Denon’s first Blu-ray player – the DVD-1800BD

Denon’s first Blu-ray player has all you’d expect from a current-model high definition disc spinner, including 1080p/24fps video output, Dolby True HD, Dolby Digital Plus and DTS-HD Master Audio support, Bonus View compatibility for accessing the video Picture-in-Picture features provided on some discs, plus HDMI 1.3 for Deep Colour and x.v Colour.

The DVD-1800BD, however, sports a price of $1,699, with the premium covering what Denon describes as its “advanced on-board interlaced-to-progressive conversion and 1080p upscaling technology that produces some of the finest images currently available from this format”.

The DVD-1800BD also provides a suite of picture adjustment controls that include brightness and contrast, along with colour and sharpness adjustments and a gamma control for superior deep black and dark grey performance.

Playback of most common disc types, including DVD+R/RW, DVD-R/RW, CD, CD-R/RW, is provided, and MP3, WMA, JPG and Divx (version 6) formats are supported. The player provides an SD slot for accessing multimedia, and a Pure Direct mode disable all video circuitry within the player to allow optimum audio fidelity from CD.