DVD player deal: $20k

Last I checked, I could give up ten lattés at Starbucks for a DVD player at my local Target or Wal-Mart. What was I thinking? I should give up coffee for the rest of my life and use the savings on the Meridian 800 that costs (*gulps*) a cool twenty-grand. For that kind of money, I should get DVD playback all around me like a hologram!

How does Meridian justify the cost and what does roughly half of the U.S. annual household income get you in a reference DVD player? Well, you can play both American ATSC and European PAL video. You've got CD and DVD-Audio playback as well. There's also some proprietary video processing and upconverting involved, which are handled by 25 unique processing chips.

Hmm....when you figure out the cost per chip, maybe it's not a bad deal? We'll pass, thanks, although we're always up for a review unit; we'll even leave a shoe as collateral, just like in grade school.

 

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 7th 2005 4:14PM]

I've own a couple higher-end DVD players. One is the Arcam DV89 and the other is the Denon 3910--they cost me $2k and $1k, respectively. My opinion is that the Denon is at the sweet spot in the cost/value equation.

If you aren't finicky enough to have your display ISF calibrated then you probably won't be picky enough to appreciate the quality of even a $1k player.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 8th 2005 2:46PM]

Even with 25 processors this thing does not perform better ( it should be 20 or so times better ) than any 1K DVD player. In home theater market, the higher the price - the better it must be, or so the buyer thinks, whereas the unit is just a tad better than a 1K DVD player. The buyers ( usualy 1 or 2 a year ) of this player do not choose their HT equipment. They just order by calling to their local HT dealer as if ordering chinese food. And they do it once in a couple of years as a refresh. HT dealer turns and installs the most expensive and obviously most profitable for them because HT market is built on 40% markup.

And by the way, on $2000 Arcam player is a piece of ... I had my hands on it to test - it looses output sync once in a while depending on a DVD. The company knows about it but does not do anything. This makes most of displays behave inappropriately. In terms of scaling and deinterlacing - $170 Panasonic player do the same with the Faroudja chip.
Cheers,
Mike