Excellent Universal player.

Unlike the first reviewer, I only have good things to say about this unit.

My first universal was Samsung's DVD-HD841. Now that did have problems. The picture quality was ok but DVD-Audio discs and SACDs kept cutting out while playing. I didn't really want to shell out so much for a DVD player but in the end you get what you pay for so I returned the sammy and ordered the Denon.

So far (about a week) I've had no probs with the 2910.

I first set my player up using the 480p component outputs while I was waiting for a new DVI cable to arrive.

I thought the picture quality was excellent. Skin tones were spot on. My old player made white skin look orange and black skin look green, so much so that I had to back of the red and green colour tubes on my RPTV to get a decent image. No such probs with the Denon. I was able to bring back the colour saturation without affecting the integrity of the skin tones.

Actually the DVI hook up turned out to be a bit of an anticlimax. Not because it was in anyway bad but because the component derived picture was so good it was hard for the Denon to best itself in this regard.

I'm running the DVI output upscaled to 1080i (my TV hates 720p). If anything the DVI picture is a tad sharper and brighter without affecting the black level but honestly the difference is miniscule. Curiously I think 480p looks a lot better from the analog output.

As for the sound, well I'm listening to a CD as I write this review (Chris Botti's "A Thousand Kisses Deep") and it's a wonderful experience. My dedicated CD player is a capable unit but the Denon walks all over it. I used to use Logic 7 surround processing with my CD player to get the sound to come out of all my seven speakers but the 2910 throws out a soundstage so HUGE I just don't need it. I keep edging my ear up to my surround speakers to confirm that they haven't magically switched themselves on but nope, it's just room filling stereo I'm hearing.

As far as the high resolution formats: DVD-Audio and SACD.
Yes they sound great but I'm worried for their future when CDs can sound as good as this. To get the full benefit (by the way I keep stopping to drift into the other room to get an earful of music. It's that good ;-)) you really need great amplification and speakers and you need to be sitting and realy listening. If you're the kind of person who's even considering a $700.00 dvd source then you probably have that covered but, in truth, it's not like my entire CD collection has suddenly become redundant because of the existence of these formats. I smell a "Quad" like demise for these formats unless the industry really gets behind high-rez and also brings the disc prices down. Let's face it 90% of the population is happy listening to mp3s!

There's a couple of minor gripes. I have to load some CDs twice to get them to play (but that can happen with any player) also you can't view on-screen content when playing DVD audio discs at high rez. If you want to see the pics you have to set the the player to DVD video then you only get Dolby Digital quality.

On that subject the digital sound output is really, really good. I can't figure this out as I thought the processor held all the cards here but movie soundtracks really rip through the speakers and the sound is impressively full and exquisitely directional. With my old player the rear surrounds on 7.1 material were only barely perceptible but with the Denon they're alive with information.

You can also output pre-decoded Dolby and DTS signals from the six channel analog outputs but I can't imagine anyone actually ever wanting to do this especially if you're a 7.1 animal like me.

I'm going to mark the Denon down on the ease-of-use scales. The manual is written in quaint Japanenglish which doesn't help when trying to fathom quirks like the DVD Audio/Video thing I mentioned above. I love to tweak so I'll probably figure it all out eventually but if you're the "plug and play" type, this kind of player is probably not for you.

Now, in closing, I don't want to bore you senseless but the Denon does have it's little quirks. Nothing insurmountable but my old $90.00 DVD still works after three years heavy slog and it does everything right first time. Press play and it plays, press stop and it stops. The Denon works 95% of the time. I was talking to a design engineer last night and he said that the industry is developing at such a rate that manufacturers are announcing products sometimes months before the back room boys have even taken mouse to computer. That's why you're seeing stacks of players like the Samsung I mentioned lying on the return shelves. Not enough development.

If you don't have great outboard equipment (and aren't fussed about DVI) then Yamaha's $400.00 DVDS1500 might be a better universal for you. If you're you're an absolute video-audiophile geek the Denon's big brother $1200.00 3910 could be your cup of tea but it'll need serious cahones to keep this little bro' down.

Overall it's a stunner.

RELIABILITY UPDATE 6th OCT. 07: Daily intensive use, no problems reported.