Onkyo Joins the HD DVD Camp, Announces Its First Player - For "just" $900

As the next-generation DVD players become increasingly popular among consumers, more and more manufacturers of multimedia equipment are starting to develop their own products, targeting this important market segment. However, while most such companies are trying to keep prices at a relatively low level, Onkyo is doing the exact opposite thing, as it has just announced the imminent launch of its first standalone HD DVD unit, the DV-HD805.

Since Onkyo is a well-known manufacturer of various A/V equipment, it's quite clear that the DV-HD805 has been designed to work with Onkyo's 2007 A/V receiver line-up, which means that both the HD DVD player and the A/V receivers feature HDMI version 1.3a connectors (thus enabling the Deep Color technology for improving color tones and achieving finer color gradation). Moreover, the player also complements the company's A/V receivers by streaming of the new lossless surround sound formats, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, as well as two "lossy" formats, Dolby Digital Plus and DTS-HD High Resolution Audio.

The Onkyo DV-HD805 also provides the capability to support different frame rates, including playback at 24 frames per second, which is the native frame rate of the original sources for most HD content. This ensures that the user will be able to experience the playback of films recorded to HD DVD at a very high quality, from both the audio and video points of view.

Another important component of the DV-HD805 is represented by its onboard HQV Reon VX video processing chipset, which provides very precise video scaling (to 720p, 1080i or 1080p). When used with the standard-definition DVD format, HQV Reon VX enables viewers to enjoy superior video quality at the native resolution of the connected high-definition display, while eliminating or substantially reducing video noise for improved video reproduction.

The DV-HD805 will hit the shelves in the fall of 2007 for around $899, which is an extremely high price to pay for such a device, considering the fact that several such devices are already available on the market for much more "normal" price tags.

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