Denon's first Blu-ray player stuns with features and $2k pricetag
By Richard Lawler 
posted July 25th 2007 9:33AM
posted July 25th 2007 9:33AM
Denon has announced its first real Blu-ray player, with an appropriate assortment of never-before-seen features and price tag to match. The DVD-3800BDCI will launch this fall as the first high definition player to include Silicon Optix's 10-bit Realta HQV video processor, recently seen in Syntax-Brillian's $10k LCD and the big brother to the Toshiba HD-XA2's Reon. The first Profile 1.1 Blu-ray player we've seen, it supports separate picture-in-picture audio and video streams. Unfortunately, $1,999 isn't enough to provide an Ethernet port, so any online content will need to be downloaded on a PC and sneakernetted to the player via SD card. Finally, internal decoding for all Blu-ray surround sound formats is included, and it's the first player with an HDMI 1.3a output, providing enough bandwidth to pass sound natively to a receiver for decoding. Announced Read - TWICE
Read - Beyond3D
Read - Crave
Read - Press Release
A $2,000 MSRP isn't so bad. First of all, by the time it hits the street, the actual selling price will probably be closer to $1,500. That is certainly a lot of money, but when you compare the feature set on Denon's unit to the $1,200 Pioneer Elite Blu-ray player, it's not quite as expensive as one might think.
"and it's the first player with an HDMI 1.3a output, "
The PS3 has HDMI 1.3a and it costs $499 and has been out since last November.
Not quite. The PS3 has HDMI 1.3, while the Denon player has 1.3a.
Wow guy we're just all missing out. Bull shit that thing is a piece of shit for 2000 or anything over 800 for that.
No no no, according to this http://www.threespeech.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/PS3%20Hardware.jpg , European PS3 has HDMI 1.3a
And I almost sure that I saw that on my PS3 manual. I've got to checkout when arriving home...
*pulls out lining of pockets*
*moths fly out*
Just GO Blu!!! :)
Just Go Blu! :)
I just Blu myself.
I can't really see the logic in spending that kind of money for a format that may or may not be with us down the line. How do you justify your purchase?
I guess it'll be several years before I commit to Blue-Ray or HD-DVD.
Hmm... No Ethernet?
So every buyer of this player will have to manually flash a software update every few weeks, to be able to read new discs, after the previous encryption has been broken??
for a dvd player of this quality, thats a great price actually. Denon has always been a no nonsense manufacturer when it comes to high performance dvd/cd players. I know quite a bit of enthusiasts personally who haven't sided in the hd dvd/blu ray fiasco because they've been waiting to see what denon is going to do.
Kinda surprises me actually, i had a sit down w/ the north american marketing manager a while back...and he said denon officially wasn't going to make a player until the format war was clear who'd be on top. Maybe they know something that we dont =X