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 thr 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.
Like the Marantz players before it, the 9600 is based on a Pioneer Elite transport. This includes their MPEG decoder and de-interlacing. 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!!!
