Denon DBP1610 Blu-ray/DVD/CD Player (Black)

• BD Profile 2.0, BD-Live enabled via Ethernet
• HDMI, component and composite video outputs
• Standard definition DVD video processing and scaling up to 1080p
• 12 bit video processing with SD digital video noise reduction
• Multiple picture adjustments, including gamma correction

One must wonder where the street price will land on these in a month or even weeks. In a competitive landscape where quality 7.1 analogues are below $300 (ie 320), lightning speed and quality upconversion are below $225 (JVC), and netflix and pandora streaming are available for $200, how a denon can justify a $500 MSRP player without a brand name chipset, mediocre speed, and only two channel out. It is a well-built, heavy player that looks awesome in a rack (not as masculine as a 2500/3800), but neither wins on performance nor wins on value.

The mid-range ($300 to $600) market segment is book-ended by the Pioneer 320 on one end and the Oppo 83 on the other. Players like the Denon 1610 struggle to stand out in regard to either performance or value, which is a dangerous proposition for the majority of us who are not brand-addicted. I know I have been probably a bit overly critical of higher branded players like the Onkyo 606 and 507 and the Harman Kardon BDP1, but I firmly believe in quality and value. This is probably why I have banged on about both the pioneer 320 and the JVC XV BP1. They put very high quality AV performance or lightning fast operation in the hands of normal folks in tough times.

The 1610 (and the 2010 for that matter) are a bit late to the party and too expensive. I would strongly recommend the 1610 were its street price just under $300 (and I suspect it will be come Halloween). The 2010 is one of the few direct competitors to the Oppo for pure BD/DVD performance. It has a better audio section, but worse video capabilities. It could be a real contender at $425-$450, but is comical at $600 or whatever they are going for.

With Denon DVD-2500BTCI's selling for under $300, I would be hard-pressed to recommend the 1610 for its current street price of $450.

With updated firmware, powered off eject time decreases from 17 seconds to 13 seconds (Same as 2010).

Dark Knight: to anti-piracy page

Denon 1610: 37

JVC: 17 seconds

Oppo: 16 seconds

Pio 320: 42 seconds

Pio 51: 45 seconds

Denon 1800: 42 seconds

Denon 2500: 48 seconds

Denon 2010: 36 seconds

Pirates of the Carribean 1: Medallion Coin / Disney Splash

Denon 1610: 41/57 seconds

JVC: 16 /27

Oppo: 21 / 31

Pio 320: 44 /1 min 13 seconds

Denon 1800: 44 /1 min 3 seconds

Denon 2500: 49 / 1 min 9 seconds

Denon 2010: 39 / 49

Synthetic Test Resutls:

Test Pio 320/ Oppo /JVC /denon 1800 /denon 2500 /denon 2010/ denon 1610

2:02 pass/ pass*/ pass/ fail/ fail /pass/ pass

2:2:2:4 fail /pass /pass /fail /fail /fail/ fail

2:3:2:3 (PF-T) Pass /pass /pass /pass* / pass / pass*/ pass*

2:3:2:3 pass /pass /pass/ pass/ pass* /pass/ pass

2:3:3:2 marg /pass /pass /fail/ fail /fail / fail

3:2:3:2:2 fail pass pass fail fail fail /fail

5:5 pass/ pass /pass /marginal /marginal /marginal / marginal

6:4 marginal /pass/ pass/ fail/ fail /marginal/ fail

8:7:8:7 marginal pass pass maginal marginal marginal /marginal

24p Pass pass pass pass pass pass pass

Time-adjusted fail pass fail marginal fail fail fail

Video deinterlacing:

Moderate performance; excelled with scrolling text, but did have very mild jaggies on ship test.

Buy Denon DBP1610 Blu-ray/DVD/CD Player (Black) Now

At the current price ($325.00ish) the 1610 is a nice player with good Blu ray playback (same as their 2010) and pretty good SD dvd up conversion. I tested about 200 titles and it played them all! And I had no freezes to. For the money it is a good Blu ray player with a high end image...

Read Best Reviews of Denon DBP1610 Blu-ray/DVD/CD Player (Black) Here

I purchased a DBP-1610 Blu-Ray player approx. 1 year ago. Have had play problems since the start. After sometime into various movies, the video and audio would pause, start, pause, start, etc. I performed a firmware update on it thinking it was perhaps an easy update would cure the problem. It didn't.

It took me some time and research to figure out that the unit was overheating. It was first located in a standard A/V stand, then I moved into the open (table top) as part of my troubleshooting process.

I quickly concluded that the unit overheats by design. This is not a component failure. The unit does incorporate a rear intake fan, but there is nowhere for the hot air to exhaust from the unit. Finally, I took the cover off the unit and it now works flawlessly.

Contacted Denon Tech Support to report. They were not interested and passed the buck by suggesting I send unit to their "fee-based" OUTSOURCED service & repair company to "investigate the problem".

Unfortunately, I will never buy another Denon product. Not because of the product itself. These things happen in product development. But mostly because its pretty obvious that Denon corporate has decided that after-sales tech support quality is not a major priority. The service & repair has been outsourced and the Denon tech support people read from a script and have no in-depth knowledge/training on the products they support.

I do not recommend this product if you want a problem-free experience.

Want Denon DBP1610 Blu-ray/DVD/CD Player (Black) Discount?

I love this product. All dvd's come to life. I am a huge fan of denon and cerwin vega. My stereo systen and surround is all denon and vega. I know it has a price tag, but you really get what you pay for. It is worth every penny.

I've been using the Denon 1610 for a couple of weeks now. The thing I noticed immediately when playing my very first blu-ray disk was the lack of "body" in the audio even with uncompressed HD audio. The audio sounded a bit muffled, as if attenuated somewhere. To see if this was something I was imagining, I compared several DVDs with Dolby Digital and DTS audio playing on the 1610 with the same playing on my Sony and Oppo DVD players (NS-50p and 971, respectively) with identical audio settings in my receiver (Denon AVR-988). The difference was clearly audible the Sony and Oppo sounded fuller and richer than the 1610. I checked the audio output using both HDMI and COAX Digital out. The results were identical the sound from 1610 was flatter and toned down. I also tested audio CDs, using the 2-ch analog out as well as HDMI. The CDs sound just fine through both of these.

I have looked at all the settings in 1610. There is none that allows equalization or tone control (there is a way to reduce channel levels for multi-PCM, but not to increase the level). At this point, I'm very disappointed with the sound quality one of the key reasons to upgrade to Blu-Ray (to me, this is as important as the picture quality). I have now found at least one professional review where the audio quality issue is mentioned. (/).

Other than this, the Blu-ray picture quality is good, although with some disks I have found uneven contrast (some scenes too dark, others more balanced in "Day after tomorrow") and a lot of noise (Black hawk down). I'm not sure whether this is due to the transfer quality or the video processing in 1610 ( gives both these movies good ratings for video quality).

The DVD upscaling is quite good despite the box not having a fancy chip like Anchor Bay VRS. I find it slightly better than the quality of the Oppo 971, and the upscaling done by my Denon 988 receiver (both use the Foroudja chip).

The Blu-ray load time is not super fast, but tolerable. DVD and CD load times are fast (in fact, faster than my Sony and Oppo DVD players). Power on, tray open and eject are slower than expected.

The remote is adequate, but feels cheap in your hands (it creaks when you apply pressure on certain spots). The menu design is ok, but some functions are irritatingly poorly designed. For instance, to change the audio track of a blu-ray currently playing, you have to press "Audio", then press the up/down button to highlight the "Primary Audio" option, press "select", then again press up/down to select the audio track you want. Likewise for subtitles. During this long-winded process, the menu could time-out if you're not quick enough. To add to this mess, the player is not particularly sensitive to the remote commander you have to aim it with care.

Another irritating aspect is the fact that many Blu-Ray disks cannot be resumed if you press Stop. Looks like this is not a Denon problem, but that BR disks with Java cannot be resumed. The sad part is that out of the 10 or so BR movies I bought with this player, 9 of them have this issue. I just don't see the point of the Java stuff, since I'm not sure if anyone out there is using the interactive or other features supported by Java. Most people, I'd think, would want to just watch the movies, with maximum flexibility. The idiotic idea of putting other stuff that prevents basic features like resume is inexplicable.

Overall, I was a very satisfied customer of Denon 988 receiver, and my regard for Denon has gone down a notch with the audio performance of 1610. I would recommend you stay away from this player if you are particular about AQ.