DVI output of a cheap DVD player always same ??

I have been testing, and asking about Universal players for the last couple of months. I have narrowed down to the McCormack UDP-1, Marantz 9500, Onkyo sp1000 and the Denon 3910. I got a Denon 3910 to demo, and took it over to my brothers house to test on his projector (Sharp Z-10000U), with a DVI interconnect. Although his primary digital player is a Sony 999ES (modded), he has a Bravo connected to a plasma in his bedroom, so we checked that out against the other 2 for a sanity check. Sony looked and sounded great (of course), the Denon picture through the DVI interconnect was better than the Sony's through it's Component interconnects (no DVI). Noticably sharper, and a bit more vivid. The sound was comparable, with the Sony a bit tighter (bass especially) on SACD, and very little difference on the redbook. We were able to use a DVI switcher to look at the Bravo vs. the Denon. There was no comparison. The Denon, especially through this projector I am assuming, blew away the Bravo. Pictures look liquid in comparison. Not that the Bravo was bad, just not in the same league. The Sony's picture was better than the Bravo. Sorry, we didn't listen to any music on the Bravo.

Is the Bravo cheaper than the Zenith 318 hd which upconverts via component or dvi?
The Zenith is a higher rated player in the secrets test I noticed.

I can take the 318's dvi output and get a decent 110 in picture after calibration.
It is not however as good a picture as the Denon 3910 after calibration.
Then I tried the more expensive better built Onkyo sp 1000 via hdmi/dvi and get an even better picture than the 3910.

The fact of the matter is that a cheapo player will never compare to a better built more expensive dvd player whith better parts and engineering whether you use component,dvi or hdmi outputs.

Theres no free lunch whith cheaper dvi output players, at least not against players costing 6-9 times as much.

Greg

I am not offering an opinion but I wonder if the significance of the transport for audio vs. video would not be differently weighted at HDTV forums and at High-End audio forums. ;-)

Kal

Correct me if I'm wrong, if both unit have the DVI out, the picture qulity was would almost be the same.
Now if you want better sound, it would be better to get the Denon. Why. If you had a high end pre/amp exsample (ead ovation) would that process the sound, therefore you would need the high end player?
Just curious...

Thanks

Thx so far,

Rademaker,

The DVI output of the Bravo is more grainy compared to the Denon both running at 720P. The sound don't compare but that's expected when comparing a $200 unit to a $2000 unit.

As experienced in audio, not all transports are the same, even though they are all putting out theoritically the same PCM bitstream.

The same could be said about video, not all DVI's are the same, obviuosly.

Of course, these all are subject to what are are there in your signal chain- just like audio.

Hi Cytocycle,

Ofcourse I know that the Denon will better than the Bravo if you not use DVI.
But the question was whether the Denon DVI output has a better quality compare to Bravo DVI output ???

I've heard that the sound of the Bravo leaves a lot to be desired.

Aroc is right.. you can read about it on avsforum, but the DVI output of the Bravo is amazing but it has other quirks. The bravo can scale to 780p and 1080i.

The Denon would be much better than the Bravo if you used any other output other than DVI (component, SVHS, etc)

No. search the avsforum.com forums.

I believe the two would be differentiated by the quality of their de-interlacer, possibly the scaler, and how well they serve as a transport. But, don't quote me on that.