Opinions on DVD players w/DVI

[Adz]

If you could pick any of the following DVD players focusing on which one has the best video quality which one would you pick and why?

Elite 59Avi vs. Denon 5900 vs. Marantz 8400 vs. ??




Adz

[Chris D]

Adz, as I understand it, up to about 2 weeks ago, the Denon 5900 put out the best audio and video signals of any DVD player even close to being reasonably priced. (maybe less than $3000) This would just be based on various reviews I've read.

However, in the past few weeks, new models have begun to appear on the market, even including HDMI, not just DVI, so all bets are off now as new stuff is being tried out. Things will definitely change over the next month.




CHRIS
Luke: "Hey, I'm not such a bad pilot myself, you know"

[Adz]

That's interesting Chris. Do you know the model brands?
Also, I heard the DVI in the 5900 has never been right - anyone have it or hear the same thing?




Adz

[aud19]

I personally wouldn't buy any DVD player because it has DVI. If it has it and I choose to use it great. But IMO DVI only offers very slight to no PQ improvement over high quality component connections from a player with high quality output. Also IMO, the slight improvement will be most noticeable on a all-digital, chip based display (LCD, DLP etc). DVI or HDMI are more about content protection for the studios than anything else. The biggest consumer advantage is less wires.

FYI most displays allow minimal to no picture adjustments (colour,tint etc) on the DVI input as well so keep that in mind too. Also most displays only have one DVI connection. Personally I'd rather use that one connection for a DVI/HDMI equipped HD satellite/OTA/cable box where the higher HD resolutions will actually bennefit from a digital connection. Not to mention if those content providers actually start using HDCP that you'll need that DVI-with-HDCP connection to watch/record it.

But to get to your question I'd go for the Denon given those choices. You may want to do some digging as to what new models are coming out in the immediate future. Also, in that price range you may want to check out some of the smaller, high-end companies offerings, especially if the video and sound quality are of equal importance to you. You may have to give up some functionality like SACD to get top audio/video performance.

Jason




Need a new display? Questions about new display technologies? Visit RPTVs, plasmas, and other monitors @ HTguide

[Bam!]

Hey duders!

While Jason is right Denon does put out the best pic.....have you ever heard of Bravo...dvi.....400.00$ Canadian bones! 8O





Whatcha ya thinka ?




Bam!

[ht_addict]

For Canadians try out the LG7832. Upconverts to 1080i via component. PQ is excellent.

ht_addict

[Brandon B]

While everything Jason says is true, if you do have the right kind of display, it is a very worthwhile difference. DVI into my LCD FP is a very very clear improvement over component. My PJ however, does not lock out all picture adjustment with DVI like some do.

However, to get the same PQ as these decks, and avoid the single DVI input issue he raises, you might consider another route. Get one of the SDI out modified DVD decks available from various sources, and one of the new generation of scalers from Lumagen, iScan, etc, which accept SDI in as well as having 2 DVI inputs and a whole lot of other really nice features. You can put this combo together for the $3000 mentioned and have the best of all worlds. And it avoids the whole HDCP pitfall too.

I have the Bravo D1, and mine is probably in the top 5 % best behaved, and it is still a little glitchy and annoying. I am looking to have my old pioneer 301 disk deck modified to do SDI out and get one these scalers myself this summer and go this route.

BB

[Chris D]

I would agree that a DVI player is a VERY, VERY good feature to have nowadays. I also have the Bravo D1 mentioned above, and the cheap $175 or whatever it cost me does outshine any component connection in my house when it comes to an HD set.




CHRIS
Luke: "Hey, I'm not such a bad pilot myself, you know"

[ThomasW]

Consider the new Zenith DVB318. It's the newest version (read debugged) of the LG7832. It has component and DVI out. It upscales 480p/720p/1080i, and uses the DCDi (aka Faroudja) chipset. It can be easily be made region free and has no problems with copy protected sources.

There's only one problem, you'll need to spend a whopping $199 (delivered) to buy it.




theAudioWorx
Klone-Audio

[Adz]

What I've heard is that DEnon DVI doesn't work too well and that the Pioneer's upconversion is preemo spectacular. I am going to check both out this weekend side by side on the same TV (some type of Plasma).

Per Brandon B:

Get one of the SDI out modified DVD decks available from various sources,

Can someone explain what this means - I'm familar with mods but not SDI.




Adz

[Gordon Moore]

Serial Digital Interface...


this may help:

http://www.digitalconnection.com/Products/Video/sdikit.asp

"A RONSTER!"

[Brandon B]

Some extra background :

SDI is an "industrial" video bus, not found in any consumer device. In its most basic form, it carries 480i video, component or composite. A standard 75 ohm BNC terminated video cable is used to carry it, and good quality cables (such as canare's and belden 1505 or 1694 high end RG5 and RG6, etc.) can carry it hundreds of feet. We use it for SD and HD content ditribution in our newer attractions.

The newest generation of scalers (and a few older ones) accept this signal, and then all the de-interlacing and scaling is done by the (usually) superior capabilities of these units. Also, you then have top notch scaling for your non-dvd sources like satellite, etc. You can then connect the single output (DVI in the case of the lumagen I am contemplating) to your display.

Most of these new scalers are also a little more future oriented in that they de-interlace 1080i, which will be nice a couple of years down the road when we have true hidef digital displays.


BB

[JonMarsh]

DVB318 rather interesting...

Consider the new Zenith DVB318. It's the newest version (read debugged) of the LG7832. It has component and DVI out. It upscales 480p/720p/1080i, and uses the DCDi (aka Faroudja) chipset. It can be easily be made region free and has no problems with copy protected sources.

There's only one problem, you'll need to spend a whopping $199 (delivered) to buy it.

Some of us have ordered one of these interesting little guys already. There's not many places they're available, so Wild West Electronics has gotten a bit swamped handling the orders. Hope to have it in next week.

It's all part of the new bang for the buck bottom feeding strategy for video....

... and this coming from Mr. "Spare no expense" DIY guy!

[Adz]

Movi Magic

What does anyone know about the Movi Magic 2000 DVD player and its picture quality compared to the Denon, etc.?

[LEVESQUE]

Also, I heard the DVI in the 5900 has never been right - anyone have it or hear the same thing?
Adz

Huh? Go read the Secrets shoot-out and review of the 5900.

Best DVI-player on the market now.

There is a "macroblocking" issue for less then 1% of owners, particularly those with DLP displays.

But I just got my JVC HX-1U (3 chip LCOS) and there is no macroblocking on any of the most "problematic" titles.

The 5900 over DVI with the D-ILA gives me the best picture I have ever seen. I own a LG 7832 also, but with a 110'' dia screen, the 5900 is untouchable for PQ, sharpness and colors accuracy. Jaw dropping picture. My friends were all speechless yesterday.

With a pure digital path (player and displays) the PQ is awesome. DVI is the way to go in this situation.

And the audio quality of the 5900 is to the level of the TEAC DV-50 that I did try at home also. But the teac is roughly 3 times the price!

[Bam!]

Huh? Go read the Secrets shoot-out and review of the 5900.

Best DVI-player on the market now.

There is a "macroblocking" issue for less then 1% of owners, particularly those with DLP displays.

But I just got my JVC HX-1U (3 chip LCOS) and there is no macroblocking on any of the most "problematic" titles.

The 5900 over DVI with the D-ILA gives me the best picture I have ever seen. I own a LG 7832 also, but with a 110'' dia screen, the 5900 is untouchable for PQ, sharpness and colors accuracy. Jaw dropping picture. My friends were all speechless yesterday.

With a pure digital path (player and displays) the PQ is awesome. DVI is the way to go in this situation.

And the audio quality of the 5900 is to the level of the TEAC DV-50 that I did try at home also. But the teac is roughly 3 times the price!

I sense someone struck our buddies cord here!!!

Let's not get our panties bunched up here boys and girls......In my mind if the 2200 has amazing pic quality....the 5900 must be pretty sweet....not to take sides....

Guys... :W

[LEVESQUE]

LOL! Sorry. I didn't want to sound angry or anything... ops:

But there is alot of undeserve nitpicking concerning the 5900 on some forums.

[aud19]

The 5900 is supposed to be an amazing beast to say the least. If you've got the $$ and want it, you can't go wrong.

Let me offer one alternative though. For the cost of a 5900 you could build yourself one hell of a HTPC with DVI output that would also allow you to scale other sources, browse the net, email, play games, compute, and use as a DVR and/or media server besides giving you stellar image quality.

Jason

[Brandon B]

oooh. 110" emails.

BB

[LEVESQUE]

Aud19.

I already have an HTPC with PowerStrip.

How do you think I can use the full 1400X788 resolution of my projector? :B

[aud19]

Get a projector with a "normal" resolution :B ...lol

Jason

[Adz]

Noone answered me on the MoviMagic 2000 DVD player.

Also, I don't mean to cause a stir or diss the 5900. Its just what I heard and I heard that the Elite 59avi has some pretty sick upscaling that blows away the entry level Faroujda DCDI that comes with other brands. I haven't seen it myself, just what I heard.

However, I am interested in just video quality and do not need to pay for audio/SACD,DVD-A, etc. So, it sounds like a HTPC is the answer, I just don't know how to go about obtaining one from a third party.

Feel free to comment away!!

[Bam!]

Adz!

Andrew Pratt is selling his....I have been debating on it.....give him an email...he is selling it cheap too! :E

Trust me if Andrew made it himself....it is amazing :E

[aud19]

Well there's the Gateway ready-made unit FMC-901 Family Media Center PC


But really if you have the desire for a smoking system step on over to Tower of Power! and all us folks can help ya put a nice one together yourself which should outperform the Gateway

Jason

[aud19]

Andrew's selling his?!?! He just made it a month or two ago?! 8O

Jason

[jazznsoccer]

How does this HTPC do on sound quality. The big draw of the 5900 for me is its one heck of a universal sound source and a great video source as well. If the HTPC equals the 5900 for video then I could look at just sound players.

[aud19]

Well you should probably post this in the Tower of Power area but....

The M-Audio Revolution 7.1 is pretty much the cream of the crop for sound cards. Will it meet the audio quality of the 5900? I don't know. I would guess no just because there's more RF interference going on in inside a PC but if you're building one yourself you could probably rig up some DIY shielding. You could also investigate external sound processing options. Otherwise it's supposed to sounds pretty damn good. As good as the 5900...probably not quite but probably not too far off.

Jason

[Adz]

Aud,

Was that answer for someone without a processor? For instance wouldn't the Rotel processor be superior to the software you cite?

Next question is, can you give that same answer but for video and does it match the video quality of a DVD player like the 5900?

[aud19]

Well either really, as it can act as a processor or use it's analog ouputs to an external pre/pro's analog inputs as well as having digital outputs for DD, DTS etc to an external processor. That's the sort of flexibility you have with a HTPC. There are also some ASUS motherboards with onboard audio that even do DD encoding on the fly for games etc. Though they won't give you the same fidelity as the M-Audio card or a stand alone player. It really depends on what you want the system to do. IMO you'll get the best results out of a HTPC using it for movies and/or games as well as for PVR and media server duties. That's not to say you can't get good audio quality for music out of PC's it just won't be as good as say a high-end stand alone CD player etc. But not much is...

The nicest thing about HTPC's is being able to change any hardware or software as you wish to improve performance or change it's abilities. I mean if you spend enough money on hard drives you could put all your CD's and DVD's on hard drives and have them accesible to small client-based PC's in other rooms of your house! It all depends on what you want to do and how much you want to spend.

As for it matching the 5900 for video. I haven't personally seen the 5900 so I can't really comment on a comparison between the two. I have seen my brothers HTPC running to his Samsung DLP RPTV via DVI upsampled to his sets native 1280x720 and I nearly needed a forklift to retrieve my jaw from the floor if that helps ya

Jason

[Chris D]

I've personally only seen SDI capability on very high-end equipment. Because it's not oriented towards consumer equipment, I think it would be difficult to buy or modify your equipment to support SDI without spending big $$$.

[Andrew Pratt]

Andrew's selling his?!?! He just made it a month or two ago?!

Yes its true I'm selling mine. The sad fact is that since I built it I haven't had time to even boot it more then a couple of times never mind tweaking etc. We're also going to be buying a car very soon and I just can't justify having it sitting in the rack unused when the funds could go towards a lower car loan...besides I can always build another later on when (if) things slow down a little for me. Anyway not to turn this into an ad but for interests sake here's what I ended up building.

Here's what's is in the HTPC....

Motherboard - Asus A7N8XE - Deluxe
CPU - AMD Barton 2800+
Video = ATI 9600
Satallite DVB - VisionPlus 1020
Audio - I use the on the onboard audio though the SoundStorm chip and port the digital audio out to my Rotel 1098. The Soundstorm encodes all audio to Dolby Digital on the fly so even games and TV shows are streamed to the processor in DD!
Harddrive is an 80 gig Seagate SATA drive since they're quite and fast.
DVD-Rom is a Liteon
CPU cooler is the very quite Zalman unit so the PC is virtually silent.
Case is the Antec Overture which I painted the front black so its invisible in my rack.

Here's what it looks like all done up.

http://www.mts.net/~glendap/HTPC/Img_1969.jpg

[jazznsoccer]

It's interesting to think that the HTPC could replace DVDs and pre/pro's - just a set of balanced outputs to your KA amp and HDMI or DVI to you digital dsiplsy and good to go! :sn :drool:

This allows lots of tweaks, etc.

But I doubt that the PC add ins are up to par with dedicated units just yet.

[LEVESQUE]

My HTPC is made of:

CPU: P4 3.2-800 (OC at 3.8.)
MB: Asus P4C800-E-DX
Video: Asus 9800 Pro DVI
Audio: Audigy2
Memory: 2X512Meg
DVD player: Sony
DVD-Writer: HP
2X40 gig SATA Raptor (fast!)
2X120gig SATA Seagate

I think it's a fairly good set-up, but my Denon 5900 is better for audio and sound.

The only exception is with my JVC HX-1U at 1400X788 1:1 resolution. Then the HTPC is a little bit better. But not by much, and only because it's not a standard resolution. I did try both with a BenQ 8700 at 720p, and the 5900 was better.

And I did try a Momitsu V880 at with a custom resolution of 1400X788 and it was almost like the HTPC.

HTPC are not the end-all be all...

There is pro/cons to both.