Denon Passes on Blu-ray and HD-DVD, Launches New DVD Players at CEDIA Expo

Instead of jumping onto the HD-DVD or Blu-ray bandwagon, Denon continues to recognize that most of the movies available today are only available on standard DVD, so their newest DVD players are designed to make standard DVDs look as close as possible to high definition. They do this primarily due to incorporation of excellent video processing technology from Silicon Optix. Also, their top-end models are "universal" players that support SACD as well as DVD-Audio playback.

Their new models, the DVD-3930CI ($1499) and DVD-2930CI ($849) DVD players each support upconversion of standard definition 480p DVD to 1080p resolution via HDMI. The DVD-3930CI includes the advanced Silicon Optix chipset, the Realta HQV (Hollywood Quality Video). Key to the chip's image-enhancing power is its ability to perform over 1-trillion video processing operations per second. Its little brother, the 2930CI is the first to feature the new Silicon Optix REON VX chip, designed to deliver optimum picture quality for content shown by major TV networks and Hollywood DVDs.

Key features of the new REON VX chip include HQV de-interlacing, which uses the full four-field processing window for HD video de-interlacing and cadence detection, thus preserving the details in HD imagery. In addition, the REON processor includes HQV Noise Reduction, a pixel-by-pixel noise and motion measurement that detects and reduces the analog and MPEG noise that currently plagues DVD and broadcast sources, as well as HQV Detail Enhancement that pulls out fine details in DVD images, making them appear close to HD quality.

The Silicon Optix chipsets in both the DVD-3930CI and DVD-2930CI feature advanced HQV SD/HD multi-directional 10-bit diagonal filters (MDDF) that remove any "jaggies" and/or stair-stepping artifacts from de-interlaced video sources, without blurring the image. And both players feature Denon's proprietary Denon Pixel Image Correction (DPIC), for additional image enhancement.

Denon's new DVD players include: DVD-3930CI (SRP: $1,499), DVD-2930CI (SRP: $849), DVD-1930CI (SRP: $369) and DVD-1730 (SRP: $169). The company is also adding a new 5-disc DVD changer: the DVM-1835 (SRP: $249).