the other hand, leaves no room for complaint: In one scene of our beloved test DVD “Six Days Seven Nights”, a vertical blade of a plane’s propeller looks totally smooth — this is something few players manage!

Sound Quality

Excellent: The audio-frequency response shows only slight deviations.

You’ll get the best sound by connecting the JVC to a modern HDMI receiver and selecting bitstream output for HD audio. Via PCM, the player only delivers the lower-bitrate, 5.1-channel core of DTS-HD signals. The JVC also works as a CD player, achieving superb results with a signal-to-noise ratio of 101 decibels and an almost-perfectly flat frequency response.