Denon DVD-3800 DVD-Video/Audio Player

Everything but the kitchen sink (and SACD)

by Mark Fleischmann

If the United Nations ever needs a DVD player to show Harry Potter movies to the General Assembly, I’d recommend the Denon DVD-3800—its menus can be read in 125 different languages. Okay, its obvious appeal to Catalan, Moldavian and Samoan speakers may not be what interests you, but there are plenty of attractions here for both videophiles and audiophiles.

One of those features is the Silicon Image/DVDO SiI504 video-processing chip. This is the same decoding engine found in Denon’s top-of-the-line DVD-9000, which sells for $3,500, versus the 3800′s relatively accessible price tag of $1,199 (possibly less than a grand if you shop around). A high-end, deinterlacing chip like the SiI504 not only provides progressive-scan output for a digital video display, but also does it well, which is an entirely different matter. By gulping up two full frames of video data at a time (that’s a lot), SiI504 generates pretty good reconstructions of film frames, even if the split-frames, known as fields, are inaccurately flagged. It can also decode mixed film and video content. The end result for the human eye is a reduction in jaggies, blurring and other video artifacts that distract from a good movie’s thrills and chills.

The 3800 is also a DVD-Audio player that plays the delectable lossless, high-resolution disc releases available in that format. The 3800 counts HDCD decoding as another talent, which provides better-than-CD-quality sound with thousands of HDCD releases, many of which are quietly sitting on your shelves at this moment, whether you’re aware of their hidden potential or not. The DVD-3800 will also read your CD-R and CD-RW discs (you godless bootlegger, you), MP3 files, Kodak PictureCDs and even JPEGs. The only thing it can’t do, regrettably, is play discs in SACD, DVD-Audio’s rival format.

This player is built like a little tank. Though it may look like any other black box, it weighs 20 lbs., and there’s a reason for that. Two smaller boxes are inside the enclosure, with each of those boxes containing five different blocks of circuitry. That’s almost as good as the three-box, six-block circuit layout of the $3,500 deck. Of course, the benefit of physically separating circuits is to reduce interference, and impart a seemingly miraculous level of noiselessness to both video and audio. Slicker audiophiles may take the opportunity to switch off the video circuits for purer sound quality.

The 3800 provides a variety of picture adjustments that may duplicate those found in a good DTV. If your display is missing any adjustments for screen shape or picture quality, they’re probably available somewhere in this DVD player’s menus. The duplicated controls are also an aid to convenience. For instance, any display can adjust black level, but using this DVD player’s two-step black-level adjustment makes it easy to switch from daytime to nighttime viewing without affecting your display’s carefully tweaked (I should hope) settings. Denon even provides picture memories so you can summon up to five different groups of preferred settings.

This full-featured DVD player arrived while I was using SIM2 Sèleco’s HT 300 DLP projector, connected with Tributaries’ component and S-video cables to Stewart’s DLP-friendly FireHawk screen. (Thanks to Lee Richman of Nu Sound Concepts in Long Island City, New York, for the projector mount.) My receiver of the moment was the Marantz SR8200, a good THX Select model with 6.1 channels, though I stayed in 5.1 mode. (There is no 6.1-channel version of DVD-Audio, thank heavens.)

I started with a few rented movies from Blockbuster. A quick note to my fellow renters: I don’t care which fluids you are smearing on the discs. Just stop it. I mean it. And quit scratching them, too. Let me note for the record that the DVD-3800 never mis-tracked, no matter what kind of crud I put in the disc drawer.

Some DVD players deliver a somewhat soft-focused picture, but the Denon was as crisp as the various Pioneers to which I’m accustomed. I got through rentals of Vanilla Sky, A Beautiful Mind and the Mark Wahlberg vehicle, Rock Star, without being unduly annoyed by video artifacts. The only stumble that occurred with my randomly selected movie material came in a scene from

The Princess and the Warrior (from the German director of Run Lola Run). When the heroine approached a clothesline, some intricately patterned fabrics visibly flickered.

Next, I tried the Sage/Faroudja DCDi test DVD—a tricky series of patterns and clips expressly designed to trip-up deinterlacing chips. A little cross-color interference was visible in the resolution stripes. The moving cross-hatch showed flickering on the horizontal bars. And the swaying stripes of a windblown American flag betrayed a few jaggies. None of these problems was visible when I switched to the interlaced S-video output, at which point the DCDi chip in the SIM2 projector took over.

With the sole exception noted above, the Silicon Image chip made real movie material look pristine. Even so, I’d advise more finicky videophiles to compare the DVD-3800 to Denon’s

DVD-1600 ($549), a DVD-Video/Audio player using the DCDi chip.

DVD-Audio time! This was my first chance to hear Graham Nash’s Songs for Survivors, which is beautifully recorded and sung. Both of the 5.1 soundtracks were impressive. The alternate track in DTS was very close to the main, uncompressed MLP track. Moving on to Steely Dan’s Two Against Nature, I found the tonal balance (as heard through the analog 5.1 outputs) slightly warmer than that of the Pioneer DV-47. (I can’t say I prefer one over the other.) The Denon has one clear advantage over the Pioneer: its bass management settings cover all 5.1 channels, while the Pioneer covers only the center- and rear-surrounds. Then again, the Pioneer can play SACDs, as well as DVD-Audio titles, while the Denon is limited to DVD-A.

The DVD-3800′s HDCD decoding may be buried in the specs, but it’s a significant plus. I played a few tracks from The Bridge School Concerts Vol. 1, including “I Am a Child” by Neil Young, the Beatles cover “Yes It Is,” as crooned by Don Henley, and Ministry’s breezy cover of the Grateful Dead’s “Friend of the Devil.” All of them came through with a believable you-are-there-live quality. Touches of PA-system coloration in the source recording lent an extra touch of verisimilitude. Not all DVD players have HDCD capability, so the manufacturers who do offer it (including Toshiba) should make a bigger deal of it.

Does $1,199 buy perfection? I’ve been through at least as many DVD players as I have fingers, and I’ve yet to find a perfect one. As you may have noticed, I find this player’s lack of SACD capability disappointing, but of the three SACD/DVD-Audio players I’ve heard about, one has spotty bass management, another is prohibitively priced and the third glitches like crazy. Anyone who needs a high-end DVD-Video/Audio player right now should definitely take a look at the Denon DVD-3800. It doesn’t do everything, but it does a lot of things well. I

Visit www.denon.com.