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Overview
Rather than giving into the hype with the recent frenzy of DVD manufacturers fighting to produce either the latest HD-DVD or Blue-ray technology, Denon have certainly stuck to what they know best by improving on the standard definition performance system using integrated video scaling.
The Denon 1930 offers you the possibility to up-convert to hi-def signals, including the 1080p. This will improve the quality of your existing DVD collection using integrated video scaling which creates detailed images.
Review
With all them DVD’s you got as presents for Xmas, I have found a great DVD player, the Denon 1930, to watch them on, and with the festive season leaving you short on the pennies, this won’t break the bank balance either!
Firstly, the Denon 1930 wins on the style stake with its robust design and stylish aluminium front panel. I like the fact the DVD player is larger and arranged at the front panel, so its easier for you to search for the right buttons.
The digital connection carries all hi-def signals and multi-channel audio by a single cable to upscale video signal, as long as you have a digital display with corresponding HDMI connectivity. It also offers several audio outputs which can be connected to an external amplifier to carry multi-channel film and music soundtracks for surround setups which I found to be extremely handy.
The player will up-convert standard DVD’s to hi-def 720p, 1080i and the latest 1080p formats. I found that it was one of the best players to offer the highest 1080p standard and the images are impressive.
You can play a variety of discs including standard DVDs and CDs and -R/-RW recording formats carrying encoded JPEG, WMA, MP3 and compressed video DivX files. There’s also support for both DVD-Audio and SACD multi-channel music formats.
It has an excellent internal specification and uses the highest quality components which clearly reflect in it excellent performance. The icon-based menu system is easy to navigate and uncomplicated.
When switching to video scaling, images were more detailed and this was controlled with the Black Enhancer from the set-up menu system. Even images with dark backgrounds gave an excellent picture quality. The audio performance offered a lot more than your typical DVD players, such as Multi-channel music discs and standard CDs.
However, although up-scaling improves detail and fluidity, which comes close to hi-def performance I found that it still fell short of playing true hi-def content using next-generation players like Blu-ray and HD-DVD. Also, another main problem was that you needed a compatible display with a full hi-def resolution (1,920×1,080 pixels) to display it. I found that on older displays it didn’t support video scaling, and although it can be connected to a RGB Scart terminal the performance still wasn’t great.
Specification
S-video Connections: 1 input
Speaker outputs: No
The Gaj-it Verdict
- Design: 8/10
- Usability: 7/10
- Features: 8/10
- Love: 1080p video scaling, easy to use and excellent picture and sound performance
- Loathe: Basic menu system and not compatible with older dvds
We say: We like the Denon’s DVD-1930 features video upscaling. It’s excellent for someone who wants to improve the performance of your existing DVDs without wanting to spend too much. It doesn’t have best image quality compared to the next generation dvd players, but then again for the price we can’t have it all!