Audio Video News

Among universal disc players, the Denon DVD-A1UCDI is the most universal of all. It handles Blu-ray, DVD, SACD, and DVD-Audio. But the pricetag is high, at $3800.

Still, for the high-end consumer, the uncluttering of the rack might be worth it. Those of us who care about both high-res audio and high-def video have been stymied by the advent of Blu-ray. To accommodate both, till now, you've had to commit to an unwieldy two-player solution. Legacy-format addicts may be unfazed--but in a designer room, with scarce space in a hip rack, the extra black box may be one too many.

The DVD-A1UCDI (interesting model number) is the first Denon player conforming to Blu-ray's Profile 1.3 (BD-Live). It can output SACD/DSD signals directly through one of its two HDMI-outs or through the new and proprietary Denon Link 4 HDMI jack. Multichannel signals can also be transcoded to PCM with full bass management. Video processing comes via Silicon Optix Realta HQV.

The player will ship in February 2009. See further details in This Week in Consumer Electronics.