Joel Brinkley

Denon has a long history of making first-rate components at reasonable prices, and now comes their entry in the burgeoning market for universal DVD players. No company, it seems, can fail to have one of these players in its lineup these days, and at $999, Denon's DVD-2900 is among the least expensive. Yet it still includes all of the must-have features one expects in a high-end player.

Faroudja has long made among the very best video processors—the company virtually invented the industry. NEC has made outstanding plasma televisions for several years. Combining an NEC plasma that incorporates several important Faroudja enhancements with a top-of-the-line Faroudja processor and selling them as a package was an inspired idea that presented me with an intriguing product for review.

Stand-alone DTV tuners may become an extinct species in the not-too-distant future, when the government's mandate to include one in almost every television takes effect in the months ahead. But for now, several million people own high-definition monitors that cannot receive free, over-the-air digital broadcasts without an outboard box. Some of these monitors are still for sale. As an example, Fujitsu still sells plasma monitors.

As I write this, the annual Consumer Electronics Show is nearly upon us. While HDTV remains the big story in home theater, DVD still commands a lot of attention. And one sure hot-ticket item is the "universal" DVD player—one that plays most audio and video formats, particularly DVD-Audio and SACD. While we expect to see new universal player contenders at CES 2003, there are already several models on the market to choose from. Pioneer was first, with the DV-47A. Marantz followed up a few months later with the DV-8300. And now, from Integra (a division of Onkyo), we have the DPS-8.3.