Advice on new DVD Player: Denon vs. Panasonic

[jamison162]

I've had a Denon DVD-2200 for several years now and it has been a great player. I'm finally looking for a new player with the main goal being upconversion of standard format DVD's (we have a huge collection). I'm not specifically looking to get into Blu-Ray at this time but have picked out 2 players that look appealing to me and are VERY cost efficient.

Given the above, which would you guys recommend?

1) Denon 1940CI standard DVD format w/upconversion and Faroudja de-interlacer. $109

-or-

2) Panasonic DMP-BD60K Blu-Ray player w/upconversion. $205

[N. Abstentia]

BluRay player, no contest. Especially if you have an HDMI input.....no brainer.

The only drawback to BluRay is that once you watch BluRay you won't want to watch your DVD's anymore

[jamison162]

Thanks A!

So are there any other Blu-Ray players I should consider in the $200 price range other than the Panasonic?

[02audionoob]

Thanks A!

So are there any other Blu-Ray players I should consider in the $200 price range other than the Panasonic?

For $200 you could get the Sony BDP-S350.

[jamison162]

My Denon AVR-1804 does not have HDMI input. Is a Blu-Ray with analog outputs and onboard decoding a must have in this situation?

[02audionoob]

My Denon AVR-1804 does not have HDMI input. Is a Blu-Ray with analog outputs and onboard decoding a must have in this situation?

You can listen to the Blu-ray audio in Dolby Digital or DTS without the analog outputs, but not TrueHD or DTS-HD.

[pixelthis]

My Denon AVR-1804 does not have HDMI input. Is a Blu-Ray with analog outputs and onboard decoding a must have in this situation?

Like the man said, you need a player with analog outs to get the lossless sound.
This amazing sound is one of the great things about BLU.
I just watched knowing on BLU and the audio was mind boggling.

[Woochifer]

I recently purchased that same Denon player, and I would go with the Blu-ray player. I use that Denon as a backup player for DVDs, DVD-As, and SACDs. I bought it to take the load off my PS3, which I use for Blu-ray playback and wireless media streaming. But, choosing to do without one or the other, I would go without the DVD player.

If you own a HDTV, there's simply no going back to DVDs once you've started running BDs, the difference is that striking. In years past, most BD players did not do a great job with DVD playback, so that was an issue when deciding between a DVD or BD player. But, that Panny has gotten high marks for how it handles DVD playback, as have other recently released BD players. In your price range, go with either the Panny or the Sony BD players. Previous Samsungs have required frequent firmware patches, and the LG models are hit and miss. Sharp purportedly has the fastest load times, and both them and Philips have models that are easy to find below $200, albeit with performance that's a step below the rest of the pack.

[pixelthis]

And as far as quality goes, wooch and I are arch enemies on several things,
but we do agree on Panny quality.
I have a 26 year old Technics by Panasonic turntable(well, two of them), both work fine.
And I purchased a dvd-dvdaudio Panny DVD player in 2001, I recently got it back from a friend to use as a CD player(it has 192khz/24bit DACS).
And while the sound is without question audiophile grade(I think this was meant to have the Technics name on it) the video is still competitive.
So if you want a player they will bury with you, Panny is the way to go.

[jamison162]

I bought the Panny BD60 this past Wed. Will hook it up this weekend. Thanks. Oh, and I got it right down the road from me at HHGregg for $229 + tax.

Are the Panny TV's (Plasma) any good. I was looking at the Mitsubush 65" DLP's and wasn't all that impressed. Something will have to eventually replace my 60" Sony LCD RP.

[westcott]

It is a real crap shoot buying a player using a Faroudja video processor. I had a Denon 910 and it worked great with my Panasonic projector and plasma display. I then "upgraded" to the Oppo Digital DV981HD for HDMI support, but it macroblocked terrribly on my plasma. I am selling it.

If you want to save money, get a great upconverting standard DVD player, and still get BluRay, do what I did.

I went on eBay and bought a Samsung BDP1200 BR player. It is ranked as one of the best SD DVD players ever made (uses Reon video processor) and is probably the best player for the money, next to the Denon 5910 which is not BR. I paid US$68!!!!! on eBay for a used one.

It is awesome, best video processor available, and cost less than anything else I could find at half the performance. I now have two of them.

Dont get me wrong, I love Denon and they are consistently the best DVD players made but I have given up on the older Faroudjia video processor. Stick with Reon, Realta, or Anchor Bay. If the player does not have one of these, don't buy it.

Panasonic used to be at the top of the heap with very affordable and very good video. This trend seems to have come to an end.

[Poultrygeist]

Looking forward to the Vizio Blu-ray that premiers this month at Walmart for $150. 7.1 analog outs can't be found at this price point.

[pixelthis]

Looking forward to the Vizio Blu-ray that premiers this month at Walmart for $150. 7.1 analog outs can't be found at this price point.

Will probably be a Funai(nothing wrong with that).
If you get one we need a review, please.

[RoadRunner6]

To me it's a no-brainer. The Panasonic DMP-BD605K (exactly the same as the 60K) at Costco is on sale thru the end of July for $199.99. Costco gives you a two year warranty and it has satifaction returnable gaurantee with no time limit. I personally tested it against my $499 Oppo BDP-83 at home, side by side. The Oppo was ever so slightly better on Blu-Ray and only slightly better on DVD upconversion (I had to watch very closely to see any differences). I don't think you can match the Panny's performance anywhere near this price.

[jamison162]

The Panny BD60 is awesome on Blu-Ray, even on my 4 yr. old Sony. It will only do 1080i not 1080p, so I'm not sure what I am missing out on there. Can't I force it to do 720p? I wonder if motion would be smoother. Still haven't watch any SD DVD's to check out the upconversion.

[Woochifer]

The Panny BD60 is awesome on Blu-Ray, even on my 4 yr. old Sony. It will only do 1080i not 1080p, so I'm not sure what I am missing out on there. Can't I force it to do 720p? I wonder if motion would be smoother. Still haven't watch any SD DVD's to check out the upconversion.

Your TV is going to deinterlace and rescale a 1080i signal to the native resolution regardless. You know you will get the better motion smoothness of 720p if the original source uses 720p as the native format. What you see with 1080i depends on how well the video device does the deinterlacing and scaling. A 720p TV will lose some of the detail when the image gets scaled down.

As for upconversion, your Blu-ray player should let you select the output format. Given that you have an older HDTV, the video processing with the Blu-ray player should be better, so you should let it handle the rescaling to 720p.

The DVD upconversion feature is largely overrated and misrepresented because any HDTV will "upconvert" a native SD signal just to display it. Using an upconverting DVD player simply means that the deinterlacing and rescaling will take place within the player rather than the TV. It says absolutely nothing about the DVD player will handle that processing better than the TV. In many cases, the TV will do a better or at least equal job, although older HDTVs generally came with inferior processing chips.