THE BEST DVD players are manufactured by entity with their own Research & Development & Manufacturing base. Its not just R & D but add too an M. But the titans like Sony, Pioneer, Panasonic, Oppo, and their ilks is foremostly oriented to the mass/consumer market. The main point is to move millions of units, without much regard for ownership prestige or gratify the creature known as the videophile.
But videophiles would possess anything that delivers the best possible picture. He's a perfectionist, consumed, and resolute to grab the highest possible image standard his resources could get. This is the kind of creature that the Denon brand is made for. I could also mentioned Marantz, Onkyo & Yamaha but Denon is the consummate trailblazer among the league.
Denon is a perfectionist's brand, and it has the requisite R & D & M. A $20,000 DVD from Theta or Classe or Meridian might be encased in a golden chassis, but the innards, the system, chances are - is actually a Sony or a Philips. Their racket, their modus operandi, is to "souped up" the system by embedding or replacing for more quality parts, especially towards the audio & video DACS, the scalers, the deinterlacers and the disk spinning platform. After all these (largely cosmetic) alterations are done, they put in their fabled, mystique-laden labels - cleverly presuming that the same marketing scheme done for Jaguars, Benzes, Lincolns, Audis & BMWs can be carried too in the DVD transport market.
Denon offers the best of both worlds: Perfectionist video standard obtainable through qualifiably democratic pricing. Its never cheap, that is a monetary given, let it be understood. But Denon's pricing is tempered and within a certain sane limit. Its never outrageous, imposing prices that shoots up to the stratosphere. The Denon top of the line DVD player is the $3,500 5910A universal. It has the Realta chip. If you balked at this value, then go to the 3930ci model, it has the same "holy grail of video" Realta chip but selling for considerably less at the local pricing of P78,000. If you still balked and howl over 78k then get the 2930ci - its priced at least 40% less, and it has the Reon chip, Realta's little brother. If you still have moral qualms spending that much, go for the 1930ci - it has the best Faroudja-DCDi video chip you could obtained right now. Thus all price points are covered and no one misses the chance of owning the Denon.
Now after DVD, the next video frontier is the Blu Ray. Denon covers that too. It has the BD3800, the 2500 and a third lesser version. The 3800 - in theory - is the most competent player on the present market. First, because it gives Realta processing to DVD (upconversion, scaling, etc.) and two, because it plays Blu Ray. But a Denon brethren is about to unveil its own Blu Ray weapon and this one looks even more formidable.
The MARANTZ BD8002 is stated to offer the same capacity as the BD3800 but words from the insiders hinted that it gives better overall video quality. The price: estimatedly P103,000+. Is that outrageous? At the very least that remains in a saner limit, morally better than paying Meridian $8,000 for a DVD player that has a cloud of a technical Emperor's New Cloth casts around it.
