Introduction

Denon has long been a well-respected leader in the disc player market, producing some excellent universal disc players over the years. Just a few years ago, a universal disc player needed to tackle CD, SACD, DVD-Video and DVD-Audio. Today’s disc player must now add Blu-ray to the list in order to claim the title of universal disc player. The Denon DBP-4010UDCI is their latest reference universal disc player and a price just shy of $2000 places this player second from the top in Denon’s Blu-ray player line-up. I’ve owned and auditioned many Denon players over the years, so I was excited to see how well the Denon DBP-4010UDCI would perform.

Specifications

  • Design: Universal Blu-ray Player
  • Supported Disc Types: SACD (Stereo/Multi), BD-Video, BD-R/-RE, DVD-Audio, DVD-Video, DVD-R/-RW/+R/+RW, CD, CD-R/-RW, HDCD, MP3, WMA, DivX, AVCHD, JPEG BD Profile: 2.0
  • Connections: Denon LINK 4th, 7.1ch Analog, 2ch Analog, Coaxial, Toslink, (1) HDMI 1.3a, (1) Component, (1) S-Video, (1) Composite, 100 Mb Ethernet, RS-232
  • Supported Resolutions: NTSC: 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p
  • Dimensions: 5.4″ H x 17.1″ W x 15.1″ D
  • Weight: 22.7 Pounds
  • MSRP: $1,999 USA
  • Denon

Design

The first thing you notice about the DBP-4010UDCI is the overall build quality. The player weighs in at just shy of 23 pounds. The front panel is a solid piece of brushed aluminum. The front display is very readable and can be dimmed or turned off as desired. To the right of the display are the basic transport controls along with buttons for reverse and forward skip. Denon also includes buttons for fast/slow forward and reverse. On the left are status indicators for Denon LINK along with buttons for Disc Layer, HDMI Resolution, and Pure Direct operation.

An SD card reader is located just under the right bottom edge of the display. The reader supports SD, miniSD, microSD, and SDHC cards. I used a 4GB SDHC card in my testing as this was the maximum card size supported by the player. The reader itself has a spring-loaded design. Once a card is inserted, simply press on the card and the spring-loaded mechanism ejects the card so you can easily remove it. I appreciated not having to pry these tiny SD cards from the reader slot. The Source button to the right of the SD card reader tells the player to read from the SD media or play a disc.

Moving on to the back of the DBP-4010UDCI, the player offers a 7.1 channel analog output, a stereo analog output, coaxial and Toslink digital connections, and component, S-video and composite video connections. The RCA and component video jacks are all premium, gold-plated connectors. The player offers one HDMI 1.3a output connection. There is the all important LAN connection for BD-Live support and RS232 and IR Control jacks for integration with remote control systems.

The back panel also has a Denon LINK 4th output. The Denon LINK technology has evolved over the years with the DBP-4010UDCI now including the fourth generation of this technology. Denon LINK is a proprietary Denon technology that supports the transmission of high quality digital audio directly to a compatible Denon A/V surround receiver or processor. The second generation of Denon LINK supported DVD-Video, DVD-Audio and CD. The third generation added support for the transmission of SACD. While you might be thinking that the fourth generation would transmit the high resolution Blu-ray audio formats to the A/V receiver, the Denon LINK 4th connection actually controls the master clock.

The electronic circuits within a disc player are controlled by a clock signal which establishes regular timing intervals that are crucial to the proper synchronization and processing of digital signals. Variations in those regular intervals are termed jitter, and the effects of jitter ultimately take away from the quality of the audio and video that we experience. The Denon LINK 4th connection uses the clock in the Denon A/V receiver to control the timing of the video and audio circuitry within the DBP-4010UDCI player itself.

The audio and video transmissions are still sent out over an HDMI cable to the Denon A/V receiver, but the timing of the signals is tightly controlled since both the player and the receiver share the exact same master clock signal. According to Denon, this significantly reduces the jitter encountered during the playback of Blu-ray disc media. In order to benefit from a jitter-free connection, the DBP-4010UDCI must be connected to a Denon A/V surround receiver or processor which supports Denon Link v4 and you must be playing a Blu-ray disc. If you play another type of media such as a DVD, then the video will be sent via HDMI and the audio will be sent via the Denon Link without the jitter-free processing.

 

Digital audio (such as from SACD media) over the Denon Link also has jitter removed, and that was one of its benefits from the beginning.

On the audio side of things, the DBP-4010UDCI uses Denon’s DDSC-HD (Dynamic Discrete Surround Circuit – HD) dual 32 bit SHARC processors to handle the player’s analog output stage. The DDSC-HD technology comes directly from Denon’s A/V receiver products and is designed to maximize audio quality as well as provide full bass management. The DBP-4010UDCI uses Burr-Brown 24/192 PCM1796 DACs in the analog audio output stage and uses a dedicated PCM1796 DAC for the analog stereo outputs (two DACs on every channel, i.e., fully differential). The player also includes Denon’s proprietary AL24 processing which upsamples 16 bit CD audio to 24 bit.

On the video side of things, the DBP-4010UDCI uses an Anchor Bay ABT-2010 video processor with a 297 MHz/12-bit Analog Devices ADV7340 Video DAC for the analog and component video outputs. The DBP-4010UDCI supports vertical stretch so those with an appropriate projector and anamorphic lens can eliminate the black bars from cinemascope video. The DBP-4010UDCI also provides extensive control over the video parameters. We’ll see how well the player does on the bench later in the benchmark section.

Features

The DBP-4010UDCI is fully compliant with the Profile 2.0 specifications for Blu-ray which means that it supports Bonus View, which is a Profile 1.1 feature, and BD-Live. The LAN jack on the player supports a 100 Mb connection speed but this will ultimately be limited by your internet connection speed. The player supports playback of SACD (stereo and multi-channel), DVD-Video, DVD-Audio and CD media and also supports BD-R, BD-RE, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW,DVD+RW, CD-RW, CD-R , DTS CDs and AVCHD formatted media. The DBP-4010UDCI will display JPEG image files on properly formatted CD-R, CD-RW and SD media. The player also supports DivX, WMA, MP3 and WAV playback.

As for output capabilities, the DBP-4010UDCI supports the output resolutions of 480/576i, 480/576p, 720p, 1080i and 1080p. The DBP-4010UDCI supports the playback of Blu-ray media at 1080p/24Hz if you have a compatible TV and an HDMI connection. The player will also upscale DVD media to 1080p resolution. The DBP-4010UDCI offers support for Deep Color via its HDMI connection which may come in handy down the road if and when media becomes available. The player supports decoding Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital Plus, DTS-HD High Resolution Audio, and DTS-HD Master Audio. If you are using a receiver which supports HDMI 1.1, the DBP-4010UDCI will output multi-channel LPCM. If you are using HDMI 1.3, the DBP-4010UDCI can send the high resolution bitstreams to your receiver based on your preferences.

The DBP-4010UDCI also supports a wide range of video adjustments which include the normal controls for contrast, brightness, chroma level, and hue as well as gamma control. These controls are very handy if your display or processor doesn’t allow for adjustment based on the individual input being used. The color space of the HDMI output can be set to properly match your display. The DBP-4010UDCI supports a number of advanced video enhancements. While I generally preferred to leave these settings at their default, features like edge enhancement and DNR (Dynamic Noise Reduction) will definitely appeal to those users who enjoy experimenting and want the most control of their video experience.

The DBP-4010UDCI will also have web browser support and advanced control functionality which will allow for remote access as well as setup and control from an iPhone or iPod Touch. This functionality will require a firmware update. The firmware was not available during our review time with this player. It is currently planned to be available sometime in March, 2010.

Setup

The setup of the DBP-4010UDCI is very straightforward. You only need to connect an HDMI cable, LAN cable, and power to make use of the player. If you have a Denon LINK compatible receiver then you should also connect the Denon LINK cable to maximize the quality of the audio transmission to your Denon receiver. Remember that you must have a Denon LINK 4th compatible receiver to take advantage of the jitter-free Blu-ray playback functionality that the DBP-4010UDCI provides.

The DBP-4010UDCI does not support simultaneous video output from both the HDMI and analog video outputs. If you plan on using the component video outputs on this player, then you must turn off the HDMI output. This is done by pressing the “HDMI Mode” button on the remote multiple times to change the setting. Once you’ve turned off the HDMI output, you will have to rely on the player’s front panel display to help you restore your picture.

I didn’t have a Denon LINK compatible receiver available for my testing so I connected the DBP-4010UDCI to my reference Anthem Statement D2 processor. In addition to HDMI, I also connected the DBP-4010UDCI stereo and 5.1 outputs to my D2. I left the Surround Back left and right channels disconnected since the D2 has no analog inputs for Surround Back channels.Once you get the player connected into your system, you should start making yourself familiar with the behavior of the setup menus of the DBP-4010UDCI.

The player’s menu system is activated by pressing the Setup button on the remote. The menu structure is accessed from a scrolling vertical ribbon of menu choices. Pressing the up/down arrow scrolls through the possible menus. In the example above, I stopped on the “Video Setup” menu. Pressing the right arrow selects the first item in the menu list which is “TV Aspect” in this case.

On the right side of the display, the current options for “TV Aspect” are listed. The item with the small circle to the left is the currently selected default. So let’s say we want to change from the default of “16:9 Squeeze Auto” to “WIDE (16:9)”. To change the value, simply press the right arrow to highlight the current item and then press the down arrow key again to select “WIDE (16:9)”.

What you then notice is that while the selection rectangle on the right did not move, the order of the items in the list did change.

I expected the complete opposite behavior. The selection rectangle, rather than the list of menu choices, should move! This behavior is repeated everywhere in the menu system. For example, if you return back to the main “Video Setup” menu, and then select “Progressive Mode”, you will notice that “TV Aspect” is now in the third position in the menu.

If you exit the “Video Setup” menu and even turn off the player, the next time you go back to the menu it will be displayed in the same order as you left it.

This has the distinct advantage that a setting that you change regularly will be right where you left it. The significant disadvantage is that you often spend time looking for things because their menu position has shifted on you. This also makes the player harder to learn. I should note that this behavior is not unusual to the DBP-4010UDCI. It is the current norm for many of the Denon and Marantz players on the market today.

Once you get the hang of the menus, you need to make some decisions about the audio configuration of the DBP-4010UDCI. The place to start is the “Audio Setup” menu which can be found on the “HDMI Setup” menu.

To access the “Audio Setup” options, press the right arrow button.

The first option in the list is “Auto”. In “Auto” mode, the DBP-4010UDCI selects the appropriate audio format based on the capabilities of the HDMI device connected to it. In my case, the DBP-4010UDCI sends DTS and Dolby Digital bitstreams when watching DVDs and various Blu-ray extras, and it sends high resolution PCM when watching Blu-ray since my D2 doesn’t decode the new high resolution formats. I found the Auto setting to work well all of the time and I appreciated having the D2 handle the decoding on the formats that it knows best.

The “2Ch” setting is used to downmix multi-channel audio to the front left and right analog multi-channel outputs of the DBP-4010UDCI. The “Mute” setting turns off the audio but allows the video to pass through. The other two settings control how bass management is applied within the DBP-4010UDCI. The “Multi LPCM BM Off” setting will always send Linear PCM output over the HDMI connection without any bass management. This means that the receiving processor or receiver is responsible for handling speaker size, distance, level compensation and bass management. The last option is “Multi LPCM BM On” which means that the DBP-4010UDCI takes responsibility for handling the speaker size, distance, levels and bass management.

Once the “Multi LPCM BM On” option is selected, you have full access to the menus for channel level, distance, and speaker configuration.

The “Distance” menu allows for every speaker to be adjusted independently without restriction, and distances can be entered in feet or meters and in small increments if necessary.

The “Channel Level” menu was typical of most receivers these days and allowed for manual or automatic test tones.

The unexpected item on the audio setup menu was that “Speaker Configuration” was grayed out and unavailable. I wondered about this for a bit and ultimately found the answer in the manual.
It turns out that the “Speaker Configuration” is tied to the “Source Direct” option which can be found on the “Audio Setup” menu.

The “Source Direct” menu is used to control how SACD output is produced by the DBP-4010UDCI. When the “Source Direct” option is set to “On: 100 kHz” or “On: 50 kHz”, the DBP-4010UDCI automatically sets each speaker to large.

This ensures that you get the most from your SACD collection, but it does mean that you only have access to distance and channel levels when configuring speakers and bass management within the DBP-4010UDCI. Once you realize the dependencies, you will find that the DBP-4010UDCI can be easily configured to work with your equipment.

Since the DBP-4010UDCI is a Blu-ray player, it needs to be connected to a network, and it is a good idea to make sure the player is running the latest firmware. Network configuration with the DBP-4010UDCI was a breeze. I just plugged in my network cable and the DBP-4010UDCI configured itself. A networking menu is available should you need to enter specific details about your network. As for updating the firmware, that option is available from the “Other Setup” menu.

You may notice that the menu is grayed out and unavailable much of the time. I discovered that this is caused by having a disc in the drive. Simply take out the disc, and the menu will activate. Once you check for an update, the DBP-4010UDCI will let you know if an update is available and approximately how long it will take.

I chose to update the firmware and the player displayed an appropriate warning message and a progress indicator once I agreed to continue.

The entire process was hassle free and took about 20 minutes to complete. My only complaint was that the player does not tell you what version of firmware you are currently running or what version you just upgraded to.

I want to mention that updating a Blu-ray player to the latest firmware is generally a recommended process no matter what brand of player you have. Since a Blu-ray player is frequently running Java-based applications when you watch a Blu-ray disc, there are sometimes software problems that can occur depending on the individual media and studio provider. The Blu-ray player manufacturers will often provide corrections and enhancements to the players to deal with software issues, but the only way for a consumer to get these enhancements is to update the player’s firmware. The DBP-4010UDCI makes that process convenient and simple for the user.

The last items to check are HDMI resolution and the all-important video settings. All of these settings are done outside of the Setup menus using buttons on the remote or the front panel of the DBP-4010UDCI. In the case of display resolution, you press the “HDMI Resolution” button.

This displays the current resolution at the bottom of the screen and allows you to change the resolution by pressing the button multiple times. As for video settings, these options are changeable only from the remote by pressing the “Picture Adjust” button. This brings up a small menu which allows for the selection of standard video settings as well as a bank of 5 user-selectable memory options.

Selecting “Memory 1” brings up another menu which gives you full access to the video configuration parameters for the DBP-4010UDCI.

I would highly recommend using a test disc such as the Spears and Munsil High Definition Benchmark disc to check the video settings from the DBP-4010UDCI. In my case, I found that I had to lower the contrast level on the DBP-4010UDCI slightly since I was losing detail in the picture. I also want to point out that the DBP-4010UDCI does not pass below-black video signals using the default HDMI color space which is YCbCr. You must change the player’s color space in the “HDMI Setup” menu to “RGB Enhanced” if you want to make full use of the Contrast, PLUGE, and Dynamic Range test patterns on the Spears and Munsil disc. The DBP-4010UDCI always passes below-black from the component video outputs.

In Use

Now that the setup details are out the way, we can talk about the DBP-4010UDCI in daily operation. The first thing you notice about the DBP-4010UDCI is that it’s not a speed demon. I found the player to be quite slow in comparison to some players on the market. For example, it takes on average 52 seconds for the tray to open when the player comes out of standby, and another 35 seconds after that to start hearing music if you insert a CD. If you left a CD in the player when you turned the DBP-4010UDCI off, it will start playing in approximately one minute and 12 seconds when you hit Play. The DBP-4010UDCI offers a “Quick Start Mode” to compensate for the slow start-up speed, but this comes at the expense of extra power utilization.

In my experience, I was content to just wait rather than consume more power. The player’s tray mechanism operated nicely but I was disappointed in the overall operation of the players’ drive mechanism. The player is slow, and during chapter seeks and disc-menu operations the DBP-4010UDCI produces occasional noise and beeps which were noticeable from across the listening room. Fortunately, this didn’t happen during normal movie or music playback and wasn’t a problem in daily use.

As an audio player, the DBP-4010UDCI was very satisfying. I had no troubles with any CD or DVD-Audio media and CD playback with the analog AL24 processing was very natural and enjoyable. In terms of SACD performance, I consistently preferred the DBP-4010UDCI analog output to PCM output via HDMI. The DBP-4010UDCI only outputs 44.1 kHz PCM signals when transmitting SACD over HDMI. To get the full benefit of SACD performance with the DBP-4010UDCI, you must use an analog connection. The DBP-4010UDCI converts the DSD bitstream directly to analog. Selecting “Source Direct” as discussed earlier allows you to send up to the full 100 kHz signal during analog SACD playback. I was once again reminded of how good SACD can sound and enjoyed some old favorites like Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and Peter Gabriel’s So.

For Blu-ray playback, I tested the DBP-4010UDCI with a few new releases: Julie and Julia, Terminator Salvation, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and Inglourious Bastards. The DBP-4010UDCI did a great job with all four movies. The picture quality was excellent with exceptional detail and depth as I’ve come to expect from Blu-ray video. On the audio side of things, the DBP-4010UDCI did an amazing job with the soundtrack from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. This movie makes great use of the surrounds and I was very impressed with how well the analog output section of the player performed. The soundtrack from Inglourious Bastards is superb and once again the DBP-4010UDCI did an impressive job producing the multi-channel soundtrack from this movie. Switching between high resolution PCM over HDMI and the multi-channel analog input on my processor was indistinguishable with the DBP-4010UDCI.

For DVD playback, I tested with the usual test material from Gladiator and Star Trek Insurrection. I did not see any major artifacts in the flyover scene of ancient Rome in Gladiator or the opening scenes of the village and hay stacks in Star Trek Insurrection. I felt that the opening scenes of Star Trek Insurrection were a bit noisier than I’d prefer, but overall I was satisfied with the player’s ability to upscale standard DVD.

The DBP-4010UDCI remote is straightforward. The Play button is uniquely shaped so you can easily find the transport controls without looking at the remote. The buttons for fast/slow forward and reverse on either side of the Play button are slightly curved on the edges which also help in locating the correct keys. I did feel that the bottom third of the remote which houses the batteries was overly bulky which made this remote seem really large in my hand. At this price point, I would have preferred a back-lit remote but the glow keys were a nice touch.
The user interface during CD playback is very basic.

Pressing the Display button on the remote cycles the display through the remaining track and total playing times. With all the available space on the screen, I would love to see a progress bar with track elapsed time on one end and remaining time on the other. The display gets more useful with SACD playback where the player will display artist, song, and album title if available.

When playing media from the SD card, the player will also include the album art if it’s included in your media.

There were some aspects of the DBP-4010UDCI that I did find frustrating. When accessing the SD card reader you do need to have a lot of patience since it’s a very slow process for the player to switch from playing discs to accessing the card reader itself. While I appreciated being able to play media and view photos off of an SD card, I really would have preferred to see a USB input on this player so I could access more media in a convenient fashion. USB flash drives are the norm these days and not everyone has SD cards. Many of my audio files are in WMA 9.2 Lossless format, and despite the player’s ability to play WMA, it was unable to process the lossless WMA files. This was a real disappointment for me and something I hope is enhanced in a future version. I also wished the player could just access the media on my existing network.

BD-Live Performance

In addition to the high resolution video and audio that Blu-ray offers, there are two additional features of the DBP-4010UDCI that we need to discuss. The first feature is Bonus View which allows you to enjoy a picture-in-picture overlay on top of the actual movie you are watching. The Bonus View technology is part of the Blu-ray Profile 1.1 specification. Bonus View is a great way to get some perspective on the making of the movie itself, and the Bonus View technology helps you really keep the comments in perspective. The audio for Bonus View is found on the secondary audio tracks.

The term secondary audio refers to an alternate audio track which is available on most Blu-ray discs. This extra audio content may contain menu sound effects which play when items in the menu are chosen. The extra audio content may also contain useful information such as the audio for the Bonus View feature. In order to hear this secondary audio, the player must mix the audio with the primary audio track for the movie. In the case of the DBP-4010UDCI, the player does not mix the secondary audio with the primary high resolution audio track unless you explicitly select “Mix Audio Output” in the “BD Audio Mode” menu. So what does all this mean to you when you are watching a Blu-ray?

First of all, if you want to use Bonus View, you must remember to turn on the secondary audio mix. If you forget to do this, you simply have to press the Mode button on the remote which brings up an onscreen menu.

Selecting “BD Audio Mode” then allows you to switch between “HD Audio Output” and “Mix Audio Output”. While this may seem like a lot of trouble, it is really a nice implementation since there are many players out there that require the user to stop the movie, go back to the setup menu, find the audio menu, find the BD audio setting option, change the option, and then navigate back to the main menu and restart the movie! That adds up to a lot of time-consuming steps to take advantage of the Bonus View technology. Fortunately, the DBP-4010UDCI makes that really simple.

You may be asking why not just leave the player in “Mix Audio Output” mode all the time. The reason for this is that you then lose another major benefit of the player – the high resolution audio. The DBP-4010UDCI does not have the internal processing capabilities to actually mix the secondary audio with the high resolution audio track and leave it in high resolution. To be precise, if you mix the secondary audio with a TrueHD or DTS-HD audio track, the player will only output the low resolution Dolby Digital or DTS audio tracks. If you want to ensure that you are getting the most from your audio experience on the DBP-4010UDCI, you have to make sure that the secondary audio is not being mixed when you watch the main feature on your Blu-ray disc media. I would recommend quickly pressing the Mode button when you start watching a Blu-ray movie to make sure that the “BD Audio Mode” is set correctly.

The other feature of the DBP-4010UDCI is BD-Live. This technology relies on the network connection in the player to retrieve additional content related to the movie and to provide additional movie trailers and promotional material offered by the studios. The BD-Live specification recommends a minimum of 1 GB of storage in order to download content off of the internet. The DBP-4010UDCI falls short in this regard by not having enough onboard storage to use BD-Live. Make sure you install and format your own SD memory card before attempting to use BD-Live on the DBP-4010UDCI. At this price point, I would have liked to see Denon include 1 GB of internal memory to satisfy the basic storage requirements for BD-Live. The DBP-4010UDCI had no trouble accessing the BD-Live content during my testing except for the Up disc. I included a small benchmark to give you a better sense of how the DBP-4010UDCI compared against the PS3.

Sony’s PlayStation 3 is still one of the fastest Blu-ray players on the market. While newer players are catching up to its speed, the ability to quickly and accurately process BD-Live material is still a step ahead on the PS3. My findings with the DBP-4010UDCI indicate that disc load times were somewhat slower compared to the PS3, while the PS3 still easily won on overall BD-Live load speed. This is not that surprising given the processing horsepower that comes in the PS3.

On the Bench

(Just to remind you, to see a larger version of the spreadsheet chart above, click on it, and then click on the blue square with little arrows in the bottom right hand corner of the chart to increase it to full size. You can hold the left mouse button down on the chart to move it around your computer monitor’s screen to see all of the data.)

Video Performance

The Denon DBP-4010UDCI had excellent results in all but a couple of our benchmark tests. Measurements were taken at 1080i resolution with the Tektronix Oscilloscope from the component analog video outputs. The DBP-4010UDCI had excellent core performance with white levels measured at a perfect 100IRE, luma and chroma channels in perfect alignment, and the image was displayed in full resolution without any cropped pixels. As you can see from the graph, the frequency response measured from the DBP-4010UDCI is almost ruler flat.
In our HD section of the benchmark the DBP-4010UDCI aced all of our tests with flying colors. The player has excellent noise reduction features accessible from the picture adjust button on the remote. In addition this player has good diagonal filtering and images are free from jaggies and stairstepping. The DBP-4010UDCI can properly convert both 3:2 and 2:2 cadence 1080i material properly. Finally the DBP-4010UDCI delivers the full image real estate and no pixels are cropped whatsoever.

Standard DVD Performance

Denon has been releasing Blu-ray players with excellent standard DVD deinterlacing again and again, and this player is no exception. The DBP-4010UDCI had near perfect results in our standard DVD benchmarks. Using HDMI and component connections the player passed all of our film based tests with ease. Results on our high detail test were superb and the player tackled anything you threw at it with precision.

On video based material the DBP-4010UDCI had good results with a minor exception. The player is motion adaptive and applies diagonal filtering and it passed our 2-2 Cadence tests easily but it fell short with a slow recovery time when switching back and forth between film and video material. Not slow enough to fail our test, but not fast enough to get a passing score either.

On the usability section of our benchmark, the DBP-4010UDCI had average results. Responsiveness from the remote was ok but general operation was slow and the layer change came in at just over a second which is a tad slow in comparison with some other players.

Conclusions

Overall, the DBP-4010UDCI succeeds at being an excellent universal disc player. The player handled every disc I threw at it with relative ease. The biggest weakness to the DBP-4010UDCI is its overall responsiveness. If the DBP-4010UDCI will only be used via HDMI and without a Denon Link capable receiver, then the player faces stiff competition from players such as the BDP-83 from Oppo Digital. Pairing this player with a Denon AVR which supports Denon LINK 4th will provide a state-of-the-art digital connection that should provide excellent results. The DBP-4010UDCI remote connectivity and control functionality coming in a future firmware update will provide consumers and custom installers with advanced options not available through other players currently on the market. These features together with excellent analog and multi-channel audio performance and excellent video performance earn the Denon DBP-4010UDCI the title of reference universal Blu-ray player.