The JVC XV-SA600BK is one of the most solid region free players on the market today. It was packed with the most up to date features and still didn't run me an arm and a leg. Both the picture and sound quality are top notch and it's very easy to use at the same time. I wouldn't have a problem recommending this player to both the seasoned audiophile or the novice user.

The JVC XV-SA600BK is a region free player and so therefore it plays discs from regions 1-6. The player also has a built in NTSC/PAL converter, so you can purchase PAL discs from abroad and play them on a standard NTSC TV. This is an important feature because 99% of the TV's manufactured in the US use the NTSC format. It is important to note that this player will not play NTSC discs on a PAL TV. Therefore, if you are here in the states on an extended stay from overseas you may return to your home country to find that your NTSC discs will not work. To find out what kind of TV you have, just look in the instruction manual of your TV. The player is also not dual voltage, so when traveling abroad a power converter may be necessary. The JVC XV-SA600BK played all of my discs from other regions with no problems on my standard NTSC TV.

I have taken the JVC XV-SA600BK overseas with me on a few occasions now and have brought back many discs from other regions such as a region 2 copy of the UK comedy Carry on Camping and had no problems at all playing them. The player is also capable of playing some of the discs that are REA or RCE encoded discs. This is important because many studios are now encoding DVD's with the to discourage viewers from playing discs from regions 2-6 on a region 1 DVD player. This is done because movies are released in different regions at different times.

The JVC XV-SA600BK plays a wide range of formats. The real improvement in this player over previous models, however is the ability to play DVD-Audio discs as well as all of the formats available on previous players. This was really the kicker for me. I was listening to my copy of Tesla: Standing Room Only and I felt like I was at the show. The sound is superb. I took a couple of new CD-R's and CD-RW's that I had recently burned from my computer and for the most part they played with no problems. A few of the discs had problems, but I think it was probably my source material. All of my MP3 files had a really crisp quality to them. In addition to the standard DVD video format, the JVC XV-SA600BK plays Video CD's (VCD) and Super Video CD's (SVCD). I was also able to take still images that I had saved on my camcorder in the JPEG format and display them on the screen using a CD-R/W. I was very pleased with the image quality that was displayed.

The player itself is very user friendly and has a wide range of basic features you look for in a DVD player. The set up menu is very easy to use and navigate around. It comes with the zoom feature that allows you to zoom in and out to get close ups etc. For DVD's that are shot with multiple angles, you can switch to these with just a push of a button. The fast forward/backward worked very smoothly both ways. The JVC XV-SA600BK also has the progressive scan feature so the picture quality is really amazing.

I really liked the screen saver and auto standby modes. I have a plasma TV so these features are very important to me as I don't want any burn in to occur. The remote is laid out very well and it is also backlit so you can find your way around it even in the dark. The tray slides in and out very smoothly and is sturdy, so that indicates that it's not a poorly made player.

There are plenty of outputs on the back of the player so there weren't any problems at all hooking it up to my home theater components. For audio it's got a 5.1 channel output, which made the sound quality incredible. It has both a Coaxial and Digital output also. It has all the standard video outputs you would expect which makes it very convenient to use also. It's got a component output, which is what I use to connect to my TV and utilize the progressive scan feature. It's also got an S Video and composite output if your component jacks are already being filled.

Ratings follow between 1 and 5 with 5 being the highest:

• Value- 5
• Functionality- 4.5
• Performance- 4.8
• Quality- 4.9
• Overall- 4.8

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