Good sound and video reproduction

Lip sync problem, remote and on-screen display is below average

It seems to play the DVD's and CD's well enough, but the A/V lip sync problem is very noticeable in my case. Was playing the movie "12 Monkeys" today (DTS encoded format) and there is a scene around the middle of the movie where Bruce Willis and Madeline Stowe are in the abandoned theater in Philadelphia and Willis and some guy are fighting and a handgun fires and the flash from the gun appears about one to two tenths of a second before any sound is produced from the speakers. Resetting the delays on my Denon AVR-3300 to 1ft from the speakers will not clear up this lip sync issue. So I'm probably going to return the unit to Progressive Audio here in Columbus.

Otherwise, like I mentioned above, the sound reproduction is very good and clean. Possible that I simply have a defective unit, but I'll have a good listen to other units in the store before I leave with a replacement unit. I expected better quality for $450.

solid mechanical construction, quiet, CD-R

audio & video out of synch, video dissapears momentarily

I purchased this unit as part of a complete "open box" special that included the Denon 1801 A/V unit and Def Tech ProCinema speakers. Thought I was getting a great deal, relied upon the good reputation of Denon and the hefty feel of the unit.

But like some other reviewers, I immediately noticed that the audio and video were slightly out of synch. This effect seemed to be cummulative, after about 20 minutes of play the synch error was unnaceptable. I could fix this by stopping and restarting, but that is bogus. In addition, the video would simply dissapear for a moment, skipping ahead a full second or two. This happened on both Mission Impossible 2 and The Patriot, the only two movies I played.

Fortunately, the folks at Magnolia Hi-Fi are great, even though the unit was an "open box special" I exchanged it without hassle for the new Sony 560D, which has been flawless.

Summary: Do not buy the Denon 1500 regardless of price!

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sony 560d

In general we have been pleased with this unit. We had the EPROM replaced after we were unable to play the Patriot (Denon paid for everything). Now we can't play "Pink Floyd: The Wall" and we're trying to figure out why not. I also have a Toshiba 1200 and haven't had any problems with any DVDs. It's somewhat disappointing considering the reputation of DENON.

Looks/Rep/dts..5.1/picture

Mine would NOT play ID-4 or The Abyss or The new DTS T-2 past chapter 30.player is slow to load.

Like I said, Mine would NOt play the Abyss ID-4 and this weekend I tryed T2(DTS)It would not play past chapter 30.That was the last staw.I took it back today and my dealer gave me full credit toward any dvd player in the store.I took the NEW Panasonic dvd-RV80 retail $400.00 ,
Ill give a review this weekend.Anyway,I would only recomend this player if you KNOW your getting a lattest virsion of the 1500,so that the filmware is current.

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Marantz

Unnoticable layer change, picture quality (when it is working), aluminium front

Reliability, remote unit, noisy drive

Initially I wanted the Denon 1000 but the online dealer didn't have any left. He offered me this unit for the same price. So far so good. The first 4 movies played flawlessly but on the 5 disc (Conspiracy), loud noises started eminating from the drive unit (the drive is noisy to start with) and I could see artefacts on blue background and dark backgrounds started pulsating! I thought it might have been the disc itself. So I loaded the previous discs and they too had the same problem. The next day, I put on the very same disc and 5 minutes in, the machine refused to read the disc. All I got was the "loading" display. I could not get the machine to read any discs after that. I contacted the local Denon dealer and asked if he knew of similar problem with this particular model. He thought I was raving mad! I have returned the unit (after 5 days of ownership!!!) and I am now trying to get the dealer to exchange this lemon for possibly a toshiba or a pioneer simply because: a) this model has serious problems as evident from the reviews on this site; b) Denon and their dealerships have so far refused to acknowledge these problems; and c) the poor and arrogant attitude from their dealerships.

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Nil

Unnoticable layer change, picture quality (when it is working), aluminium front

Reliability, remote unit, noisy drive

Initially I wanted the Denon 1000 but the online dealer didn't have any left. He offered me this unit for the same price. So far so good. The first 4 movies played flawlessly but on the 5 disc (Conspiracy), loud noises started eminating from the drive unit (the drive is noisy to start with) and I could see artefacts on blue background and dark backgrounds started pulsating! I thought it might have been the disc itself. So I loaded the previous discs and they too had the same problem. The next day, I put on the very same disc and 5 minutes in, the machine refused to read the disc. All I got was the "loading" display. I could not get the machine to read any discs after that. I contacted the local Denon dealer and asked if he knew of similar problem with this particular model. He thought I was raving mad! I have returned the unit (after 5 days of ownership!!!) and I am now trying to get the dealer to exchange this lemon for possibly a toshiba or a pioneer simply because: a) this model has serious problems as evident from the reviews on this site; b) Denon and their dealerships have so far refused to acknowledge these problems; and c) the poor and arrogant attitude from their dealerships.

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Nil

Great Sound, sturdy design, quiet operation

remote, it is slow to starrt up

So, I bought this player despite the bad reviews here. I had several recomendations from sales people, one who is a buddy of mine. I have have encountered none of the problems stated here. Every DVD has played, it has never skipped or paused, it had always recognised the correct digital track. Hate the remote and my universal cannot be programed to operate it. I have noticed some loss of resolution in backgrouds but I have it hooked up via RCA not s-video. Soud has been awesome. I bought a open box unit for about 300us.

One big plus is that it is quiet compared to Sony players, you can barely here the mechanism spin. This is a big deal to me I HATE ELECTRONICS NOISES! I think Denon has either fixed the problem or it was not on all units. My unit is March 2000.

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sound quality, appearance

remote

I previously used this site when I began building my latest audio system and found the comments to be very useful in the purchase of my receiver and front speakers. Unfortunately, I did not have a chance to do a lot of research prior to buying the Denon DVD-1500 and only had a chance to review the comments I found here after I got it home. Needless to say I was shocked. After reading several of the reviews that follow I thought I had bought a dud. The major criticisms of the player that seem to appear consistently in the reviews are as follows:

1) Lip syncing effecting on some dvd's
2) Failure to play certain movies namely the patriot, T-2, Girl Interupted and Independence Day
3)Noisy
4) Poorly designed remote

Regarding the lip syncing problem, I only noticed this slightly after it was pointed out in the reviews that follow. It is in fact so slight that my observation may be prompted by a false preconception. Overall, I wouldn't consider this a problem.

I nearly s*it my pants when I read this thing didn't play certain DVD's and quickly went out to rent the ones which seemed to have the most common reports of failure. Of the three I rented: The Patriot, Girl Interupted and T-2 none of them gave me a problem. In fact they all played back beautifully in sound and picture.

The player does make some noise while running but nothing excessive. I ran it side by side with my Dad's Toshiba and the Toshiba was far louder. Besides, once you have your volume turned up to listening level you would never notice the player running.

In my experience with the player so far, I would only agree with the comments on the poorly designed remote. This is also true of the remote for the Dennon receiver I bought (AVR-1610), but to be honest I don't tend to use the remote that often so it doesn't bother me.

In conclusion, I've only had the player for a day so my review may be premature but I can assure that I have tested mine for all of the bugs found in the reviews that follow and have not found them to be consistent with the product I purchased. If I do run into problems I will be sure to update this comment.

I also noticed in one or two of the reviews that at one point there was a problem with a chip in the player that has been fixed. Perhaps the one I purchased is a more recent build with the updated chip.

I gave this a 5 star value rating because I appeared to get it for a good price relative to others. I only paid $475 canadian which is about $300 US.

My overall rating is only 4 stars due to the poorly designed remote and the fact that I've only owned it for a day.

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NICE PICTURE

SYNC,LOADING TIMES,REMOTE IS JUNK,EVERYTHING ABOUT ITS USE.

I BOUGHT THIS THING AS MY FIRST DVD PLAYER AND I DID NOT KNOW ANY BETTER AFTER I HAD IT 3 MONTHS I GOT RID OF IT. I BOUGHT A SONY AND WOW WAS THERE A DIFFERANCE BUT IF I WOULD NOT HAVE TRIED SOME THING DIFFERANT I WOULD HAVE THOUGHT THAT IT WAS JUST THE WAY IT WAS.ANY HOO I WOULD NOT HAVE ONE OF THESE IN MY HOUSE( LET THE PEOPLE WHO THINK BOSE ARE GOOD HAVE THEM!!! GOOD DAY!!

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Nice design (but is that enough ?), and good sound quality.

Horrible lip-synch.
background transitions are awful (walls, fog, etc. are 'pixilized'.
Remote control too complicated.

DO NOT BUY THE DENON DVD-1500 !! As another reviewer said: At least let my unfortunate loss be your gain.
I bought this product a month ago and at first it seemed to work fine. Then I began to notice the increasingly awful lip-synch problems and the unsmooth background transitions.
This player is way overpriced for its awful performance.
I will try to get rid of it somehow - even simply throw it away ! - and will definitely buy another DVD player.
I am very disappointed in Denon, and very angry at the store saleperson who highly recommended it....either he found a sucker to rid the store of this awful product, or just doesn't know his business.

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My 1st DVD.