Denon 2800 (not mk2) worth it?

[siluro]

hi all

well i know theres been loads of theads to do with this player so im sorry for posting another but i would really like some info from owners/previous owners or any that knows really, im using a nec 42mp3 plasma and ive really got fed up with my interlaced player currently a sony ns700 which is a great peice of kit to me but my screens de-interlacing isnt really making the most of it so, im in the running for a pog scan player. Ive found the denon 2800 ex demo for 500 notes (carnt find if its still there untill monday but thought id do some homework on it anyway) and i have the hacked firmware for pal prog scan and multi region making it a bit of a bargain but, what i need to know is what issues are there with this player, the hacked firmware is labeled v2.48

any help would be apreciated

cheers
lee


ps - is it worth me putting a wanted in the classifieds?

 

[gringottsdirect]

I'll not bore you with a long winded epic
I haven't seen Denon 2800 Mk 2 or Denon 3800.
I have seen Toshiba SD-900e, Toshiba SD-9500e, Arcam DV-88, Arcam FMJ-27 and others.
The best all around picture performance witnessed is the Arcam FMJ-27 and my Denon DVD-2800.
My Denon has an issue with low MPEG compression discs ( Seven R2 SE, Contact R2 and The Lord Of The Rings R2 ), blocky artifacts, I am sure the threads are known to you.
Three or four discs dubious, otherwise it is superb.
For £500 it's worth a try.

 

[MartinCo]

in for a penny, in for a pound. if you're going to spend £500, get something that works reliably 100% of the time.

the Denon 2800 (original) does not.

that's a stated fact direct from Hayden Labs UK technical people, but never by Denon retail. presume they didn't want to start a panic recall.

I dont think Lord of the Rings can be claimed to be a "dubious disk".... some of the others maybe. maybe not.

fair point, when the old 2800 works, it works fabulously... but when it doesn't... its just annoying.
to put it another way, that car you bought cheap might be great, but when it breaks down unexpectly on the motorway.. now that's a real pain.

siluro.. can your plasma definitely take pal progressive? (worth checking).

I was expecting my mkII today but not ready yet... this week sometime.
either look at that, or higher up.. maybe a philips 963 if you can wait till October.
failing that the imported philips q50/962 from hivizone still seem the best bet if available.

 

[gringottsdirect]

Originally posted by MartinCo
I dont think Lord of the Rings can be claimed to be a "dubious disk".... some of the others maybe. maybe not.

I've seen the TLOTR disc work fine in other players, but the dark battle bits have a blockiness at the beginning with my 2800.
The rest of the disc is fantastically clear.

Hayden Labs Technical People, well I believe in aliens but hey, that's a step too far......

 

[siluro]

cheers guys, i gotta admit that upgrading this time is going to be the last one for a while as too much impulse buying has taken its toll and you know what its like trying to do too much too fast. So basicly whatever i buy has to be ok but not perfect, as i dont think there much around that can have that tag well, not in my price range anyways. The block thing was one of my main concerns as i do have a lot of pal material but most of my newer stuff is going to be ntsc. its just such a mixed bag on what i hear if its just a few titles its fine as i dont own them anyway but is there more to it than that?

as to hivzone, i have looked at this option and tho the q50 had me intresed then i heard about so many faults i was put off, and once again the reviews were a mixed bag

As far as i know the nec should acept a pal signal, a couple of guys over at the us forums tryed one with a iscan on pal and im sure they said every thing was ok

thanks guys, any info helps

cheers
lee

 

[Blu-rayx]

siluro,

if you want a artifact free dvd player go for the tosh SD900.
my toshiba SD900 dose not show any artifact with (lord of the rings,seven RE2 SE,contact RE2).

i don't think the denon 2800 is that good,i would stay well clear of the 2800 no mater how cheap!!
someone on this forum a few weeks ago bought the denon 2800 but took it back because it had so many problems.

PLEASE READ THE DENON DVD PLAYER THREADS BEFORE YOU BUY.

dvd

 

[karkus30]

Originally posted by siluro


as to hivzone, i have looked at this option and tho the q50 had me intresed then i heard about so many faults i was put off, and once again the reviews were a mixed bag

Faults? mixed reviews ? from where ?

Just, never come across any. No complaints from anyone who owns the 962 on this forum, which is based on the Q50. Somewhere there is a thread showing the performance of the Q50 vs other players using difficult software and it gets a blinding review.

Even the magazines in the uk rate the Q50 and the 962 and thats without dcdi and Faroudja chipset.

Both Tosh and Denon seem to get far more software problems.

 

[karkus30]

Just checked out which thread and its the Want to buy a progressive..............its by codlord. Might be of help

 

[ricdiggle]

Hi,
I was the person who just bought the Denon 2800 and had all the problems with it. I bought it at £500, ex-demo. It was utter rubbish and I took it back - my new Arcam DV88 works flawlessly, and in my opinion the picture is much better. I know it was twice as much but I've already sold my CD62T to help make up for that.
If you are going to get a new player and stick with it for a while, I would seriously spend the extra and get a good one (Cue slagging off of the DV88)
Go on, your credit card can take it!

Richard.

 

[Blu-rayx]

ricdiggle,


i'm glad that you've got a player that works now

i love a happy ending



dvd

 

[gringottsdirect]

Originally posted by dvd
if you want a artifact free dvd player go for the tosh SD900.
my toshiba SD900 dose not show any artifact with (lord of the rings,seven RE2 SE,contact RE2).

PLEASE READ THE DENON DVD PLAYER THREADS BEFORE YOU BUY.

Two good points.
If you can pay more than £500 the Toshibas are excellent.

I haven't seen a Philips 962 / 963 working, isn't supply of 962 drying up ?

 

[petrolhead]

What aboyt the Denon 2800 MKII. Is this any better?

 

[MartinCo]

the mk2 should be better... its got the same 108mhz nsv circuitry as the 3800, thought still has the same mpeg chip as the original 2800.

I should have my mkII next week hopefully for comparision.

similar to karkus30, I've not seen any mention of Philips Q50 problems.. though the 962 is now sold out till the 963 comes out.
the picture from either q50/962 and 3 should be excellent.. the faroudja is argueably better than sil, especially with jaggies/ diagonals.

I may go for a q50 if the mkII falls through quality wise.

 

[siluro]

thanks to all, maybe the denon isnt going to be the bargain i thought. I have sky hoocked up to the nec too and when you watching somthing with a low bitrate and you get the artifacts it drives me wild so, the denon would probably send me insane. The same place had a arcam dv88 in as well, second hand for 550 which i did consider but would need the upgrade, which i couldnt do now but maybe its worth the investment?

i did look at the tosh 900 and everyone sings its praises, it also looks the part but maybe with some planning a saving it could be a possible

a little off topic i know but any thoughts on the arcam?

cheers
lee

just to aadd i had a look for the thing i found about the problems with the q50 and my appologies it was virtuall sorted with the firmware update just leaving a little crhma prob like most players now

 

[MartinCo]

Originally posted by siluro
thanks to all, maybe the denon isnt going to be the bargain i thought. I have sky hoocked up to the nec too and when you watching somthing with a low bitrate and you get the artifacts it drives me wild so, the denon would probably send me insane. The same place had a arcam dv88 in as well, second hand for 550 which i did consider but would need the upgrade, which i couldnt do now but maybe its worth the investment?
i did look at the tosh 900 and everyone sings its praises, it also looks the part but maybe with some planning a saving it could be a possible
a little off topic i know but any thoughts on the arcam?

agreed, the original 2800 is not a bargain now.

NB you mention sky artifacts, the denon problems were never that bad by the way.. it was pixellation on particular disks for a few seconds... just not the perfection you would expect.

you'd see more pixellation on sky to be honest with the low bit rates on some channels.. thats the way digital TV is.

how do you have sky connected to the plasma..composite, svideo or some other way?
do you already have a current dvd player...
if so, it might be worth considering like an Iscan Pro to upscale everything including sky..and maybe buy a cheaper non-progressive component out player if necessary.

if that's too expensive, maybe look at a ProV to do a similar task, assuming your plasma will take a VGA feed.

the arcam is getting on a bit but is still pretty good..., just expensive now.
ricdiggle would be the best ask since he bought one, last week.
its upgradeable to progscan (inc pal), and supposedly dvd-audio with an add-on board sometime this year.

the tosh 900 doesn't do progressive pal so I wouldn't consider it really.

the Q50's problems were all sorted out long ago.. last year. the faroudja chip gets very good results - thats why most of the expensive projectors include it to progscan all inputs.

if you want a pal ps UK available player, you're limited to the newer Denons (once the firmware comes in the next few weeks), and the Arcam... not much else really.

add the philips q50 to the list from abroad, the 962 is now sold out by the looks of it.

the 963 is meant to be available in October in all areas.

 

[ricdiggle]

Hi,
I went for a brand new Arcam DV88 and it is fantastic. The picture is much sharper than the Denon 2800 with much less grain. I really liked the Denon when it worked but in the space of a week I had countless problems with it.
The Arcam has been flawless so far. I think the Prog scan upgrade is £350 or you can buy a DV88p for £1300 new.

I have read of a few problems with this player on this forum but I have not experienced any yet. I have watched about 20 films so far (I should get out more!)
Check how new the used player is and look at this site to see if there are likely to be any problems with it.
Go to www.envytech.co.uk/DV88

I hope that's of some use and I hope I haven't upset any very happy Denon owners ( there are plenty of them on here).
These are just my opinions.

Richard.

 

[gringottsdirect]

Originally posted by MartinCo
the 963 is meant to be available in October in all areas.

Any truth it is being held back until 2003 ?

 

[ricdiggle]

Originally posted by dvd
ricdiggle,


i'm glad that you've got a player that works now

i love a happy ending



dvd

Thanks,
I just hope my new TV works for over a week this time!
I'm on my third TX32PH40 already!
I also bought some Varilight IR dimmers and these broke after about 3 hours. One of them was constantly dimming up and down every 30 seconds or so! (it was actually very funny and one of our neighbours came round to see if we were OK)

My house is clearly jinxed!!!

 

[siluro]

hi

I know the denon wouldnt be as bad as the sky but its just one of those things i try not to notice but drives me nuts cos the plasma shows up just about every flaw so to stick a dvd on and get simalary effects would just plain bug me.

At the min im using s-video on the dvd and composite on sky as im in the mids of sorting leads out with keene. Ive tried synblaster scarts but the nec hates macro so i had to wait for thier new leads to come in but sky looked amazing with the first i tried but cos of the macro i didnt get to try the dvd. Hopfully at the end of the week when they get them in i should be trying a rgb to component which may be better as i did think about runnig it all thought a iscan and seeing as i do love my litttle sony 700 may be a better optoin than a new dvd, as to a pro v that was my first idea but i needed somthing better than a svid imput and my nec wont take video in the vga port which buggered up all my plans

The acam was just a passing thought but, i dout it would still be there anyways

I dont suposse yourve heard anything about the new quadscan, im thats what its called. its was advertised over at the media factory but price was TBA and i aint been able to find much about it?

thanks for your advice, 1 post has just saved me 500 notes!!

cheers
lee