 Great system, but not without flaws Strengths: Great sound, attractive design, solid speakers, sharp picture using HDMI, impressive features
Weaknesses: Volume inconsistency across modes, video/audio synching problems, poorly designed remote, sluggish power-on time
Summary: I bought and returned two other brands of theater-in-a-box systems before keeping this one. It has all of the features I was looking for in a quality system without having to spend several hundred dollars. I bought this on clearance at a local retailer for $220, and I think it's a great purchase at that price. I have not had any problems using HDMI or with the system not working, like raul0822 experienced.
The audio on this system was the deciding factor. Is has a spectacular rich, full sound with nice bass. The front floor-standing speakers are great. The rear speakers have a design that radiates sound in all directions, so you get that big surround sound experience even if the rear speakers aren't pointed exactly at your head (which is the only way I could hear much of anything from the other two systems I tried; both were cheaper and had standard, small bookshelf-type speakers). Video looked decent with standard connections, but it was considerably sharper on my high-def lcd tv using the HDMI connection.
The system design looks great; I love the blue backlight on the five-disc changer door. It's a modern looking design that fits my living room well, and I don't think it will look dated anytime soon. The changer works flawlessly, and you can switch discs without interrupting playback. The radio tuner sounds good using with the included antennas, although some stations come in better on the cheap $5 radio I use in my bathroom (although I'm sure the tangled mess of wires behind my tv create some interference).
I'm really pleased with the way this system handles video files. My downloaded AVI and MP4 files play perfectly from a USB flash drive or a burned disc. I have not personally tried out the USB host feature to play content from an external hard drive, but it's a feature that will come in handy.
There are also some downsides to this system. For some odd reason, the volume for the radio is way louder than the volume of other modes. As long as you turn it down before switching to the radio, it's fine, but if you forget, you get blasted and it's really irritating. The radio volume at 7 is about the same as the dvd volume at 30.
Another problem is that the video/audio do get out of synch at times, but this does not happen to me on dvd mode. It only seems to happen sometimes while watching tv, and then only after I've switched back and forth to different modes or inputs, or if I turn the tv on before I turn the system on. It happens once or twice a day, and you can fix it by turning the system off and back on (which takes about 10 seconds). But it is really annoying and I'm not sure why JVC hasn't made a firmware upgrade available yet to take care of this issue and the radio volume.
A couple of other issues with this system are with the tiny display and the remote. The only thing you can make out on the display from a normal watching distance is what mode it is on (DVD, USB, VCR, ...). Things like the timer for dvd playback, the indicator to show which disc is selected in the changer, and different subsetting icons are all but impossible to read unless you walk right up to the player. This doesn't bother me much, but I think it could really annoy some people. The remote is really cluttered with rows of tiny buttons that you can't read in the dark. JVC could could have incorporated a lot of those button functions into an onscreen menu to make it more user friendly and cut down on the clutter.
All said, if you want a full-featured, great-sounding system at a reasonable price (and you have the patience to deal with its somewhat irritating nuances), this is the system for you. If you don't mind spending more money or you have a really short fuse, keep looking.
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