Onkyo's upconverting DV-SP504 gold DVD player

Onkyo has got a new all-purpose player for the super-villain wannabe in your life, or anyone else that digs the gold-encrusted home theater look, we suppose. Apparently an update to the two-year-old DV-SP502, the incrementally-named DV-SP504 will handle your basic DVDs, CDs, and SACDs, as well as DivX, MP3, and WMA files stored on your choice of recordable optical discs. The biggest upgrade to the earlier player is the addition of HDMI output, which you can use to upscale DVDs to 1080i. It also adds Onkyo's VLSC (Vector Linear Shaping Circuitry) system, which'll supposedly work its magic to remove noise and make your music and movies sound as good as they can. Look for this one to set you back about $370 when it drops November 15th.

[Via Akihabara News]

[the mayor @ Oct 2nd 2006 2:08PM]

well yes, but if i'm going to shell out that much for a dvd player, it might as well play HD-DVD and BluRay. And burn them. And...

[Ryan @ Oct 2nd 2006 2:44PM]

Can someone give me the lowdown on 1080i upconversion? My intuition says it's probably not worth the slight premium you pay for it vs. a DVD player with 720p via component, but I'd love to be corrected.

[max @ Oct 2nd 2006 3:13PM]

Basically dvd's are only 480p, so the upconversion is done with the hardware. Having a component hookup to your tv, will only max out the 480p of the DVD. You need some type of upcoverting dvd player in order to take that 480p and make it look like 720p, 1080i, etc.

Some do better than others, you can look around on avs forum and get the lowdown on which ones are best, generally the denon's do a very good job but cost a lot of $$, that is why i went with the hd-a1, because you get the next gen and the upconversion for a reasonable price.

[max @ Oct 2nd 2006 3:00PM]

The Mayor is right, if you are going to shell out 400 bucks you might as well get the toshiba hd dvd, which upconverts as well as the $3500 denon. And trust me it looks awesome, but be sure to grab a HD-A1 becuase the HD-A2 won't have analong 5.1 out.

[WASD John @ Oct 2nd 2006 3:14PM]

Hell, if you have a Xbox 360 just drop an additional $199 and then you get a cheap HD-DVD player, and a DVD upconverter that works just as well as all of the others.

[Rick Lyon @ Oct 2nd 2006 3:27PM]

$370 seems a bit expensive when the Panny S90 rocks very hard for nearly $100 less upconverting over HDMI.

[Austin @ Oct 2nd 2006 5:53PM]

Ryan,

The max you are going to get through a component cable is 480p as this medium is rserved strictly for carrying an analog signal. Making the jump to HDMI was well worth it in my mind as the difference in picture quality is clear. I picked up the Denon DVD-1730 from onecall for $150 shipped and a 6 ft. HDMI cable can be had for around $10 from ehdmi.com.

[Greg B @ Oct 2nd 2006 6:59PM]

IGNORE ME!!!

Seriously, I need to make a comment to get it to save my password. Engadget, please get the password changing code done. :)

[Kyle K @ Oct 2nd 2006 10:49PM]

Again...

The Philips DVP5960 does all the Onkyo player does(DivX, HDMI, Upscaling, etc.), Plus, has a USB port for reading your DivX file via USB drive (Thumb or Portable). All for the low Amazon price of $86.94.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000G18DR0/102-8410677-4355330?ie=UTF8

[Ben Hobbs @ Oct 3rd 2006 12:27AM]

Austin,

I have DVD Players that do 1080i over component (as well as 720p) component doesn't get "maxed out" at 480p. HDMI doesn't always look better, often leading to macroblocking and other digital artifact problems that sometimes component helps smooth over.

I blame Sony for the current thinking that only HDMI can do HD, HD has been done (well) by component cables for years, the main reason for HDMI is HDCP, Handshake protocols and DRM.