Price Paid:  $500.00 from Audio King (Ultimate

Summary:
Good but ultimately flawed DVD player. I've had this DVD player for about 4 years now. Experienced some of the issues described here, esp. audio synch problems. Tried standard work arounds, e.g. use Stop instead of Pause, and it was fine for occasional viewing. The final straw, however, was its refusal to load a new movie, Pirates of the Carribbean from Disney, we received for Christmas. DVD played fine on my Dell PC, but loaded only once on the 1500 out of dozens of tries. Took the DVD to the store and it played flawlessly on every model I tried there. Decided to get a new player and ended up with a Yamaha due to its compatibility with the DVD+R/RW formats that my computer creates. So far so good on that one...

Strengths:
Great sound and picture when working. Small cabinet design

Weaknesses:
Long load times Darker picture affects some movies Very annoying audio synch problems Won't load/play some newer discs (e.g. Disney)

Similar Products Used:
Yamaha DVD-S540

Price Paid:  $300.00 from Truscott Hi Fi

Summary:
I bought the Denon DVD-1500 without really researching it much, as I thought it was a pretty good deal. After reading comments of others, I was a little dismayed, but here are my faults and fixes. 1.(Fault) Audio out of synch with video.(I use S-Video and Digital optical output) (Fix) Firmware upgrade to version 3. Dont let someone fool you into a $200+ fix it bill. Buy the EPROM chip as a spare part ($60ish) as you can install it yourself in about 5 mins with no specialist tools.(If you want specifics - email me) 2.(Fault) Playback stops, jumps, skips and eventually freezes. (Fix) The video processor chip gets very hot toward the end of a movie, causing the faults. I attached a Zalman Northbridge Heatsink, using Arctic Silver Epoxy Adhesive, and installed a 50mm 12V computer cooling fan next to it. Result - not 1 freeze, jump, glitch since..(If you want specifics - email me) Overall, now I've fixed it, I am very happy with the quality of the output, and the player. I wont be upgrading until DVD-Audio becomes more realisticly priced.

Strengths:
Looks good Sounds good Works good (now)

Weaknesses:
I cant believe that there was no attempt made to provide active or passive cooling. The fix cost me <$30 at retail prices. The factory could have done it for about $5.

Similar Products Used:
None. Its my first DVD player. For info on the mods:- spanishdancingllamas@hotmail.com

Price Paid:  $500.00 from Private

Summary:
I have a denon AVR2800 Running the best Aussie speakers Krix (front and centre) and Paradigm 3se Minis as rears. If you are lucky enough to get Krix in the States try them out they piss all over the new Paradigm Mini Monitors- which are themselves awesome. Anyway as to the Denon DVD 1500 - all you have to do is look at the rear of the unit and see where they are made. Nope not Japan but China. Might as well buy Singer etc etc. Shame on you denon. Very bad for hitherto excellent quality and branding. The video card is substandard, the lasar pickup dubious and the LED's half life pathetic. Plus the price is absurd.

Strengths:
Has Denon on the front, so some other idiot will buy it

Weaknesses:
See above

Price Paid:  $300.00 from HiFi Buys

Summary:
After a brief read of a couple of reviews here, I have decided that I will wait to see what Denon has to say about the poor performance of this player. It is my ASSumption that mine is worse than average and Denon might have an answer. FYI - this is the text of the letter I sent to Denon on 12/29/02. Sirs, I have owned several Denon products over the years and always found the performance to be above satisfactory. Your older 2 channel receivers and CD players suited my needs well. I still have a 3600 DTS receiver powering my home theater audio system and find it capable. I did have the misfortune to buy a DVD 1500. I only watched a few movies a month and they were always rented. I found after a several months some movies would not play (the DVD player would not recognize the disc). I took them back and relayed the fact that the disc was defective to the local Blockbusters. They would always provide a new disc, some would work, and others would not. Little by little I figured some discs would work sometimes, some would never, and most would fail by varying degrees after about 1/3 of the movie. I did contact the local Hi-Fi buys after I determined I actually had a unit that was having issues. Of course the warranty had expired. I accepted this as my mistake on a bad glitch in a unit - should have figured it out sooner. I did get a new DVD (Sony 9000 ES) for movies and all was well with the DVD 1500 playing CDs in my bedroom. This Christmas I got a new set of high-end headphones and I decided to listen to them in the Denon since it did have a phones level adjustment without any amp/preamp/cabling complications. My Sony DVD and Rotel CD have no headphone jacks. To my surprise there is NO sound from the headphone jack in the Denon. Is my 1500 a bizarre mistake from the assembly line or is the 1500 just a bad product? Is it worth fixing? I give this unit a 3 to keep the review scale balanced - I have to assume this is not the average Denon - but I will update after the response, or lack of, from Denon.

Strengths:
Power light always comes on

Weaknesses:
Can't play DVDs - 0000 Phones jack is useless

Similar Products Used:
None - never bought, listened to, or saw a DVD player that didn't work.

Price Paid:  $499.00 from Hört-Sich-Gut-An

Summary:
I've read the other reviews and thought that they're doing wrong with the DVD-1500. I also had problems with multi layer DVD's but with a litle coolness and a firmware update everything went out fine. Now this DVD player model has a rather good sound, even when playing CDs and the picture can be compared with even bigger models. The digital output is also quite good - as long as the coaxial is used

Strengths:
CD-playback, picture, price

Weaknesses:
noisy drive