Gary Bitters

Overall Rating
 1 of 5

Value Rating
 1 of 5

Used product for
Less than 1 month

Price Paid:  $100.00 from Audio Warehouse

Summary:
I bought this Denon DVD-900 as a replacement for an old Sony DVP-S530D. I have had my Sony for six years and it was having problems reading some DVDs. So I figured until I can save up for the Denon DVD-2200,or 2900 I will get this one to hold me over. Well I must say even at $100.00 for a demo model I was not impressed at all! My old Sony looked much better in all areas. First strike was the Denon DVD-900 defaulted into Black enhance mode, which made blacks brighter almost gray. Second strike was certain reds and shades of orange had scan lines in them. Strike three was the progressive scan mode made everything very soft, almost fuzy. Strike four was that dark movies appeared very grainy. Strike five sub titles will pop up from no ware! I have a Pioneer Elite Pro-520HD HDTV, and I use the line doubler inside the TV with great results with my old cheap Sony DVD Player. I am going to return this Denon and buy another cheap Sony to hold me over until I can afford the Denon DVD-2200, or 2900 DVD Player. My System includes Definitive Technology Speakers BP2002TL (front & back) C/L/R2002 coupled with a Pro-sub 200TL (full range center) Power Field 15TL (LFE sub only) Denon AVR-3300 (receiver) Sony DVP-S530D (DVD) Comcast HDTV Box (cable) Philips Pronto (remote) Monster wire 12 gauge front channels bi-wired. Tara Labs 203V Trio (component video) Happy Listening, Gary Bitters

Strengths:
None

Weaknesses:
Grainny, soft piture in progressive scan mode, problems displaying reds and oranges, default black enhance mode, subtitles pop up out of no ware!

Similar Products Used:
Sony DVP-S530, Sony DVP-7700, Sony PS2, Pioneer 333.

Price Paid:  $299.00 from Ultimate Electronics

Summary:
Great little DVD Player for the $$! Does'nt have the feel of Denon's typical build quality but it has done a great job for me so far. Every once in a while (1 out of 7 Movies) the words will pop up on the screen as if I chose the hearing impaired option, but it's very temporary and usually a simple wipe of the disk fixes the problem. The earlier models seemed to have a heavier and more stable build quality and you won't see this in Denon's line until you get the 3300 and up. I believe the 900 has been replaced with the 910 (same thing exactly) as far as I can tell. If you can find a 900 for under $150, I say go for it! I have a Denon AVR-3802 and will eventually upgrade to it's equal with one of Denon's higher end players.

Strengths:
Denon is not cheap anywhere, so price for this player is more than fair.

Weaknesses:
Occasional blurps but nothing really to mention.

Similar Products Used:
Sony dvp-ns300, Denon-2500(bought off ebay used). Mitsubishi, others.

Price Paid:  $369.00 from A & B Sound Canada

Summary:
I bought this DVD player for the Brand Name Faroujda progressive scanning and the 2MB memory buffer (DVD does not skip when switching layers). I am impressed with these options. When I first played this thing on my Hitachi 65" I was not impressed with the grainy picture especially with the lights turned low. It took me at least 3 months and 8 reads of the manual to figure out the problem. A black light feature to improve picture quality in a well lit room is always on and defaults to on every time you start playing a movie. YOU MUST PRESS MODE AND ENTER BEFORE PLAYING VIDEO to turn this feature off. The picture cleans up and looks fantastic. Yes, the tray takes a while to open, the remote looks cheap and subtitles pop up once every movie but I can live with that for the picture and sound and for the price. (Fix the subtitle thing and the default on the black light and this would be a steal. DENON - please recall.)

Strengths:
2MB memory buffer Faroujda Progressive scan

Weaknesses:
subtitle pop-ups slow tray mechanism having to push mode - enter at the beginning of every movie (my wife hasn't remembered to do this yet and I always find her watching that terrible picture everyone is refering to)

Similar Products Used:
JVC iterlaced DVD Toshiba progressive scan

Price Paid:  $273.00 from Peel Audio Video Bra

Summary:
I really wasn't interested in a DVD player with a million features but rather a unit with basic features, high quality & durability with great picture & sound. Well I got 3 out of the 5 with my 900 player. Its picture quality and sound reproduction is magnificent. It has all the features I need. But it's built quality seems to cheap to have the Denon name on it and it has now been sent in twice for repair because the player locks up and refuses to let any comands work other than turning it off, while playing DVD's only. It doesn't happen playing CD's for some reason. The ownership experience has not been a pleasant one at all.

Strengths:
Size, picture and sound reproduction.

Weaknesses:
Build quality and durability. If Denon sees itself as a premium brand in the market place then they better look very closely at their products before they decide to offer them to the consumer. My friends $45.00 Apex is 30 months old and he told me that so far not one little thing has gone wrong with it.

Similar Products Used:
Panasonic, Sony, Toshiba and Yamaha

Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
I think the other guys bought lemons.I haven't had any of the problems that have been stated. No noise ,no sub title pop ups.The player has worked flawlessly.I've watched probably 7 movies on it in the last 2 weeks and no problems at all! The sound has opened up even more as it breaks in.I play music on it several hours a day.For the price haven't heard a player that was better.Those dual burr brown dacs are hard to beat! If you look close at the Denon players costing several times more you will find the same audio dacs.Maybe it was a bad batch ..I don't know but I'am glad mine has worked fine.If the picture is bad some of this guys probably need to change cables or just get another TV!

Strengths:
Great rythm for a stock player.Picture seems to improve as I play more movies.

Weaknesses:
None at this price!

Similar Products Used:
Panasonic,Arcam,Quad,