Denon 3D Universal Blu-ray Player DBP-2012UDCI —Review
PROS:
-Played all my 3D Blu-ray's, SACDs, DVD-Audio discs.
-BURR-BROWN PCM-1795 192kHz/32-bit audio digital-to-analog converters are as advertised.
-Anchor Bay Technologies VRS ultra performance ABT-2015 processor does a great job with standard DVD de-interlacing.
-Blu-ray video is spectacular.
CONS:
-no built-in Wi-Fi
-Anchor Bay's solution is not as good as Marvell's video processor with Qdeo™ technology
-The player takes a long time to boot up.
-Slow and Sluggish operation on 3D blu-rays
-On Blu-ray's the player would freeze up during layer changes.
-Audio streaming through the media player is sluggish with occasional freeze ups.
Equipment Used:
Sony KDL-55HX800, Pioneer Elite VSX-33, Emotiva XPA-3, MartinLogan Vantage (Fronts), MartinLogan Motif (Center), MartinLogan Montage (Surrounds), and MartinLogan Depth-i (Subwoofer).
Cables used:
Audioquest Vodka.
Unpacking:
The player comes with a rack mounting kit, remote, power cord, and manual.
I connected the player using my newly purchased Audioquest Vodka cable to the Pioneer Elite VSX-33. Plugged in the power cable and hit the Power button on the remote.......and nothing happened. I then tried to turn the player on using the power button on the player itself and........still nothing.
So, I just sat there thinking that the unit is DOA, but after about 20 seconds or so (I have not timed it yet) the player turned on. Prior to that there was nothing going on. Very strange!!!!
Setup:
With the player turned on (sigh of relief) I proceeded to setup the video and audio features. Video setup was pretty basic and standard. On the audio side, I set player to output audio as bitstream and SACDs to DSD.
You can select SACD layers (Multi, 2-channel, and CD) on the fly.
You can also fine tune DNR, Mosquito Noise, Block Noise, etc. on the fly. I actually did set that to the middle for standard DVDs.
After that I proceeded to add the player to my network for DLNA purposes. Setup the Netflix.
Setup was a breeze and there were no surprises.
Last step in the setup process was to update the Firmware which also went smoothly.
Video Performance:
I ran the player through my standard Blu-ray, 3D Blu-ray, and DVD tests using my some of my reference discs.
Blu-ray:
The video performance on 3D and 2D blu-rays is indeed reference quality. The image is sharp without being edgy. The player does produce and preserve below black and above white information in the video signal. I verified that using the HD Basics test disc by Digital Video Essentials. The player passed all my shadow detail tests from Dark Knight, Avatar, and Star Trek. The depth and detail in the image on Rango was spectacular starting. Especially, Scene 5, when Rango enters the Salon. The detail in the faces/furs/beards of the various characters is just amazing.
The player did freeze up during layer changes on Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows: Part 1, Dark Knight, a couple of others that I don't remember.
DVD:
De-interlacing on standard DVDs was pretty good. The image was clean without any artifacts. All of my DVDs looked very good upscaled to 1080p.
Audio Performance:
I love the A/V presentation of Battle Los Angeles. The surround mix is very aggressive. The first scene is a classic demo scene. Short and sweet. Scene 5 and 10 (highway scene) are as good as any other A/V demo scenes I have seen. I found the audio on this Blu-ray to be a little compressed possibly because the bit rate maxes out at 3.3 MBPS. Just to give you an idea Apollo 13 Special Edition, on DVD, has a DTS audio track that is 1.5 MBPS, highest possible for DVD. So this one is only twice the bit rate of DVD. Movies like Hurt Locker (maxed out at 6 MBPS), Law Abiding Citizen had audio bit rates in excess of 8 MBPS, Pirates was at 6.9 MBPS, and Tron was at 7.7 MBPS. All of these movies sounded very open and natural through the Denon.
I also tried the internal decoding capabilities of the Denon and other than the difference in volume level I heard no audible differences in the sound mix when it was decoded Internally vs. Bitstreamed to the Pioneer Elite VSX-33.
Netflix:
This is where I started to have issues with the Denon. Netflix video streaming was the same as my reference PS3 or the Panasonic BDT210 that I had in my system for the brief period of time. The Denon does not support 5.1 multichannel audio for movies that have that option on Netflix instant play. The PS3 can. I digress....The player would freeze up when I wanted to end my Netflix session occasionaly. It is also very slow as far as the Netflix navigation is concerned. In comparison both the PS3 and Panasonic BDT210 are speed kings.
Media Streaming using DLNA:
This is also where I found the player to have issues. First off, the Denon cannot play Flac or AIFF. It will only play WAV and iTunes. I had to convert all my Flac files to Wave. The other issue I experienced was that after playing 24/192 files through the Denon using the DLNA feature the player would freeze up and I would have to power down and power up again.
Having said that, music, at all resolutions (44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4, and 192 khz) sounded really good but not as good in comparison to ASUS Xonar STX audio card on my media server.
SACD and DVD-Audio:
This is where I really enjoyed the Denon. SACD's and DVD-Audio's sound really good. The same tracks played via digital downloads at the same resolution through the media server or using the Denon's media player don't sound as rich and open. Go figure!
Conclusion:
This is a tough player to rate. Audio and video through the Denon are top notch and I would rate it fairly high in that regard. But a player that is designed as HIGH END and carries a HIGH END price tag should not have this many functionality issues. I can deal with slow players. I don't put a lot of credence in how fast a player goes from Disc-In to the main menu and all that garbage. But, Freeze ups requiring you to power down are silly and annoying. I don't expect that from a high end disc player.
-Played all my 3D Blu-ray's, SACDs, DVD-Audio discs.
-BURR-BROWN PCM-1795 192kHz/32-bit audio digital-to-analog converters are as advertised.
-Anchor Bay Technologies VRS ultra performance ABT-2015 processor does a great job with standard DVD de-interlacing.
-Blu-ray video is spectacular.
CONS:
-no built-in Wi-Fi
-Anchor Bay's solution is not as good as Marvell's video processor with Qdeo™ technology
-The player takes a long time to boot up.
-Slow and Sluggish operation on 3D blu-rays
-On Blu-ray's the player would freeze up during layer changes.
-Audio streaming through the media player is sluggish with occasional freeze ups.
Equipment Used:
Sony KDL-55HX800, Pioneer Elite VSX-33, Emotiva XPA-3, MartinLogan Vantage (Fronts), MartinLogan Motif (Center), MartinLogan Montage (Surrounds), and MartinLogan Depth-i (Subwoofer).
Cables used:
Audioquest Vodka.
Unpacking:
The player comes with a rack mounting kit, remote, power cord, and manual.
I connected the player using my newly purchased Audioquest Vodka cable to the Pioneer Elite VSX-33. Plugged in the power cable and hit the Power button on the remote.......and nothing happened. I then tried to turn the player on using the power button on the player itself and........still nothing.
So, I just sat there thinking that the unit is DOA, but after about 20 seconds or so (I have not timed it yet) the player turned on. Prior to that there was nothing going on. Very strange!!!!
Setup:
With the player turned on (sigh of relief) I proceeded to setup the video and audio features. Video setup was pretty basic and standard. On the audio side, I set player to output audio as bitstream and SACDs to DSD.
You can select SACD layers (Multi, 2-channel, and CD) on the fly.
You can also fine tune DNR, Mosquito Noise, Block Noise, etc. on the fly. I actually did set that to the middle for standard DVDs.
After that I proceeded to add the player to my network for DLNA purposes. Setup the Netflix.
Setup was a breeze and there were no surprises.
Last step in the setup process was to update the Firmware which also went smoothly.
Video Performance:
I ran the player through my standard Blu-ray, 3D Blu-ray, and DVD tests using my some of my reference discs.
Blu-ray:
The video performance on 3D and 2D blu-rays is indeed reference quality. The image is sharp without being edgy. The player does produce and preserve below black and above white information in the video signal. I verified that using the HD Basics test disc by Digital Video Essentials. The player passed all my shadow detail tests from Dark Knight, Avatar, and Star Trek. The depth and detail in the image on Rango was spectacular starting. Especially, Scene 5, when Rango enters the Salon. The detail in the faces/furs/beards of the various characters is just amazing.
The player did freeze up during layer changes on Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows: Part 1, Dark Knight, a couple of others that I don't remember.
DVD:
De-interlacing on standard DVDs was pretty good. The image was clean without any artifacts. All of my DVDs looked very good upscaled to 1080p.
Audio Performance:
I love the A/V presentation of Battle Los Angeles. The surround mix is very aggressive. The first scene is a classic demo scene. Short and sweet. Scene 5 and 10 (highway scene) are as good as any other A/V demo scenes I have seen. I found the audio on this Blu-ray to be a little compressed possibly because the bit rate maxes out at 3.3 MBPS. Just to give you an idea Apollo 13 Special Edition, on DVD, has a DTS audio track that is 1.5 MBPS, highest possible for DVD. So this one is only twice the bit rate of DVD. Movies like Hurt Locker (maxed out at 6 MBPS), Law Abiding Citizen had audio bit rates in excess of 8 MBPS, Pirates was at 6.9 MBPS, and Tron was at 7.7 MBPS. All of these movies sounded very open and natural through the Denon.
I also tried the internal decoding capabilities of the Denon and other than the difference in volume level I heard no audible differences in the sound mix when it was decoded Internally vs. Bitstreamed to the Pioneer Elite VSX-33.
Netflix:
This is where I started to have issues with the Denon. Netflix video streaming was the same as my reference PS3 or the Panasonic BDT210 that I had in my system for the brief period of time. The Denon does not support 5.1 multichannel audio for movies that have that option on Netflix instant play. The PS3 can. I digress....The player would freeze up when I wanted to end my Netflix session occasionaly. It is also very slow as far as the Netflix navigation is concerned. In comparison both the PS3 and Panasonic BDT210 are speed kings.
Media Streaming using DLNA:
This is also where I found the player to have issues. First off, the Denon cannot play Flac or AIFF. It will only play WAV and iTunes. I had to convert all my Flac files to Wave. The other issue I experienced was that after playing 24/192 files through the Denon using the DLNA feature the player would freeze up and I would have to power down and power up again.
Having said that, music, at all resolutions (44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4, and 192 khz) sounded really good but not as good in comparison to ASUS Xonar STX audio card on my media server.
SACD and DVD-Audio:
This is where I really enjoyed the Denon. SACD's and DVD-Audio's sound really good. The same tracks played via digital downloads at the same resolution through the media server or using the Denon's media player don't sound as rich and open. Go figure!
Conclusion:
This is a tough player to rate. Audio and video through the Denon are top notch and I would rate it fairly high in that regard. But a player that is designed as HIGH END and carries a HIGH END price tag should not have this many functionality issues. I can deal with slow players. I don't put a lot of credence in how fast a player goes from Disc-In to the main menu and all that garbage. But, Freeze ups requiring you to power down are silly and annoying. I don't expect that from a high end disc player.
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