Earlier today I emailed Audio Products Group, the Australian distributor for Denon, along with other brands, about whether it would soon be releasing the Denon DVD2500T. Despite the name, this is actually a Blu-ray player.
Or not.
In truth, Denon call it a ‘Blu-ray Disc Transport’. This became apparent when I looked at the brochure they emailed me and inspected the picture of its back. There on the back was an RS-232C serial port, an IR in and an IR out socket, and a HDMI socket. That’s it. No component video outputs. No S-Video, analogue audio or even digital audio. This unit delivers the contents of a disc (CD, DVD Video, Blu-ray and various computer formats) digitally, and that’s all there is to it.
Is this the way that Blu-ray players will go? I suspect that it’s likely. I think that in the end all the outputs other than HDMI will be shed. However, some more internal processing will be required. In particular, it will necessary for a full set of audio decoders to be included — ones capable of decoding two streams at once — two support the highest quality primary/secondary audio output. This unit offers bitstream output but, as I understand it, no internal decoding.
APG expects the Denon DVD2500BT to be available in Australia in September, selling for around $1,899. It is a full Final Standard Profile unit and uses SD as its storage medium. The pricing reflects the premium nature of the product, which weighs a massive 9.2 kilograms.