JVC's new Blu-ray player is a Profile 1.1 throwback
(Credit:
JVC)
These days, what separates Blu-ray players from one another has less to do with how they play Blu-rays--they all do that pretty well--and more to do with the sort of extra features they offer. Many players, for instance, can access a variety of online entertainment options, including Amazon Video On Demand, Pandora, Vudu, and especially Netflix. Unfortunately, JVC's latest player doesn't have any of those online features. In fact, it can't even access the online extras found on some Blu-ray Discs.
JVC has released an entry-level Blu-ray player, the XV-BP11 ($200), which--surprisingly--only complies with the older Blu-ray Profile 1.1 standard. That means it's not capable of playing back any of the Internet-enabled BD-Live content that is included on some Blu-ray Discs. Now, we'll admit that virtually all of the BD-Live content we've seen is disappointing, but that's still not reason to get an underfeatured Blu-ray player when there are Profile 2.0 players with Netflix streaming for $100.
The rest of the features on the XV-BP11 are somewhat more respectable, including onboard decoding for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. There's also a USB port on the front panel capable of playing back a few digital media formats, like AVCHD, JPEG, MPEG-4, MP3 and WMA. (Sorry, no DivX.) On the other hand, like we said, there's no support for any online streaming-media services, unlike the entry-level players from LG, Panasonic, and Samsung. In fact, there's not even an Ethernet jack (at least according to the specs) for easy firmware updates.
