Reviews of JVC DVS3EU mini DV + VHS SVHS player?

[admin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ramrod

Hey again!
I'm just quickly wondering if you have any experience with this deck here.
JVC DVS3EU mini DV + VHS SVHS player.

I have read a lot of bad reviews with this device stating it will only play JVC tapes and it also only had 2mb frame memory.

There is only really information regarding the U (American) version. i did find the manual though, but its useless and doesn't really tell much either.

Im tempted to buy it because its relatively cheap and is in Australia, but i dont want to risk buying something considering the amount of negative reviews and opinions it has, well the US version anyways. (they would be pretty much the same yeah?).

Thanks heaps !

In the online age, where everybody that has access to a keyboard and a internet connection can rant and rave in public, you need to remember that reviews are more often a reflection of the person leaving the review, and not necessarily a reflection on the product. The purpose of a review is to inform somebody that generally knows nothing about the product. However, that doesn't really work. In order to weed out the good reviews from the clueless reviews, you have to have a decent knowledge of the environment where the item will be used, some historical information about the company's past products, and ability to detect bias on the part of the reviewer. When it comes to technology, most reviewers are unqualified and lacking in technical knowledge. It's not so bad on sites run by journalists, but user-generated reviews (Amazon or Newegg, for example) are generally the worst reviews to read.

Or, as you're doing now, finding somebody that IS knowledgeable to guide you through a review, and see if it has actual cause for concern, or if it was written by Chicken Little.

I'd almost have to read these reviews to know if they were addressing real concerns, or simply BS from somebody who can't even set the clock.

While I have not used this specific model, I do know enough about JVC's products lines (having used many models in the past decade+) to extrapolate how it will work.

JVC transport systems and TBC's, for example, barely change model to model, especially in the past 11-12 years. These VCRs all play tapes quite well.

Statements like "only play JVC tapes" are ridiculous. I don't think that's even technically possible. This machines records and plays standardized formats. Perfect example of a stupid review.

To "only" have a 2MB frame buffer is also a somewhat goofy statement. The more recent RAM used in the buffers outperforms older-style 4MB buffers from a decade ago. To again borrow the term from Ken Rockwell, it sounds like somebody is "measurebating".

Post some review links, and I'll give them a look, separate the good from the bad.

[ramrod]

Ahhhh i see. Obviously some of the reviews i disregard because the users that review them seem stupid by typing everything in capslock etc, but it seems theres some people that cant play "sony tapes consistently". Whereas others can fine. here are some links for various reviews

http://shopping.yahoo.com/p:JVC%20HR-DVS3U%20VCR:1990955813age=user-reviews;_ylt=A0LaSNnbdHhIcMkAYwEYSXAD;_ylu=X3oDMTA 5ZW01N2htBHNlYwNiZ3NpYg--

http://www.amazon.com/review/product...tag=retrevo-20

http://www.epinions.com/review/pr-JV...t_150720777860

thankyou

[admin]

NOTE: I'm going to seem unusually mean in this post, towards the reviewers, but I honestly get annoyed by the current state of online reviews....

Take a comment like this:

Quote:

and JVC doesn't stand behind their product

This doesn't even mean anything. It's a statement made from anger, and nothing more. In fact, JVC actually goes quite a bit out of its way to please customers, from my experience and observations over the past decade. The DVD recorders that had bad capacitors, for example, that were repaired years out of warranty, free of charge. The older Japanese-owned companies are especially consumer-friendly.

Or a comment like this:

Quote:

known problems with some tape brands

Known to who? Another dozen or so whiners online? That's not a "known problem". A "known problem" is one that is acknowledged by the company or a respected source. Not anonymous random yahoos online.

I really liked this one:

Quote:

I requested a refund and they said it wasn't possible to get a refund

Yeah, I don't think that's going to happen. For starters, the price paid by the consumer is way above and beyond what the manufacturer charged the store.

Something like this is often dubious, too:

Quote:

I even tried to contact the upper level Managers of JVC in America and got no response at all.

If I really wanted a response from JVC, I could surely get one. The trick here is to learn who to contact. This person probably wrote an e-mail to a generic e-mail address, and then gave up. You'll also find that many companies won't reply to e-mails from "LovePuppy89@aol" or something equally silly. No real name, no reply.

This is a typical review, very tell-tale of user errors:

Quote:

it didnt work... then got the second one and have the same problem. DV simply doesnt work

I'm reminded of ISP tech support calls, where somebody calls up and says "the Internet's broke" and "it don't work". After troubleshooting the issue, it's not uncommon to learn the cable is unplugged, or that the power in their house is off (using laptop on battery). Imagine a really bucktooth redneck reading this review aloud!

The third person on that same site is the same person from the first site. It's all anger, and little substance. More details this time, but not very many. Quoting telephone operators at JVC is also rather amusing, when you consider those folks are often just as clueless as Best Buy salesmen, reading from a script. Take anything said over the phone by call center staff with a grain of salt. I have great stories about calling Charter Internet, and being told things like "Firefox doesn't work with our internet services" or "you're can only connect one computer at a time to our network".

At Amazon, I see several Mac-heads angry about how firewire and FCP connectivity works. Mac users tend to be a special breed all of their own, sometimes their comments are ridiculous. I see several comments where Mac users expected or assumed it would do something not advertised, and then griped/whined about it when such a feature was not present. That's user error, not JVC error.

My thoughts...

What I see written is about 90% cry-babying online, and maybe 10% useful information. What I'm observing here is that this particular deck might have some problems playing miniDV tapes created on the higher-end DV cameras from Sony and Canon. Given that DV is a standardized format, or is supposed to be, then either JVC (or Sony/Canon) is doing something unusual in its playback/recording of the DV25 consumer recording format.

Honestly, you should use a camera to transfer DV. Or a much higher-end DV-only deck.

The biggest reason to have this exact JVC deck is to convert S-VHS to DV, or to play out S-VHS through analog outputs (good S-VHS playback with TBC, etc). I think some folks are getting lost as to the purpose of this deck -- it's not really designed to be a DV player. At one point in time, converting S-VHS to DV was popular in the broadcast industry, (although that wisdom is now being reconsidered).

[ramrod]

Yeah, i try to avoid people with the emotional or frustrated opinions, as they ignore the positives, and focus only on the negative, and do it in a ridiculous manner. If they fail to get through to tech support one time, then they give up and say they are crap.

Im pretty much only using this for the VHS deck using SVHS analogue output with TBC etc. So you basically confirmed what i needed to know. I'll probably end up investing in this unit, so thanks for that !! appreciate it.