Denon DVD-1930CI DVD Player

I got one of these players used for £40 - and so my review reflects this. I probably wouldn't have paid a lot more for this, if you're being asked prices approaching £100 then run away, save up a bit longer and get a Blu-Ray player.

For me this player was worth every penny of what I paid purely to be able to ditch the annoying SCART cable - I'm now completely digital thanks to this player and Sky+HD. Of course there are also component video outputs and a variety of audio output options as this device will also play Super Audio CD and DVD Audio.

Onto the more important stuff - the picture quality. Do not expect to be blown away with this product, it is simply not possible to make a DVD high definition as the picture information has already been lost during the conversion to DVD. However, some titles work much better than others. If you have a poorly mastered or low bitrate DVD (usually the earlier releases) then you will struggle to see much difference because the MPEG2 encoders just weren't advanced enough when that disc was made. If you take a newer title (I've been using the Generation Kill DVD boxset for this review) with enough picture information then the excellent upscaler in the device does a fantastic job. It's not Blu-Ray quality but it would definitely give an HD television channel a run for its money.

One important thing to note however is that if you like simple, well designed user interfaces then a Denon product is not the thing for you. The OSD looks like it was made on an Amiga and the remote control is appalling (it has a seperate button for on and off, and some features that are on the front panel don't appear on the remote). If you can deal with this though then you're onto a bargain. A word of warning though, the player will not output 1080P if the DVD source material is interlaced, so if your TV has a terrible deinterlacer then you will be disappointed. Fortunately most TVs sold in the last few years don't have any problems in this area.

If you can pick up a working example cheap enough and can deal with the above issues then you're onto a winner. The brushed aluminium face plate and DivX support are just icing on the cake.