- Exclusive Denon technology provides universal playback of popular audio and video disc formats, including Blu-ray, DVD-Video, DVD-Audio, Super Audio CD and music CD
- 3D-Ready via firmware solution (planned for Fall 2010) BD Profile 2.0, BD-Live enabled via Ethernet with 1GB on-board memory, expandable via USB port
- DLNA 1.5 Certified for audio/video/photo streaming over the home network. Netflix* and YouTube streaming (*subscription required)
- Wide range of picture adjustments for optimum player/HDTV matching
- 12 bit video D/A conversion. 24 bit/192 kHz Burr-Brown PCM-1781 premium audiophile D/A converters. Dedicated 2 channel output with multi-channel mix down
Additionally, as of January 2011, the player does not have 3D playback capability despite its promised release via a firmware update in the fall of 2010. This is a big disappointment considering it is actually well-advertised on denon's website as a key feature.
Lastly, the power-up or initial ready times have nearly doubled from its predecessor (the 1610) from 14 seconds to 26 seconds. In layman's terms, the player now takes nearly half a minute to open the disc drive when powered off. This is the longest time I can remember in a modern blu ray player.
Outside of these two complaints, Denon has made strides in more compotent DVD playback; the 1611 excels with deinterlacing and cadence recognition, although most cadences require a momentarily lock-on. Video deinterlacing is still mediocre and aliasing does occur, but it's head and shoulders over the 1610. The player's source direct function is ideal for mating with an AVR with a proper video processing chipset (like the Denon AVR-2311ci and above models).
That said, after a week of ownership with this player it is clear Denon rushed production and did not "work all the bugs out." Bit disappointing considering many lower-priced players offer 3D playback, more streaming options, wifi connectivity, and do not require unplugging for five minutes when you want to turn it on.
Buy Denon DBP-1611UD Universal Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Player, Black Now
I bought this unit because of Denon's reputation and because I have a Denon receiver that I like. It's convenient to be able to control the player on the single receiver remote. The player is simple and handsome in appearance. The picture seemed really good on my 54" Panasonic plasma TV.There were a couple of annoying things about its behavior, though. First, the disc drawer is very slow to open and close. I realize that there might be a lot of thinking that the electronics has to do, but it's exasperating to have to stand there with the disc in your hand for so long ( almost 10 secs sometimes). Second, this player has a noisy transport. You can hear the thing clunking from across the room. Finally, it had a strong smell of burning plastic when operating. I thought sure it was burning up, but nothing happened--for four months of light usage--until finally it died and would not power up. I guess it was burning up -slowly.
Then when I went to get service repairs, I found out that Denon contracts its warranty service to a TV repair shop across town that was only open on weekdays. The shop said it would be one month minimum to even find out what was wrong with it. They said that Denon does not support "board level" swap repairs which as a result requires that the faulty components on the circuit boards be identified and replaced with... whatever components the shop can find that will work--Denon does not provide their warranty shops with factory component parts for repairs. Overall, this unit was not worth the headache and I would not buy it--or any other Denon product again.
I think that the quality is generally good for the money, but I would suggest that if one wanted to buy it, it would be wise to call the local Denon warranty repair shop and find out what kind of repair support Denon is providing to them--and to you the buyer, just in case.
Read Best Reviews of Denon DBP-1611UD Universal Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Player, Black Here
Pros: A Netflix-streaming 3D-ready Blu-Ray player that also plays Super Audio CD's and DVD-Audio disks, plus a USB port to play MP3 files from external storage. Great sound and picture. Great value for the money.Cons: Does not decode playlist files, FLACs, WMA lossless or Apple lossless codecs. Youtube not yet working (but firmware upgrade expected). Outputs limited to HDMI, Coax, and stereo analog (as opposed to discrete outputs for each channel).
I have been waiting for the release of the 1611UD for several months, having missed my shot at the Oppo. Denon is a great brand, and this unit replaced my older (and much heavier) Denon SACD/DVD-A/DVD player because we needed Blu-Ray and Netflix in the living room. The new player had to be compatible with an existing library of SACDs and DVD-Audio disks. (I download high-rez music tracks from HDTracks.com and Bowers & Wilkins' Society of Sound, then burn those tracks to DVD-Audio disks.)
The unit was easy to set up, and my first action was to test the surround sound with some favorite movie scenes, including the lobby gunfight in "The Matrix" and the truck chase in "Terminator 3." Though these were just regular DVD's, the sound and picture were terrific. The only Blu-Ray discs around were "Amadeus", "Fool's Gold" (stupid movie, but beautiful scenes), and "A Single Man." All played flawlessly. Sound and picture were terrific and I quickly forgot about the system and just got into the movies without further adjustments. I did test the picture quality of the HDMI cable against a full set of HD component cables, and saw no difference. That was great because I was able to pull all of those component cables out from behind the system. This unit is making me a believer in the sound and picture quality capable with just an HDMI cable.
For SACD's, the 1611UD lets you choose between multi-channel output (through the HDMI or Coax), or stereo output through two analog jacks. If the disc is multi-channel (like Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" 5.1), the Denon will step it down to stereo if you want, or you can listen to it in multi-channel surround. (If you just want a pure 2-channel analog experience, there is a "Pure Direct" button on the front panel that shuts off all digital and video output, and will even shut off the display, so that the Denon is working solely to produce the clearest 2 channel signal.) My home-burned DVD-A's also worked without a problem and sounded great.
While playing stereo music, I jumped back and forth from the HDMI output to the analog outputs, and the analog signal was louder, though not necessarily any clearer.
We don't have a 3D television, so no comment about that.
The network hook-up was truly plug-and-play. I use a Linksys Powerline system (using the house's internal power wiring). All I had to do was plug an ethernet cable into the back of the Denon and it took care of the rest. I activated the unit for Netflix and was streaming a movie inside 5 minutes of set up. I do not yet have a home network set up, so have not tested the Denon for playing files directly from my PC.
My only real gripes are with the functionality of the USB jack. The jack is on the front panel, which makes it very accessible. I plugged in several thumbdrives and even a 250GB external hard drive that were loaded with music files. While the Denon takes a few seconds to analyze each folder when you open it, 320kps MP3 files were played without a problem. In fact, they sounded really good. The Denon would not play FLACs, WMA lossless files, Apple lossless files, and would not play high-rez m4a files, even though WMA and m4a are listed as supported codecs. (Denon is not alone here. Other devices that claim to support WMA always fail when I try the WMA lossless. Glad I spent a whole week ripping my CD library to WMA lossless.)
Also, if you create a playlist on your computer and put it on the external drive, the Denon will not recognize it. (I tried both WinAmp and Windows Media Player to make playlists.) You can create a playlist on the Denon, but as far as I can tell there is no way to save it. Once you unplug the USB storage device, your playlist disappears.
Come on, Denon! Let's fix these things with a firmware upgrade, especially if we could use these great processors to play high-resolution FLAC files. If Denon fixes that, then this unit coupled with a 250GB external hard drive would be the perfect media server. Sit back and call up 600 CD's worth of music from the remote control.
Still, as it is now, if you're having a party and know the songs you want to hear, just load a bunch of MP3's in the same folder on a thumb drive, plug it into the Denon, set it to random, and you're good for hours of music with no CD's to fuss about.
For and free shipping, this unit is a great value.
Edited to add: the HDMI signal is actually louder when listening in 2 channel. I've discovered the one main advantage to putting out 2 channel music through the HDMI cable (rather than just the analog cables) is that it includes the subwoofer in the mix (so it's really 2.1 channel). So, you have all the versatility you could want for your own particular system.
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I had an opportunity to pick up one of these as an open box at Best Buy for a great price, so I decided to replace my Sony BDP-S580 in my AV system. I wasn't wild about the SQ from the Sony model and I have a collection of both SACD and DVD-A discs the Denon is a universal disc spinner (i.e. it plays everything).As it was an open box model, I had to 'reset' the system to erase the Best Buy demo account settings, but the System menu has a nice feature to 'reinitialize' the unit, as well as to de-authorize the Netflix account. Right away, I was asked to upgrade the unit. That went smoothly, but a second upgrade was required, which I have to manually check for (I suspect that eventually, I would have been prompted after the first update).
The updates make all the difference for this review if you read the reviews on Amazon and/or any of the AV forums (I am active on AVS), you will know about the horrendous issues with this device, prior to the updates. For example, not powering back on after switching to standby. Anyway, I had no problems using this unit over the weekend to play discs of all types (DVD, BD, SACD, DVD-A everything worked fine). Update and you can ignore the previous reviews about quality issues.
Blu-ray Playback I was pleased with the video quality with both BD and DVD playback. The BD playback looks as good as anything I've seen (from my experience, all of the current generation BD players play Blu-ray discs with similar and stunning picture quality). I watched the new Blu-ray release of Alien and was really impressed with the image (nice transfer, BTW, for that film).
DVD Playback I was satisfied, if not impressed. I have looked at a number of spinners and this unit has pretty good DVD upscaling. I don't have a large panel a 32" Samsung LED/LCD) that I sit about five feet away from so my opinion should be taken with a grain of salt. However, I have a critical eye and I haven't seen *any* DVD upscaling that I was really impressed with there is just too much missing information on a standard definition video and there is no pixie dust that will correct for that, IMHO.
I will say this: the Denon DVD upscaling was noticeably "better" than what I was used to watching on my Sony BDP-S580 fewer artifacts, less fuzzy but not really sharp either. There are controls to adjust the image (BNR, MNR, et al.) but I never felt the need to play with these. I watched "Underworld" on SD DVD and after a few minutes forgot I was watching a DVD something that never happened with my Sony unit. I also watched "Fish Tank" on SD DVD (a newer release in 4:3) and loved the look of the image.
DVD-A Playback wow... this is where this device earned its pay. I have a small collection of DVD Audio discs and I've never heard the high-resolution layer on these discs. I have a Yamaha RX-V667 with Klipsch Reference speakers (RB 61 II/RC 62 II) and I cranked Metallica's Black Album to reference volume. Yeah... this spinner does a nice job of transporting bitstreamed audio for high-res music via LPCM.
SACD Playback again, the Denon was able to read and transport DSD to my AVR and it sounded wonderful. My SACD collection is almost all classical, however, and my listening system upstairs does a much nicer job the Klipsch speakers are incredible for movies and Metallica; not great for Hillary Hahn (you can read my review of the RB 61 II for more details).
Device Build and Noise Issues well, I guess you get what you pay for (and I didn't pay much for this box). The box looks nice, like a real AV component and the display and buttons are easy to see/use (unlike my previous Sony). However, the box is surprisingly light when you pick it up. And, all of that empty cabinet space resonates / amplifies internal mechanical sounds. On the positive side, the spinning disc sounds are minimal less than my Sony, which had been driving my crazy. On the negative side, the fan noise and the sound of the laser tracking is louder than I've ever heard on a Blu-ray player. It's infrequent and acceptable, I guess, but something that could have been corrected with some internal buffering material.
Usability Issues OK, some negatives here: activating 1080p/24 play back took some time to figure out (not on by default), in addition to the 'Auto' HDMI setting (which was also not on by default). These are settings that should be enabled by default and I had to read manual to turn these features on. My Sony, on the other hand, had an 'Auto' setting for just about everything. Lastly, the 'Media Player' is almost unusable, due to lack of responsiveness.
Don't buy this player for external (USB or DLNA playback); buy this player because it is a great universal disc spinner at an attractive price.
but was missing optical and 5.1/7.1 analog outputs. Loading time is faster than my 3 year old Sony,Picture/Audio quality is just about the same as well,
the CD tray is nothing like it used to be on DENON,it's super thin and and bends crazy (would not recommended if you have toddlers who can reach it).
It will play DVD Video in no time but when it comes to Blu-Ray it will load fast but with one very annoying feature,
the player is giving out a high pitched buzz that messes up all the quiet scenes in the movie. Remote controller is nothing like Sony wish it was,
Denon has one of the worst remote controller of any high end machine.
DENON 2 Decades ago was something else,they were not cheap like today for a purpose, you could not buy cheap made DENON like today.
I still own old Denon components that sill work today like out of box from dates when DVD's did not exist.
The old Japanese Godzilla machines with gold plated connectors were just about bulletproof,something you can't expect today.
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