the blu-ray side has just added another manufacturer -- denon. check out this http://www.e-gear.com/search/blog/blog.bsp?linkdata=Grant Clauser&linkvar=author it's an expensive one. what do you think this will do to the market? gc
It will have no effect on the mass market as this is geared toward the high-end enthusiast. Denon has always been a high-end brand. Their flagship 5910 DVD player retails for $3800 and it doesn't even play BluRay! A few significant features: It can decode DTS-HD Master Audio (the first player to do so) as well as Dolby True HD. It has the Silicon Optix Realta HQV chip which is in some cases even better than the Reon. BD Player 1.1 compliant. 7.1 Analog outputs. No ethernet but has an SD slot for downloadable content from a PC. SACD and DVD-A capability - not known at this time. (Please correct me if I'm wrong on any of these.)
Looks like something that you would buy dblbogey7. LOL! Anyway there's speculation that there would be no SACD or DVD-A support because of the lack of a Denon Link port at the back. However, some are saying that the SACD and DVD-A multichannel signal could be transmitted thru the HDMI 1.3 port. So I guess this is all up in the air. The other advanced features are very attractive though especially that Realta chip.
@dblbogey7: According to Audioholics the analog audio cicuitry on the 3800 is borrowed from their flagship 5910. That alone can be worth the premium on this machine. Plus this is the first player that has bitstream bypass so you can transmit native Dolby True HD and BTS HD-MA.
@eatsushi: Yeah, I saw that review article from Audioholics. It's a pretty good summary of what to expect from this model and it also shows why the $2K price tag is justified.
