Denon DVD-2800 Hits the Street

[mwiener]

FYI - I am posting this because I have been following this player closely for better than 3 months now. I am really exited that it is finally shipping. If you are shopping for a progressive scan player, you definitely need to check this out. The Denon DVD-2800 is about to hit the store shelves. This unit contains the DVDO (SiI503) which is the same chip that powers the Iscan Pro line doubler. It is supposed to have one of the best pictures available, even comparable to boutique players like the Camelot that sells for 3K. Will the unit live up to the unbelievable hype? I really hope so. Even if it only 75% of the hype is true, it will still be a great value at a street price of $650. For you audiophiles, it provides 96khz digital outputs to your receiver from Chesky and some of the other high end record labels. It discusses it in the owners manual. I am not going to buy one until some reviews hit the street. I suggest you do the same. You can view the owners manual, spec sheet, and a couple of pictures at the Denon site:

http://del.denon.com/catalog/products.asp?l=1&c=4

Below is a cut and past of the players capabilities from the Denon site:

Progressive Scan DVD Player Powered by Silicon Image/DVDO PureProgressive (SiI503) Decoding Engine - highest quality progressive decoding engine available PureProgressive decoding features high speed ultra-resolution DSP at 6 Billion Operations Per Second (6 GOPS)with 64Mb external SDRAM 4 fields (2 frames) digital video processing for optimum motion detection and compensation Accurate 2:3 pulldown detection and reconstruction, even with inaccurately flagged content Optimum processing for film content, video content, graphics content and mixed-mode content Highest resolution Analog Devices 54 MHz, 4:4:4, 12 bit Video D/A Conversion system Progressive & Interlace output (switchable) Wideband relay switched component video output Variable Black Level (Setup): 0 and 7.5 IRE Passes below-black (PLUGE) on progressive and interlace outputs 5 Picture Memories, with adjustable tint, brightness, contrast, sharpness and gamma SuperSub Alias Filter Composite and "S" output (interlace mode) 2X DVD read speed; 4X CD/CD-R/CD-RW read speed; with 4MB drive buffer memory Top audio performance, featuring Analog Devices multi-bit Sigma Delta 24 bit, 96 kHz D/A conversion HDCD decoding MP3 Playback Plays Audio CDs; HDCDs; DVD-Video; Video CDs; Audio CD-R; Audio CD-RW; MP3 CD-R; MP3 CD-RW 24/96 digital output; optical and coaxial Virtual Surround Sound SRP $799

Also, according to the forum thread below at the end, a Denon employee confirms that the unit started shipping. You should see them in the stores in 8-12 weeks. Apparently, they pre sold a very large quantity of these units which accounts for the long delivery time.

http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/Forum4/HTML/002212.html

Mike.