Denon DVD-3800BDCI, Panasonic DMP-BD50, and Samsung BD-P1500 BLU-RAY players compared

[HDTV1080P]

3 different brands of BLU-RAY players compared in new September 2008 Home Theater Magazine

On pages 44-54 in the September 2008 Home Theater Magazine review, the Denon DVD-3800BDCI, Panasonic DMP-BD50, and Samsung BD-P1500 are compared against each other by Kris Deering.

Denon DVD-3800BDCI review info

“When I compared the Denon DVD-3800BDCI with the transport, I saw immediate improvement. The DVD-3800BDCI’s performance with 1080p/24 Blu-ray playback looked better than any other players I’ve seen to date.”
“It provided incredible detail and definition. I find it really hard to compare players with Blu-ray playback because they all look excellent across the board. However, when I watched the DVD-3800BDCI on my front projector system, the Denon edged out other players I had on hand in both depth and fine detail.”
“The DVD-3800BDCI’s performance with standard DVD was also first rate. Many Blu-ray players lack great DVD playback capabilities, and this is the first player I would recommended to replace your higher-end, standalone DVD model. The performance fell in line with Denon’s flagship DVD-5910CI, which is one of the best DVD players I’ve ever tested.”

Positive and negative Denon highlights

“Step-up Blu-ray video performance”
“Sluggish navigation and load times”
“Exceptional build and design quality”
“Excellent standard-definition video processing” (Great 480I DVD playback quality)
“Full 7.1 analog and digital audio support” (Will only bitstream DTS-HD and will not decode it internally.)

Panasonic DMP-BD50 review info

“The DMP-BD50 offers full 1080p/24 support with Blu-ray and upconverted DVD playback.”
“Blu-ray playback looked excellent and in line with the best players I’ve seen. The notable exception to this is the Denon DVD-3800BDCI, which looked a tad crisper than the Panasonic.”
“Unfortunately, the DMP-BD50 falls short in standard DVD playback.”
“I hope Panasonic offers a full 7.1-channel analog output in a future model. I would also like to see it improve in the speed department.”

Positive and negative Panasonic highlights

“Full complement of onboard audio decoding” (Only 5.1 analog outs instead of 7.1)
“Exceptional HD video-processing”
“Poor standard-definition video processing” (Poor 480I DVD video processing)
“Bonus View BD-Live compliant” (Requires one to purchase external 1GB SD card for BD-Live)

Samsung BD-P1500 review info

“The BD-P1500 did a great job with 1080p/24 Blu-ray playback. It presented the high-quality image that we expected from Blu-ray players.”
“Since Samsung doesn’t use a high-end video processor, the BD-P1500 lacks the ability to properly convert 1080i to 1080P, regardless of the cadence. This only affects a limited number of titles on the market today (mostly concert videos), but it is still something you should consider if you’re looking for a complete high-performance Blu-ray solution.”
“The BD-1500 did have an anomaly that I haven’t seen on any other Blu-ray player. For some reason, the menus looked slightly blurry.” “Letters lacked their usual sharpness, and menus exhibited a bit of haze and lack of contrast. While this didn’t affect movie playback, it still became a distracting oddity.”
“Standard DVD video performance far better than I expected. Most Blu-ray players offer mediocre DVD performance compared with the better DVD players on the market. But the BD-P1500 performed remarkably well with my testing. It offered high-end deinterlacing performance and better than average scaling quality. I don’t think it offers quite the performance of Samsung’s more expensive BD-P1200, which used Silicon Optix’s HQV processing, but it worked better than majority of players near this price point. Most people will find this to be a suitable substitute for almost any DVD player on the market.”

“Without a doubt, the BD-P1500 is the fastest standalone Blu-ray player I’ve used. While it isn’t quite as fast as Sony’s Playstation 3, the BD-P1500’s load times were faster than the other players in this roundup and one’s I used before.” “It moved at speeds that were more in line with what I’ve come to expect from the PS3. It’s great to see a manufacturer start to make some real strides in this department.”

Positive and negative Samsung highlights

“Fast load and navigation for a standalone player”
“Great stand-definition video processing” (Great 480I DVD playback quality)
“Limited onboard audio decoding” (Only 2 analog stereo outputs, must use HDMI for bit streaming all advanced audio formats.)
(The Samsung Blu-ray player lacks the 480I S-Video legacy output which is useful for old 480I TV’s with S-video. Up until this model all other BLU-RAY and DVD players included lagacy S-Video jack) Some people upgrade all their DVD players in their house to BLU-RAY players in order to be able to play BLU-RAY’s from all their TV’s. Eliminating the legacy S-Video was a bad feature to cut.

[Brain Sturgeon]

Thanks for the info!

Originally Posted by HDTV1080P

Positive and negative Denon highlights

...
“Full 7.1 analog and digital audio support” (Will only bitstream DTS-HD and will not decode it internally.)...

I don't think the reviewer got this right, as the 3800BDCI does decode DTS HD MA internally. That's one of the primary reasons there was a lot of interest in this player, as it was the first standalone (iirc) to do so.

[Clark Kent]

Originally Posted by Brain Sturgeon

Thanks for the info!



I don't think the reviewer got this right, as the 3800BDCI does decode DTS HD MA internally. That's one of the primary reasons there was a lot of interest in this player, as it was the first standalone (iirc) to do so.

Deering (who posts here occasionally) got that right. He is talking about the rarely used anymore lossy DTS-HD HR (mostly found on early Lionsgate BDs) which is not decoded by the Denon but can only be bitstreamed. This has been confirmed by users. It still decodes DTS-HD MA internally which is the full lossless audio that most BDs come with now.

[RUR]

I believe the full and proper name for the codec Kris is referring to is DTS HD HR (DTS did such a fine job with naming conventions it often leads to confusion). Nice to finally see a professional assessment of the player.

[HDTV1080P]

Originally Posted by RUR

I believe the full and proper name for the codec Kris is referring to is DTS HD HR (DTS did such a fine job with naming conventions it often leads to confusion). Nice to finally see a professional assessment of the player.

You are correct RUR. When I quoted the article I placed “quotes “ around what Kris said. My original post also has comments by me that are usally in brackets with no “quotes” around it. When I said no support for DTS-HD internal decoding in brakets I was just doing a quick summary of the article with no quotes around it.
Kris Deering used the full proper name in the review
Quote
“The DVD-3800BDCI doesn’t support internal decoding of DTS-HD High Resolution soundtracks, but it passes the bitstream just fine.”
“I am unclear why Denon didn’t support this seldom-used DTS codec since the AVR-4308CI will, and because full Master Audio support is available.”

[crackinhedz]

“The DVD-3800BDCI doesn’t support internal decoding of DTS-HD High Resolution soundtracks, but it passes the bitstream just fine.”
“I am unclear why Denon didn’t support this seldom-used DTS codec since the AVR-4308CI will, and because full Master Audio support is available.”

My guess is because only a handful of blurays even use High Resolution...perhaps royalty fees for the HR logo are a factor? (although admittedly I have no earthly idea how royalty fees are even applied for use.)

Perhaps its a money issue? when overall, Dts-HD HR is not really needed.

[stick99]

“When I compared the Denon DVD-3800BDCI with the transport, I saw immediate improvement. The DVD-3800BDCI’s performance with 1080p/24 Blu-ray playback looked better than any other players I’ve seen to date.”

When you are referrring to "transport", in the above review, are you talking about the Denon Stand alone Blu Ray transport that's available on it's own? (2800BD) I ask as I'm interested in that as stand alone Blu ray player. I currently have a Marantz DV9600 and a Oppo 983HD for regular dvd's.

[JadedRaverLA]

Odd that they chose to run the article now. I think once the new Pioneer and Sony models are available, many more magazines will be doing these kind of articles, but putting the Denon against just the Panasonic and the Samsung seems like "jumping the gun" a bit.

Originally Posted by crackinhedz

My guess is because only a handful of blurays even use High Resolution...perhaps royalty fees for the HR logo are a factor? (although admittedly I have no earthly idea how royalty fees are even applied for use.)

Perhaps its a money issue? when overall, Dts-HD HR is not really needed.

Shouldn't be an issue. If a company licenses DTS-HD MA they get all the "legacy codecs" and other DTS HD codecs along with it. I would guess that whoever made the SOC (I'm way too lazy to look it up ATM) was either rushed to get it out the door to Denon, or didn't care enough to include support for a codec no one really cares about. If the player can decode DTS 24/96, can support >5.1 DTS decoding, and can read DTS HD file headers (all of which this one should be able to), there's really no reason not to properly support HR mode of DTS HD.

Originally Posted by stick99

When you are referrring to "transport", in the above review, are you talking about the Denon Stand alone Blu Ray transport that's available on it's own? (2800BD) I ask as I'm interested in that as stand alone Blu ray player. I currently have a Marantz DV9600 and a Oppo 983HD for regular dvd's.

He must be, as that's the only current model sold as a transport (though you could argue that other models, including the tested Samsung, are essentially transports as well).

[crackinhedz]

Originally Posted by JadedRaverLA

Shouldn't be an issue. If a company licenses DTS-HD MA they get all the "legacy codecs" and other DTS HD codecs along with it.

that seems most plausible.

[4K2K]

Originally Posted by HDTV1080P

Denon DVD-3800BDCI review info

“When I compared the Denon DVD-3800BDCI with the transport, I saw immediate improvement. The DVD-3800BDCI’s performance with 1080p/24 Blu-ray playback looked better than any other players I’ve seen to date.”
“It provided incredible detail and definition. I find it really hard to compare players with Blu-ray playback because they all look excellent across the board. However, when I watched the DVD-3800BDCI on my front projector system, the Denon edged out other players I had on hand in both depth and fine detail.”

Shouldn't all Blu-ray players using HDMI, unless you've selected an option that alters the video in some way, when playing back 1080p24 video to a compatible 1080p HDTV provide exactly the same output?

[HeavyHitter]

Originally Posted by 4K2K

Shouldn't all Blu-ray players using HDMI, unless you've selected an option that alters the video in some way, when playing back 1080p24 video to a compatible 1080p HDTV provide exactly the same output?

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...&postcount=294

There are definitely differences - I've been finding out this with some A/B testing of my own too.

[welwynnick]

This was the other very interesting post on the subject.

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...&postcount=292

The outputs of the video decoder blocks on the SoCs are bit-accurate for H.264 and VC-1, meaning the decoded video quality at that point is exactly the same for all players.

So, the differences in players is in the post-processing of the video, such as scaling, deinterlacing, edge enhancement, noise reduction, color correction, etc. This is where the "art" comes in.

Some player manufacturers (and consumers) may also tweak various settings (such as brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, sharpness, edge enhancement, 2D/3D noise reduction, gamma, color conversion, etc.) to achieve the specific "look" to the video that they want. The most accurate picture, although possibly not the most personally visually pleasing picture, is when all those type of controls are bypassed or zero'd out.

[JadedRaverLA]

Originally Posted by welwynnick

This was the other very interesting post on the subject.

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...&postcount=292

Thanks for quoting that... it's a quote from Kjack (our fantastic SOC insider) for those who don't feel like following the link back to the original post.

This portion:

So, the differences in players is in the post-processing of the video, such as scaling, deinterlacing, edge enhancement, noise reduction, color correction, etc. This is where the "art" comes in.

should be put on the home page or something (maybe in the FAQ?) for all those who don't understand how one player can have better PQ than another. Even in an all-digital pipeline, there's more to a BD player than just moving data from the disc to the TV. When you're dealing with HIGHLY compressed 4:2:0 video there's quite a bit of post-processing to be done to get the ideal output... and different players can vary considerably in how well they handle the task (12-bit color conversion, handling of the reulting macroblocks from the decoder, etc).

Audio, OTOH, is a completely different story, and the true effects of jitter over HDMI connections are highly debatable. The difference between a lossless audio track played via a $300 BD player and the same track on a $19,000 BD player (looking at you Goldmund) should be nonexistant. The "data" really shouldn't be being manipulated by the player and the end result going to the receiver should be identical.

[welwynnick]

Originally Posted by JadedRaverLA

Audio, OTOH, is a completely different story, and the true effects of jitter over HDMI connections are highly debatable. The difference between a lossless audio track played via a $300 BD player and the same track on a $19,000 BD player (looking at you Goldmund) should be nonexistant. The "data" really shouldn't be being manipulated by the player and the end result going to the receiver should be identical.

Actually I think there could be GREATER audio differences between players than with video.

My contrasting view here is that the codecs probably don't really enter into the equation, as long as the bits are recovered correctly, and that seems to be a pretty safe bet. In fact, that's much the same situation as it is with CD players. They can be relied on to get the data correct, yet the audio quality when feeding a DAC or AVR with digital data can be quite different.

The reason I say this is that I have a Pio 79AVI "universal" player with spdif, toslink, hdmi and i-link digital audio outputs. And guess what? With the same data coming out of each of those outputs, they all sound quite different.

Although there's little technical and subjective difference between spdif and toslink, the others have quite different digital audio architectures. The difference lies in the way that the clock (timing info) is handled, not the data (amplitude info). I-link does it quite differently to hdmi, and is better as a result. HDMI is vulnerable to degradation, and I expect this will be responsible for audible differences between Blu-ray players as well. I have two players, but haven't compared SQ yet, but will do shortly.

Of course the big contention is whether player or amp decompression is better. I don't know the answer to that one yet, but as long as the digital audio replay architecture is different between them (I'm still not sure, but and some knowledgable people say it is) then we cannot assume that the sound quality will be the same.

Those folks (like me) who have don't have an HDMI 1.3 AVR won't like that, but it does make life just a lttle bit more interesting.

Best regards, Nick