Denon Seeks to Perfect Good Ole DVD

[Wayde]

Ive never been thrilled with most upscaling DVD players. Theyre usually mainstream DVD players that up-convert its 480P video to 720P or 1080i for your HDTV. Its my opinion theyre (mostly) just out there to sell a few more mediocre DVD players to people who just bought a brand new HDTV.
At the same time there are serious upconversion video boxes that will actually do justice to a 480i or 480P video signal for your HDTV or projector. But these are way out of the price range of the average Best Buy consumer.
HQV is a division of Silicon Optix that produces some of the highest end video scaling processors imaginable. B. Greenway of the Home Theater Blog and Kris Deering of Secrets of Hom Theater and Hi-Fi have raved about the ability of the HQVs Realta chipset in high end video equipment.
Now, Denon brings that high end video scaling as close to the mainstream consumer as youre likely to see it. The DVD-3930CI is a 1080P upscaling DVD player. This one has all the goods, besides 1080P upscaling that Denon promises will be near HD-quality. Its built to be a high end DVD player all the way with HDMI, 14bit 216Mhz Video DACs, 10-bit video processing that includes Denons own Pixel Image Correction and advanced AL24Plus digital audio processing. You can expect high end audio within its heavy construction from the company that makes many of the best audiophile DVD players out there. Its also both DVD-Audio and SACD compatible for multi-channel high resolution sound.
The price is pretty steep even for mass produced equipment. But, at $1,499 its a bargain compared to anything that the HQVs Realta video scaling chipset has ever graced. So, it really comes down to your impression of the new formats so far. I think its safe to say the old DVD format has one last round left in it.


Link to Article

[MACCA350]

The 3930CI is the second Denon player to have the HQV Realta chip, the first was the 5910(and now the 5910CI) released about a year ago. The 2930CI(MSRP$849) also gets a HQV chip in the form of the new HQV Reon VX chip.

One big difference between the Realta and the Reon VX is that the software in the Realta can be upgraded whereas the Reon VX cannot.

cheers