Onkyo's DVD Changer Spins a New Tune

Here's a hands-on look at the moderately priced, multiformat DV-CP802.

Alan Stafford, PC World

Onkyo DV-CP802, front and rear.

Choosing a DVD player used to be simple: progressive scan or no progressive scan? These days, even the DVD players on sale for $29 at Wal-Mart feature progressive scanning. Onkyo's DV-CP802 DVD changer, introduced in July, may cost more than that, but its features go far beyond what those models offer.

I took a look at a shipping version of the DV-CP802. The $500, six-disc-carousel changer plays many different formats, including DVD-Video, rewritable DVDs, CD-RWs encoded with MP3 or WMA audio files, JPEG/Picture CDs, and--most important to audiophiles--DVD-Audio, and Super Audio CDs.

To deliver those formats to your television and/or home theater receiver, the DV-CP802 has component, S-Video, and composite-video outputs, plus optical, coaxial digital, and composite-audio outputs. It has two extra composite-audio ports, so it can send 7.1-channel audio to a receiver through them or via the optical or coaxial digital ports.

Getting the Picture

DVD movies look superb on the DV-CP802, perhaps thanks to a 108-MHz, 12-bit digital-to-analog video converter (DAC). More bits are always better; other DVD players often make do with 54-MHz, 10-bit DACs. Master and Commander, Lost in Translation, and The Matrix Reloaded looked lush, and even dark scenes looked detailed.

However, the best-quality output it produces is 480-progressive analog via its component outputs. It has no digital video outputs--no DVI, no HDMI, no FireWire, and no upscaling circuitry (for example, Faroudja line-doubling technology). Onkyo offers HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface), FireWire, and upscaling with its DV-SP1000, a $2000 single-disc player. Its DV-SP701 model, a six-disc changer that costs only $300, doesn't play high-definition audio.

The DV-CP802 allows you to adjust only a few settings while a disc is playing--for example, you can't change from surround-sound audio to stereo in the middle of a movie. Instead, you have to stop the disc, and then navigate through some rather detailed menus to make adjustments. Those menus are detailed because the DV-CP802 provides many different settings for video and audio--so many that it ought to come with a calibration disc. The remote control has itty-bitty buttons that aren't illuminated, so it's useless in the dark.

Audio Dynamite

But the DV-CP802 is a real star when playing high-definition audio discs. Although it won't play DVD-Audio or Super Audio CD sound through its digital outputs (as its pricier cousin, the DV-CP1000 will), you can use all those analog outputs to deliver 5.1 discrete audio channels to your surround-sound receiver.

I connected the DV-CP802 to my old NAD 1600 preamplifier and 3400 amplifier (which were made before surround-sound entered the audio lexicon), and sent the audio to a pair of Klipsch Forte II speakers. Because the preamp has only stereo inputs and the amplifier only stereo outputs, DVD-Audio discs defaulted to 192-KHz, two-channel sound, rather than 96-KHz, 5.1-channel sound. No matter--they sounded incredible.

I tried out several DVD-Audio discs and a Super Audio CD, and compared a couple of them to CD versions of the same discs. I found the difference in audio quality easily discernible; high-definition discs are to CDs as high-definition television is to standard-definition TV. You hear things you never knew were there. For example, on "Pretty Maids All in a Row" off of The Eagles' Hotel California, the ticking of a drumstick becomes distracting, because it comes through so much more clearly on the DVD-A. You can actually understand the mutterings at the beginning of the SACD version of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. Though many high-definition audio discs are remasters of classics, these little discoveries make them sound fresh.

The Music Never Dies

The unit's mechanism allows you to load discs while one keeps playing, which is great for avoiding dead air during parties. But while the carousel spins quickly, it's pretty slow to begin playing or change discs--it takes about 15 seconds.

Only MP3 and WMA titles appear in the DV-CP802's display, so you can get stuck watching the FBI warning and trailers just to figure out what movie is in the drive. For that reason, the changer function seems a much better idea for audio discs (but I'm not willing to buy another DVD player for the convenience).

The DV-CP802 is a killer high-definition audio player, and its DVD-Video functions seem like the best you can expect for the price--and a good compromise. Next step we'd like to see: a DVD changer that plays DVD-A and SACD discs, and records video on DVD, too.