However once I became familiar with how

Yesterday I had the pleasure of spending some time with the new Denon DVD-2930CI which uses the Silicon Optix Reon HQV chipset. The review took place at my good friend Raj Birbal’s ‘Home Cinema Entertainment’ in Alpharetta Georgia. I have to say it was quite a home theater geek-fest, as we not only tested the 2930CI but the Denon DVD-1730 and Calibre Vantage-HD video scaler/switcher but as if this wasn’t enough, all viewing took place on the impressive InFocus 777 video projector.
As fun as all the above products were to play around with I want to get back to the DVD-2930CI, as you may remember I first mentioned the HQV equipped player back in mid July and at the time it was assumed (based on Denon’s ship schedule) that the earliest we would get our hands on one would be in September. Long story short luckily we didn’t have to wait that long.
As mentioned above, the display device for this review was an InFocus 777 front projector, the 777 is a three chip 720p projector that I have to say, beyond any shadow of a doubt was simply the best 720p display I’ve ever seen, which is also problematic to some degree. I generally prefer to do my reviews at home with my equipment because, well it’s just what I’m most accustomed to.
However once I became familiar with how the 777 looked (I took my Toshiba HD-XA1 and played some SD DVD on it) I felt that the combination of the displays 720p resolution and the fact that Raj uses a massive 123” diagonal screen in his showroom, more than balanced out the differences from my system.
Or in other words even though the projector was considerably better than what I’m used to, standard definition DVD’s at 123” should by default be handicapped considerably. Well what I found was that theory holds little weight to how well the DVD-2930CI displays DVD, even on massive screens.
First Impressions: Un-boxing the player immediately told me that Denons’s heavy, solid build quality on their mid to upper end gear is still very much in place. The player felt as if it could have been extruded from a solid piece of steel rather than containing some of the most advanced circuitry to ever grace the inside of a DVD player. No flimsy plastic casing here, the shell felt as if it was professional instrument grade quality and not a piece of consumer electronics.
The remote wasn’t backlit but as anyone who’s seriously considering this player, likely owns a universal remote this was hardly reason for concern. I will say that even though it wasn’t backlit, the remote was a step up from the utilitarian remote included with my DVD-1910. The front panel controls and rear panel connection were classic Denon, simple logical and refined.
Cabling & Connections: As the player is an up-scaler (all the way to 1080p) we opted for HDMI directly to the projector and coaxial to the surround system. Even though the 777 accepts 1080p inputs, I opted for 720p from the 2930CI as it matched the projectors native resolution as well as ensured that all processing took place in the DVD-2930CI and not the projector. After all the internal HQV chipset was the real focus here