Marantz - DV9600 Universal DVD Player

MPEG Maker: Pioneer MPEG Model: unknown Deinterlacer Maker: Pioneer Deinterlacer Model: unknown     MSRP: $2099.00 Website:

Very few DVD players surprise me anymore. Well, some of them surprise me as to how bad they are this late in the game, but pleasant surprises are rare. I had been corresponding with Marantz about getting their DV9600 since late summer of 2005, but there were none to spare. Luckily, an AVS Forum member, Kevin Brown, was nice enough to let me borrow one he just bought. In fact, he had it sent directly from the dealer. Now I am sure Kevin was looking to get a bit out of it, like positive confirmation that his player is worth the price of admission in my book, but it was still extremely generous of him, and we at Secrets are very appreciative. Now, the only problem is whether or not Kevin will ever actually get the player back!!!

Yup, that last line was no joke. The Marantz DV9600 represents probably the best digital DVD transport (for sending audio and video digital bitstreams) I’ve seen yet. Sure it has a few issues, but none that will bother me enough to not put this on my miniscule list of players that would fit my bill. Sure, the Marantz does a phenomenal job on its own as a DVD player, and I would be more than happy to use it that way, but since I am in the business of testing a lot of different processors, a solid digital transport to feed those processors is pretty much a must have, and the number of said transports is EXTREMELLY small. I remember talking with Dan Miller at CEDIA last year about the DV9600, he said that Marantz was unveiling their new S4 DLP projector which features the new Gennum VXP processor for video processing. Marantz wanted a solid DVD player that featured 480i support via HDMI, and the DV9600 does exactly that.

However, that isn’t the only thing I like here. Marantz has really stepped it up this time. Some new features not seen on the previously reviewed DV9500, besides the 480i via HDMI, are scaling provided by Anchor Bay Technologies (the parent company of DVDO) which happens to be the same scaling chip as the highly regarded Denon DVD-5910, support for 1080p, and full compliance with the HDMI 1.1 spec including transmission of DVD-Audio. The DV9600 also has full support for SACD and iLink, for digital transmission of all high resolution formats with a matching processor or receiver. So, the DV9600 could be an all in one digital transport with the right receiver or processor in the mix.

Unlike the Marantz players before it, the 9600 is not based on a Pioneer Elite transport. This is Marantz's first "built from the ground up" transport. They are still using the Pioneer de-interlacing solution though. Lucky for Marantz that Pioneer has really tweaked this processing over the last few years as evidenced by the recent 59 and 79AVi tests. The nice thing, though, is that the 9600 doesn’t have the same issues with high detail material that the Pioneer Elite DV79AVi does, making it far more ideal as a standalone DVD player. Couple that with ABT’s phenomenal scaling capabilities and you have an outstanding DVD player in just about every regard.

The core section of the DV9600 measured out very well, with only a few exceptions. The player has only a minute amount of pixel cropping. With 480p, 720p, and 1080i, the player only clips two pixels from the bottom of the image. With 480i, it clips one from the top and one from the bottom. Hardly anything to worry about (though we always prefer no cropping). The end user can tailor the output color space to his liking with selections for 4:2:2 YCbCr (our preferred), 4:4:4 YCbCr, RGB, and Extended RGB. All of the output color spaces support below-black and above-white, except extended RGB which uses PC levels (black at digital 1 and white at digital 254). Output resolutions via HDMI include 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, and 1080p (and their PAL variants). Yes, you read that right, 1080p is supported thanks to the ABT scaling.

The player does have some CUE issues. With our alternating 3-2 Fish pattern, I did see some slight flickering, though no CUE “striping” was present. I don’t care for the flicker, so I gave the player a borderline score here. The player also has the standard ICP CUE issues, so Marantz did not incorporate any chroma filtering for this player. ICP is rarely an issue with DVD playback though.

The component output was essentially the same as the HDMI output. Pixel cropping was identical at 480i and 480p. The player has an extremely flat video frequency response, and white and black levels were perfect. Using our digital oscilloscope, I found no Y/C delay. The analog outputs of this player do not offer the same scaled resolutions as the HDMI out, but they do provide an extremely solid 480p image.

Operability of the player is superb. The navigation speed is very fast with not a single hesitation to note. Using our high bit rate layer change test, the player measured in with a completely seamless layer change, a rarity nowadays. The set-up menus are easy to use, but the video set-up menus are a bit daunting and are very similar to the Pioneer Elite units in their adjustability. I recommend leaving most of the adjustments alone. It is rarely necessary to use filters with high end DVD players, and more often than not, they tend to hurt the image more than help it.

The DV9600 has no less than nine different de-interlacing modes. Ouch. The nice thing is you only need one of them. The 9600 features Auto 1-3, Video 1-3, and Film 1-3. Thankfully, both Auto 2 and Auto 3 handle all of the cadences you’ll need just fine. I suppose if you started seeing some weird artifacts with some really obscure video based DVD, you could try some of the other modes, but you should be covered with Auto 2 or 3. Auto 1 did very poorly with our bad edits test, so I don’t really recommend it.

The DV9600 does considerably well with diagonal line processing in the video domain. This is an area of that was ruled by Faroudja and their DCDi processing for quite some time, but now there are more solutions out there with comparable performance. While the 9600 doesn’t do quite as well as the DCDi solutions, it is one of the best all-in-one chip performers I’ve seen. Some of the Mediatek chips do well with this too, but they take some time to lock on.

Using the HQV Benchmark DVD, I tried some of the mixed cadences. These are the clips of the man in the diner with different speeds. The Marantz doesn’t do as well as some of the higher end processors like the new ABT based VP30 or the Silicon Optix Realta HQV chip. It does do quite well with another killer scene that former Secrets editor Stacey Spears found, the trailing credits in the Austin Powers DVD. This clip involves credits scrolling down the right side of the screen and a window box of video on the left. Most players comb quite excessively with this test, but the Marantz didn’t at all. The new ABT de-interlacer is the only other one that I’ve seen pass this without issues.

Recovery time from video to film mode was a tad sluggish and reminded me a bit of the previous Faroudja based players. I doubt this will impact the overall viewing experience though.

Unfortunately, at this time, I was unable to test out the 1080p capabilities of this player. My display only supports 720p (its native resolution), though I hope to remedy that at some point in the next year or so. I did test out the HDMI 1.1 output to my reference Anthem Statement D2 surround processor, and it worked perfectly for both movie soundtracks and DVD Audio playback. The audio section of the DV9600 is excellent, with full support of both high resolution formats and full bass management as well as time alignment for both. SACD does require conversion to PCM though for time alignment, but in our opinion it is well worth it. I also didn’t have the chance to try out the iLink outputs since my processor does not support this feature yet (fingers crossed!).

Conclusions

I must say that I REALLY liked this player. Marantz has delivered one of the best flagship designs I’ve seen in some time. From core video performance to de-interlacing to usability, the 9600 never let me down. It would make an outstanding digital transport for those looking for their next DVD player or a spectacular stand alone DVD player for those keeping it simple. Highly recommended!!!

Video Frequency Response
Marantz

Sony - DVP-NS9100ES

MPEG Maker: Omega DVD MPEG Model: Unknown Deinterlacer Maker: Unknown Deinterlacer Model: Unknown     MSRP: $1299.99 Website: http://www.sony.com

Until now, I’ve had a very lukewarm relationship with Sony’s DVD players. While the ES line has always maintained a great build, sleek look, and nice features, it has failed to inspire me in the video performance department. In our Benchmarks, Sony has usually delivered an average grade in its core performance, with frequent chroma issues. Its de-interlacing has also been well behind the curve of other flagship lines from companies like Denon and Pioneer Elite.

The DVP-NS91000ES is the newest flagship player from Sony. Surprisingly, Sony had never addressed the need for a truly state of the art DVD player in their short lived Qualia line, and the 9000ES was getting a little on the dated side. So, with the 9100ES, Sony has added some needed features such as HDMI support and up scaling to HD resolutions. Like the ES players before it, the 9100 continues Sony's support for the Super Audio CD format and even includes an iLink (Firewire) output to deliver SACD digital bitstreams. Unfortunately, the 9100ES does not support the rival DVD Audio format despite its inclusion on the Columbia (Sony) supported Dual Disc format that has affected the SACD and DVD-A market.

Like most of Sony’s previous players, the 9100ES continues their long-standing tradition of subtle performance issues that just add up. I really wish that companies would do a bit more with their flagship lines than just putting them in nice cases with captivating aesthetics. Can’t we for once spend the time to ensure that at least the core functions of the player meet the DVD specification and feature performance in line with the price point? I could only imagine what would happen if a Nissan fan managed to get his hands on an Infiniti only to find the same performance limitations of his previous car!

On the core side, the 9100 just doesn’t keep up with the competition’s flagship offerings. The player has issues with chroma performance, pixel cropping, Y/C delay, and just overall operability. We’ll start with the HDMI performance and then move on to the component outputs.

On the HDMI side, the biggest offenders with the 9100ES are pixel cropping and Y/C delay. The HDMI connection offers three output resolutions: 480p, 720p, and 1080i. The 480p output suffers from extremely excessive pixel cropping with numbers ranging in the teens for each side. That is pretty much inexcusable considering that is an active part of the picture they are eliminating. 720p and 1080i fared much better in this regard with less than 4 pixels being cropped from any one side.

Y/C delay was obvious at all resolutions and was just over 1 pixel. The player offers a chroma delay adjustment, but it did not offer a resolution fine enough to correct the problem.

The player passed half of our chroma tests but had issues with material mastered with a 2-2 cadence or the standard ICP chroma test. The latter requires chroma filters that few video processors have and usually ends up filtering the chroma resolution of the player. The performance was the same using the component video outputs as far as our chroma tests go. The 9100ES uses an Omega DVD MPEG decoder, which is actually a bit rare. The last player I remember that used this chip was the Krell Showcase DVD player, but it was coupled with a Genesis/Faroudja video processor to eliminate some of the issues inherent in the Omega chip.

The component output did have about the same amount of pixel cropping except with 480p; it was much better in that regard. The component output didn’t have any chroma delay either. I was surprised, since it is harder to get the analog outputs right than the digital ones! The analog video frequency response was excellent overall, and in line with the previous ES players we’ve tested.

Most of the Sony products I’ve tested in the past use Pixel Works video processing chips for de-interlacing. When I opened up this player, I didn’t find any video processing chips except the MPEG decoder. I looked on Omega’s website to find out information on the chip, but I guess it is too new to be listed. The overall de-interlacing and scaling performance were quite good but still not to the level of the better chipsets out there from Faroudja, Silicon Optix, and Gennum.

The player passed all of our de-interlacing tests in its default processing mode except our Bad Edit test and our Subtitle test. Overall, I would say that is terrific. Even material mastered in 2-2 was free from artifacts. This is by far the best performance I’ve seen from Sony in this regard. In fact, if this player were tweaked in a bit more on the core side, it would make my short list of highly recommended players.

Operability of the player was lacking. The set-up menus were hard to navigate, and the remote didn’t make operability any better. The layout of the main keys was cumbersome and unintuitive, and responsiveness of commands was sluggish. Initial load times were very slow, and ejecting a disc seemed to take far too long. Again, these are not problems we should see with flagship designs. The player’s layer change clocked in at an extremely sluggish 2 seconds, which is definitely a fail in our tests.

Conclusions

While I was extremely impressed with the de-interlacing performance of the 9100ES, it needs a lot more attention in its core performance and usability. At the end of the day, these things contribute just as much to a satisfactory home theater experience as any other factor and should never be overlooked. Hopefully, its successor will be a bit better in this regard.

Video Frequency Response
Sony

DVDO - iScan VP30 HD Video Processor/Hub

MPEG Maker: N/A MPEG Model: N/A Deinterlacer Maker: Silicon Image Deinterlacer Model: SIL-504     MSRP: $1999.00 Website: http://www.dvdo.com

DVDO has always been one of our favorites in the video processor market. They’ve been around awhile, and they’ve always brought consistent high performance and value in a field that has a lot of products.

The VP30 is the newest processor from DVDO and is basically an evolution of the iScan HD line we reviewed some time ago. The VP30 uses the same core de-interlacing solution, the Silicon Image SIL-504 chip, but adds Anchor Bay Technologies’ (DVDO’s parent company) proprietary 10-bit scaling engine. This is the same scaling engine that is used in my reference Denon DVD-5910 DVD player, and is the first time DVDO has incorporated it into one of their video processors. The VP30 also adds support for HDMI.

One of the biggest changes from the older iScan line is DVDO’s “any resolution in, any resolution out” specification. With the iScan HD models, high definition signals were simply passed through That is not the case here. Now, resolutions like 1080i and 720p can be scaled up or down all the way to 1080p. This provides a better solution for people with 720p displays that need 1080i sources (such as high def satellite programming) scaled to their display’s native resolu-tion.

The VP30 sports a new sleek chassis and front panel display. The panel is a cool blue flavor that offers a lot more information than the previous iScans. The end user can navigate all of DVDO’s user-friendly menus from the front panel, making a remote control unnecessary if you don’t want it around. The back panel sports four new HDMI inputs and one HDMI output. You’ll also find some new BNC RGB+HV outputs that can double as component video outputs. This replaces the HD-15 connection that required a breakout cable in the iScan HD line.

Overall, I really like the new VP30 from a usability standpoint. The menus are intuitive and easy to navigate. DVDO has always had one of the best GUIs in my opinion, and they’ve pretty much left it alone with the VP30. The remote control has some minor changes but nothing too drastic. I was sad to see some of the aspect ratio buttons go away, but I rarely use the remote control anyway, other than initial set-up.

All of the features you’ve come to expect from DVDO are included in the VP30 with a few new ones that I think should be mentioned. One of my favorites is the new Y/C delay adjustment. The previous iScans had this feature, but the adjustment increments were too large (like most DVD players out there). The VP30 has very small increments, enabling you to fix the common Y/C delay issues that we keep finding in our measurements of DVD players. This is a necessity for those consumers seeking a great picture.

The VP30 also transcodes any analog input to HDMI making things easier for those of you who don’t want to run a mess of wires to your display. The display is always on and is a bit on the bright side. While this doesn’t bother some people, I don’t want light in my room, as I run a front projection system and I like the room pitch black. The display is even on when it is powered off, which I found odd. This wasn’t anything I couldn’t correct in my room with a little electrical tape, but I’d like the option to turn the display off completely when I’m not navigating the menus.

Like the previous iScan models, the VP30 has lip sync correction for its video processing delays and offers CUE correction for DVD players that still suffer from the dreaded chroma bug in its many forms (the majority unfortunately). Both of these features have an Auto mode that makes it easy for the end user to set and forget with no worries at all.

Well enough with the features, lets talk about video processing. As mentioned before, the VP30 uses the same de-interlacing solution as the previous iScan models. Nothing wrong with that, the SIL-504 is a great film source de-interlacer and does a remarkable job of staying in film mode and detecting different cadences. It rarely drops into video mode. The only downside to the 504 is its lack of diagonal line processing with video based material. This is a popular feature of the Faroudja chip sets (DCDi), and even the new HQV chipset from Silicon Optix does a nice job with this type of material. Apparently, the engineers at Anchor Bay Technologies are developing a completely new proprietary de-interlacing solution to go along with their new 10-bit scaling that will bring their level of performance up in this department, as well as add support for true HD de-interlacing. The VP30 will currently do a “bob” style de-interlace of 1080i material but not true inverse telecine or motion-adaptive de-interlacing. I didn’t have any video processors on hand that will do this (they are RARE) to compare the VP30 to in this regard, but it did do a lot better job than my Sony VPL-HS51’s internal video processor at converting native 1080i material to 720p. The image was noticeably crisper and clearer.

As I expected the VP-30 had no problems at all with our de-interlacing tests. Regardless of the cadence or breaks, the VP30 breezed through the tests and had extremely fast recovery times in our video/film transition test. Again, the only real weak link for this de-interlacer is diagonal lines with video based material. Jaggies are quite apparent using the different clock tests on the Silicon Optix test DVD. We have not incorporated diagonal line processing into our benchmark criteria yet, but that is about to change, and we will also add some other new tests.

Conclusions

The VP30 is a spectacular video processing solution that continues DVDO’s commitment to performance and value. I can’t wait to see what their new de-interlacer will do when it’s ready for prime time. Until then, the VP30 is a processor I can recommend highly without the slightest hesitation.

Video Frequency Response
DVDO

Anthem Statement - D2 A/V Processor

MPEG Maker: N/A MPEG Model: N/A Deinterlacer Maker: Gennum Deinterlacer Model: VXP     MSRP: $6700.00 Website: http://statement.anthemav.com/

Now that video processing is appearing in SSPs (Surround Sound Processors), it is time to include them in our Benchmark, and it will be under the classification as A/V processors. The first one is the Anthem Statement D2.

Video processing in A/V receivers and processors isn’t that new; several high end receivers now include some kind of video processing, but this is the first time we’ve seen it to this level. Rather than adding simple de-interlacing or conversion of analog video signals (such as component video) to digital (such as HDMI), the D2 is a complete video processing solution that is more in line with what you see in outboard video processors like those from Lumagen and DVDO.

The video processing board of the D2 is available in two forms. One can get it by purchasing the new Statement D2 A/V processor, or by having their current Statement D1 SSP upgraded. The upgrade includes the full video processing board plus the addition of four HDMI inputs and one HDMI output. Either way, you get the full complement of features which includes de-interlacing of both SD and HD sources such as full inverse telecine, motion adaptive 1080i de-interlacing to 1080p. The video processing chip also converts composite, S-Video, and component video inputs to digital for output via HDMI at whatever resolution specified up to 1080p. Some other features include adjustments for Y/C delay, image size and position, and chroma bug (CUE) correction.

The D2 uses one of the newest and most advanced video processing chipsets on the market, the Gennum VXP. This is one of only three commercial video processing chipsets that I know of which will do true HD de-interlacing that is motion adaptive and also performs inverse telecine functions. Most of the video processing solutions on the market today do a simple “Bob” that combines the fields together. It could be argued though that even a simple combination like this isn’t that bad, because high definition material has so much inherent resolution that the difference isn’t as noticeable as it was with SD material, including regular DVDs. As more high definition test material becomes available we will put these opinions and observations into our Benchmark with additional tests.

For this Benchmark, I used several DVD players that output 480i via HDMI. These included the Pioneer Elite 79AVi, the Classe CDP-300, and the Oppo DV-970H. Performance was the same in all regards: excellent.

The D2’s VXP processor does an outstanding job with all of our Benchmark tests and didn’t have any problems at all. It passed all of our de-interlacing tests without a hitch, including our 2-2 cadence tests. I did decide to go past these tests and see how the processor would perform with some other material. This included Silicon Optix’s HQV Benchmark DVD. As most of our readers know, I consider the Denon DVD-5910 to be the pinnacle of SD video processing performance, and the benchmark in de-interlacing and scaling performance. The 5910 uses the HQV video processing solution designed by Silicon Optix and Teranex. The HQV benchmark DVD includes some mixed cadence tests that have unusual cadences found in animation and anime. The Gennum VXP didn’t do as well as the HQV chip in this regard, but it did handle about half of the cadences with no problem. The VXP chip actually did a better job than the HQV in some regards though. This includes keeping a cadence lock through test material loops such as the infamous “Super Speedway” sequence for high detail. The VXP chip is the only one I’ve tested so far that never drops out of film mode through the loop.

The VXP also has diagonal line processing for video based material. This is similar to Faroudja’s DCDi processing that has been so popular over the years. Using the “3 Angles” test on the HQV benchmark DVD revealed that the VXP does a far better job than the majority of de-interlacing solutions out there. I would say its performance is on par with the HQV chip, but just slightly lower than the DCDi solution.

Moving beyond just de-interlacing, the D2 offers a lot of great features normally reserved for higher end video processors. The processor will accept any color space in and the user can select several different color space output options. This includes 4:4:4 YCbCr, 4:2:2 YCbCr, and RGB. You can also choose between Studio RGB or Extended RGB depending on your application. There are adjustments for Y/C delay, but the resolution isn’t as good as the recently reviewed DVDO iScan VP-30. The D2 seems to adjust in full pixel increments which probably won’t fix some Y/C delay issues.

One of the handy features of the D2 is the crop input feature. This is a simple pre-determined overscan that will eliminate some of the issues that may arise with 1:1 mapping and not having any overscan on your display. There are a lot of times that you will see anomalies on the outer edges of the image that will be distracting. This is often the case with cable television programming.

The D2 also has a chroma filter to eliminate CUE issues inherent with many DVD players on the market today. I tested this feature with several DVD players, and it did a superb job at eliminating every type of CUE that we test for here at Secrets. The only other video processor that we know of that does this is the DVDO line.

All of the advanced features of the D2 are accessible via an intuitive on-screen display (OSD) that is easy to navigate and understand. Most of the features have an Auto mode for those consumers who just want to set it and forget it. The D2 has a wide selection of standard resolutions to choose from, including 480p, 720p, 1080i, and 1080p. Other resolutions are supported as well, such as those found in various LCD, DLP, and LCOS displays (setting the processor to the exact resolution of your display means that the D2 will do all the processing and your display will just pass it through to the screen without doing any processing of its own). There are also several different refresh rates supported, such as 24 Hz and 50 Hz. The Gennum chip is completely software upgradeable, and Anthem plans on supporting that feature with firmware updates as issues are found or features are introduced.

The D2 upgrade does not pertain only to video though. The HDMI inputs are version 1.1 compatible in regards to the HDMI specification. This means they support high resolution, multi-channel PCM, so it will decode DVD-Audio digital bitstreams from players that output this information via HDMI. This also means it is fully compatible with the future Blu-ray and HD-DVD players that output high resolution Dolby and DTS signals associated with High Definition DVDs. I was able to test this with the new Toshiba HD-A1 HD-DVD player, and it worked without a hitch. We will discuss more about these features in our supplement to the Statement D1 review very shortly.

Conclusions

The Anthem Statement D2 represents a completely new approach to home theater processors, including first rate video processing as well as the standard audio processing. Normally, performance like this is reserved for flagship standalone video processors, and very few of those can match the performance of the VXP processing in the D2. The high definition video de-interlacing is superb and really sets this component apart from the majority of the processors out there. The fact that it is already fully capable of supporting the new high definition formats makes it a secure investment at a time when consumers are worried about making an investment in something they might have to replace later due to changing technology. Keep an eye out for our review of the D2's audio performance soon!