JVC  Has Made Some  JUNK  zero stars
924475
I have wanted this unit for so long.  The VCR WILL NOT TRACK.  No matter how much you try to correct it , you are wasting your time.  If you take out the tape and put it back in so it can supposedly "fix" the tracking - it goes in fast forward - if you speak chipmunk you might can understand it.  The picture is dark and "snows" a lot and always a white line across the bottom.  How am I supposed to transfer VHS tapes  when it can't even play one . Yes- using brand new VHS tapes.  You people that love yours - you got lucky !!  Very upset with JVC - I have all JVC equipment and it has all been the best.  Don't know what happened with this unit.
3435901
I agree this machine is junk I bought it from Walmart it ran for a week then died Walmart and RCA want nothing to do with it we should all get together and start a lawsuit I lost $250 on this piece of s#&t. My DVD and VHS tape are still stuck inside the mouth of the piece of RCA garbage I bought a Panasonic DVD/VHS recorder after this one died I've had it about a year now and love it, go Panasonic it may cost a bit more but worth every penny.........Michael from Rhode Island
697454
I bought my DRMX1S and when I recieved it the first thing it did was eat a VHS tape. The company I bought it from sent me a 2nd new one. This one was working fine except for occationally jamming up with VHS tapes. I had to unplug it and plug it in again to get my tape out. Shortly after the warranty ran out I started having problems with the hard drive. I could record things on it but I couldn't edit dub or access anything I recorded. I sent it to JVC for repair and they send me a repair estimate for $240 of which over half was for parts and parts are suppose to be covered for a year. When I called JVC for an explantion I was promised a call back which I never recieved. After I called them a couple of more times they tell me that it was recieved damaged and that was the reason for a parts charge. I tell them I have insurance on the package and they say they will get back to me. I just keep getting a bill for an estimate every week. The repair estimate has a section where it states the unit was recieved in fair condition with no mention of any damage. When the unit worked it was great but for the price it should have lasted longer. I expected more out of what I thought was a quality company. I gave it one star because there isn't anything lower. I will never purchase another JVC product.
4192412
I am sorely disappointed with this camcorder. Its lighting is not only poor -its erratic !! Sometimes at whatever angle I record, even in bright light, the resulting picture has unpredictable dark and bright lighting. This camera is just not worth it. The rewind and forward operations are plain frustrating. JVC wins hands down anyday!
3001835
It's a pity there is no option for either zero or negative stars. I recently bought a 10-pack of RCA videotapes, and quite frankly, I wish I'd thrown my money in the street instead. These things are absolutely, positively horrid! The tape is wound too loosely on the reels, and there is NO RATCHETING MECHANISM to tighten the tape! It flops around inside the housing, and if you rewind it, it gets even worse! EVERY SINGLE TAPE IN THE PACKAGE is like this! RCA has cheaped out well beyond the point of ridiculous, and I will NEVER AGAIN buy their videotapes!!!!!!!
4566943
DO NOT BUY THIS CABLE! Your front and rear RIGHT speakers will have NO SOUND! Shame on JVC for not mentioning this. Not even a software update available to fix this. I'd give it a 0 star if the option is available.
3171031
I'm not sure if I was sent a defective set or if this was just another money grab. But, it's raping Michael Jackson's legacy and exploit his fans. I expected a much better quality picture and sound coming from Sony. This is not remastered, in any way shape or form. It doesn't matter if you're viewing on wide-screen or a regular 4:3 ratio format, this is crap. Sony should be ashamed of themselves. This here, is the equivalent of those bootleg video's some guy sales out of the trunk of their car. The only thing missing is the audience sounds and the bouncing heads of people moving around in the theater.

I'm just really disappointed. In addition to the slightly jittery frame rate, the picture quality is poor and the video size is ridiculous. To add insult to injury, I can't play the set on my surround sound because there are no  sound options. This is a product of, pure corporate laziness. Sony where is your pride?

If this is what we loyal fans can expect from Sony's suits (a total disregard to quality assurance), then I will hold off buying anything else in advance from them.  I'm watching this, feeling totally PUNK'D...Anyone defending this is setting a precedent that says to SONY, "just slap Michael Jackson's name on anything and I'll blindly buy it.
3903768
Just to give an example. I bought the very first JVC 5.1 made. It was a cheap unit with few extras but at least every function worked flawlessly for 5 years +. The avr 254 has never worked flawlessly by any stretch of the imagination and cost 3 times as much. You change channels from an analog  to an HD channel and no sound until you turn off the AVR and turn it back on. You can watch all HD channels with no problem. Same with regular channels but but you switch from one to the other and the 254 has to be reset. This is with HDMI cables. The same with my Sony Blu Ray and HDMI. After watching a DVD if I don't cut off the player and switch modes back to cable the Monitor turns a bright  distorted solid yellow color, again until you reset the system. I spend more time resetting this thing than watching it.
BEWARE APPLE OWNERS !!!!! IF you need to change or up date firmware etc.and you will you are SOL ! HK does not support apple so you CANNOT do upgrades !!!
HK has no business even making speakers if they can't d any better than the HKTS - 18. The main surround speakers are adequate but the subwoofer is pretty poor to say the least. It is not even in the ballpark with my TsC ASW-10. They spent more time making a pretty piece of furniture than a good functional subwoofer.
Run from this thing don't walk except down the isle to another brand !
Customer Service is as poor as it gets. It is always the cable's problem never the 254 or you have bad HDMI cables. ( which I switched out and changed nothing ) They also say they will get back to you in 24 hours or less when
they should be saying if we get back to you at all your lucky.
The poorest piece of electronics I have bought in my 54 years and yes I am an electronic technician by trade.
There is a lot of fine equipment out there but the HK 254 is not one of them. I also have had great results with onkyo as have everyone I know who owns one. I was told not to buy the HK. I should have listened to the salesman for a change
2541200
Only reason we replaced a high end JVC receiver was that it had NO HDMI inputs, and our new ROKU box wouldn't work any longer without a digital audio output. This receiver was purchased on Black Friday because it was $200 off - good thing too! Most rated it as a very good mid-level receiver, and it's barely that. I'm so sorry we had to take out the JVC - which weighed twice what this lightweight did. It barely powers the powered subwoofer. It can't pump much through the small Energy speakers. The speaker placement / setup came up with the wrong sizes, distances, as well as power per speaker. I still haven't figured out how to power the 2nd room speakers! I just can't get them to work!

Setup is complicated and I still can't get it to turn on the HDTV (HDMI all enabled) for anything but 2 of the 4 functions. It's cheap looking, lightweight, and inefficient. If you want a cheap receiver, and get it cheap, then ok, else, stay away from this. I'm also sad my Sony DA555ES isn't working and doesn't have HDMI. Those 2 receivers blow this thing away!

I'm sad I purchased this...

OK,Update: 2/13/14: I sent the unit to TAP Electronics, per Yamaha Customer service. The verdict? Nothing wrong with it! There's a major noise signal being sent out through the LFE (subwoofer) channels that causes a VERY loud buzz on my $1000+ Polk Audio Subs! Even if the unit is off, there's a buzz! They found nothing! Time to rid myself of this thing and not buy another Yamaha again...We have a Very high end JVC unit, the unit this replaced, connected. No buzzes, no issues, shakes the walls and the windows! We replaced this because we needed something to work with the ROKU 3 HDMI audio outputs - nothing will decode the Dolby Digital Plus except a receiver. What a bust! Sad...

I told Yamaha I don't want the unit back, I want a refund. I doubt they'll comply. So, when we get it back, we'll sell it...after all, it's certified good now!
1466792
I'm going to differ with the many glowing reviews here, and say that these JVC headphones are almost unbearable right out of the box, but can easily be modified to be very good.

The problem is JVC's inclusion of what they call an "acoustic lens", which is nothing more than a thick layer of dense felt, anchored over the drivers with glue and a piece of plastic which also covers the drivers.  The result is a frequency response that kills high frequencies and mids, leaving a tubby, slow, and overwhelming bass.  Yucch.  I couldn't find a single recording that sounded good.

I noted in some of the reviews that there were popular modifications to these phones, so I went to a well known headphone hobbyist site, head-fi.org, and found a wonderful thread detailing how to go about these mods.  http://www.head-fi.org/t/381303/jvc-ha-rx900-modifications-a-picture-tutorial-56k-forget-about-it

Basically, the thread's author detailed three mods:  1) removal of the felt and "acoustic lens" from the drivers.  2) addition of a tiny amount of speaker stuffing to the back of the driver cup to tame the bass response, and 3) the application of "Dynamat" to the driver cup to damp vibration.

I skipped the Dynamat since I had none and didn't feel like spending $20 on a set of phones I was feeling dubious about.  I did the other two mods, however, and was rewarded with a huge improvement....turned a one star product into a four star, IMHO.

When removing the felt, be aware that the actual driver is well protected under its own metal grill of sorts, but that you still need to poke the felt out of all those little holes in the driver's grill cover, so be VERY careful poking that you don't poke too deep and puncture the driver cone.  Take your time and use good lighting.  I used the same tiny Phillips screwdriver that I had used to remove the screws to poke out the felt from the holes.

I used "Acoustica-Stuff" to do the fiber fill behind the drivers, any similar stuff will do.  First try I used too much and cut the bass too much.  I tried again, using half as much, and was met with great success.  The bass tightened, pitch became clearer, and the boominess was gone.  I ended up with a VERY thin layer of the stuff, you could see through it to the black plastic cup behind it in spots.

BREAK-IN is always important with mechanical audio gear, like speaker drivers.  Drivers are made of flexible, springy things that move back and forth, and they are stiff at first.  I've never encountered a speaker (or headphone) that didn't change in sound after a few hours (sometimes many hours) of use.  Even after completing the mods, I let these play for another three days or so, and the sound continued to improve.  Detail has increased, while the overall presentation has smoothed.  Recordings that earlier had not been pleasant are now quite nice.

These headphones are still not "giant killers", but for $62 and a half hour of mod work, they are a steal.  I like them much more than my $100 Grado e80is, which sound thin and toy like in comparison.  The JVCs have a warm, pleasing tonal balance now, strong low bass, clear mids and non fatiguing highs....post mods.  I may still do the Dynamat mods, but am so pleased with what I have that I may not bother.

Also a word about comfort and fit:  These are very large headphones which fit my large head and ears very comfortably.  They're not for portable use.  The construction quality is quite good, too.

If you're a tinkerer, go for it!
656115
Pure garbage. I couldn't get it to work. The screen would go black for about 2 second intervals every 5 seconds.  The recording would show a pause, the audio died, and then jumped ahead for a few seconds before repeating the same error.  This makes it unusable.  The software seems to be the problem.  Both Hauppage and ArcSoft seem to throw their hands up and say it's the other company's fault and there doesn't seem to be a fix.  After messing with it for about 5 days I returned it and bought an Elgato HD and it works beautifully and without issue.  Don't waste your time with the PVR.  It's junk.
4425547
You must believe all the one star ratings-this one is really bad!  The Good: I bought it at Costco and I was able to return it no questions asked and it loaded easy enough.  The Bad: terrible, unintuitive interface, not even a cancel button if you wanted to stop.  I had to right click all over the place until a close command showed up.  The progress bar has no percentage completed so you have no idea how long anything is going to take. The help file is no help.  When  transposing a VHS tape of an hour length, it then began encoding it which was another hour and after that it automatically started playing it! Nothing could stop this unnecessary playback except by turning off the computer.  The Terrible: A major memory hog. This vile piece of crap-ware sucked up every byte of resources on the computer to where you could not access anything else. In fact, once you clicked the program on you could not access anything else and could not close it except by turning the computer off. A really pathetic program.  Buyer beware!
2628646
This device should rate no higher than 0 stars.  I bought one of these new to digitize old camcorder movies to the computer.  When I opened it and tried to use it, it would not power on correctly. I spent several hours with Pinacle's online chat support, jumping through all the hoops they requested, including downloading and updating firmware.  It was determined that my new unit was defective, and I had to send it back for a replacement.  The replacement came quickly enough, but was not a new unit, and had some scratches on it. This one powered up ok, but would not recognize any video signal. I spent 2 hours on on line chat support before they had to 'check into it, and email me back.' They had me down load and upload new firmware, try several video sources, try several cables, and keep telling them what lights were on.  Several days later, I got an email saying that this unit is defective as well, and I need to send it back.  I don't think I will, as they seem to have no quality control, and poor support.  The return shipping keeps adding to the cost, and I still don't have one that works. Also, there seems to be a limited range of products that this was tested with which Pinacle will support.  I tried it using my dvd/vcr/tv tuner as an input, but they told me it had not been tested with combo players so they would not support that application. So I would not be able to use it to record tv, or old video tapes. My recommendation: Avoid this thing like the plague.  Quality control is poor or non existent, and customer service requires hours of jumping through hoops, and will cost you to send it back.
160919
After having the unit for only a few years, the recorded disks started to skip, freeze, and become unviewable. Very disappointing.
Playback of prerecorded disks (movies) not a problem; but anything I record is no good. I have a ten year old Panasonic DVD recorder that still works.
Will not buy another JVC.

 Have since learned that the problem only occurred in the "AT" mode. If recording in the fixed time XP, SP. LP or EP modes no problem.
2271858
After 40-50 hrs, at most,  of late night use (listening to Chinese Language CDs) one of speakers died...  sounded OK when it worked.  I will avoid JVC products in the future.
4389538
I bought this to digitize old family videos. I got through the Hi8s and MiniDVs just fine at a quality I considered reasonable, and that's why it doesn't have one star. The software included is pretty bad, though, and that's why it's at two. One of the applications simply doesn't work and the other, Cyberlink Powerdirector, is apparently the "light" version of the software; it immediately starts nagging you to buy the new version which I'm assuming also doesn't work well.

Physically the device seemed to work as it should. I've recorded both through S-Video and Composite. The biggest problem I ran into was copyright protection. Apparently the geniuses that made this dongle (or Powerdirector) perceived that their device would be devastating to copyright holders so they added this nice little feature that randomly decides you're illegally copying copyrighted videos. Can't have people sharing their long-degraded versions of Disney movies on the internet, you see. That's the old stuff. It's potent. Kids these days downloading Blu-ray rips of the master copy of your Disney movie would be overdosing on Disney if they got their hands on that old stuff from the 80s.

So when you're copying a tape that might be two hours long there's the ever-present threat of the system suddenly taking your time and effort, wadding it up, and annihilating it. From forums (neither company has offered any solutions or has seemed to care) it seems that gaps in the recording or static in the tape trigger Macrovision protection.

Brilliant. You have a device with the main use case of copying old, degraded home movies and you add in an extremely consumer-hostile anti-feature that prevents it from doing its job in the most frustrating way possible. I assure you, Diamond and Cyberlink, that the video of myself as a baby is not copyrighted.
685208
If you are considering purchasing this thing to make copies of commercially made VHS tapes to DVD, don't waste your time or your money because it is essentially useless for that purpose, the resulting copies are horrible, grainy, and with jittery lines in the picture, etc. Some people say this thing will remove the Macrovision protection which is responsible for the wavy lines and such, but forget it, it will not, at least not to any kind of acceptable degree. As far as I know it is legal to make a backup copy of original tapes that you own, for your own personal use under the "fair use" provision, just as you can make an archival copy of computer software, as long as it is for your own use, and not to sell etc. The only reason I gave this thing 2 stars is that it might prove useful for transferring home videos to DVD although I have not tried that yet.