What makes a $1000 DVD player?

Ever wonder why some consumer electronics (or computer electronics) are quite a bit more expensive than the usual commodity items you see at Fry's, Circuit City and the like?

Mike Maurer, one of my best friends, has started a blog where he will talk about, well, things that are interesting to Mike. Which is exactly how a blog should be approached. If the writer isn't interested in what they write, why would anyone else?

I should mention that Mike is a test engineer for a large "internet infrastructure" company in the Bay Area, so it will be interesting to see what he writes about. He's a smart guy who is into all sorts of different technologies and hobbies and as such brings a lot to the blogging table.

Anyhow, his first post is about his aged Denon DVD-3800 DVD player that originally sold for around $1000. We had been talking about ways to quiet his XBox 360 and we got the idea that perhaps the guts of the XBox 360 could be transplanted into his Denon case.

Don't know if it's feasible, but it did lead to him taking apart his DVD player (he doesn't use it anymore as it's been supplanted by an Oppo upscaling player) and take pictures.

It's an interesting look into what makes a  DVD player cost that much.

Basically, though, what it comes down to is fit, finish and quality of the parts. Of course, just as with cars, getting a better fit and finish car doesn't automatically make it better.

For instance, his Oppo DVD player is $200 and has been designed to output digital video and audio and do it well...perhaps as well or better than DVD players costing 10 times as much (and no that's not an exaggeration), but at the expense of really any analog processing.

But in this day and age, chances are that a real home theater buff will have a pre-processor (like the Outlaw 990) or a receiver that does digital to analog conversion at least as well as any DVD player would, so it makes little sense to spend twice for the same features.

Anyhow, higher end brands tend to charge more because they use higher quality parts, put everything together in a real nice well thought out package with lots of isolation and just all around heavy dutiness. Is the extra cost worth it? That all depends on what you like to spend your money on (if you even have it to spend).