Denon DVD-3930 & DVD-2930 w/Realta T2 Chip Coming September- - Page 160

This was a common problem with the early releases of the 2930 & 3930 firmware. Search this thread to find out how to check revision and get latest one.

Ah, in my case I got the latest firmware from Denon US, so it might made a difference...
GEN8283-F_A15

Just bought a Samsung ln55c630. Great pq on HD content over cable (Cablevision) with just component cables. However, tried couple of sd dvds (Phil Collins concert, Apollo 13) and picture quality was poor on the concert and awful on Apollo 13. Have a 3930ci. (pq was very good to excellent on my just replaced old Sony XBR 40" CRT.) I have the 3930 directly connected to TV with both component and HDMI. Both stink (plus I have a lip sync problem when using HDMI. Audio goes thru Sunfire pre/pro).

The Denon should do much better than this, and the Samsung is supposed to do a very good job with standard def (supposedly has a very good upscaler?).

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks...

Sounds like you are letting the Samsung TV to do the upscalling, instead of the player. Switch the upscalling on in the player menu.
Samsung TV doesn't have a special cip for upscallling, just an average one.

The cable box probably does the upscalling for the SD programs...

I will recheck it, but since I'm using HDMI, there is a button on remote called "HDMI format" which seems to select output from 480i all the way up to 1080p. I assume that, by changing the output I am also changing whether the Denon is doing the scaling (by outputting at 720-1080), or the Samsung is doing the scaling (by outputting at 480i). Please confirm or correct me on this. Also, just for FYI, I have the 3930ci hooked up both with component and HDMI. No diff in pq. I also have Netflix wirelessly streaming to xbox which is connected to Tv via HDMI. While xbox games look great, the Netflix movies are absolutely horrid pq. Gueesing that may be more of a bandwidth problem though.

So if pq is bad regardless what is scaling, any guesses on whether it's the DVD player or the TV?

Makes no difference. Pretty disgusted right about now. Watching std def dvds on my sony xbr 40 crt used to be a reat treat via my old pioneer dv47a and this denon 3930ci (though the pio was better). Picture was so sharp and clear. I just can't believe that this is what SD content has to look like now.

Welcome to LCD HD world...?
I still have to see a LCD TV to rise to CRT quality on SD. Cannot imagine how a HD CRT would look tose days with HD signal (there where a few Sony HD trinitron "fine pitch" in stores at some point in the beginig of HD era).
Myself have a Polaroid LCD bought 2 years ago... I got used meanwhile.

I would say the TV. You are correct about the effect of the HDMI format setting.

Until very recently I used 1080P from my 3930 to my Ruby PJ. Picture quality was much better than I had seen with other DVD players and the PJ doing the scaling.

I recently put in a Lumagen XS and now do 480i DVD to VP and 1080P VP to projector for a slightly better yet picture.

Here's the strange thing. There does not seem to be ANY difference in picture quality whether I output 480, 720, or 1080 from DVD to TV, and no diff if it gets there via component or HDMI. It's almost as if the TV is totally unresponsive and indifferent to any input that isn't true HD!

ERASED due to D&M Holding (Japan) greed...
Service manuals are their copyright, but my post here was my copyright.

Sonic67, very nice! Thanks for all the trouble of taking the pictures and posting. How old was your 2930?

Bought it on 10/22/2009 (sale at Vann's). Manufacture date July 2007. Was't reading anymore the burned CD's (except the ones labeled "Music CD"). All was good on DVD's...
Curent wasn't increased (manual says to replace it at over 150% from initial curent. I was at 115%.
The new laser has higher curent set from factory - 42mA versus 32mA the original one...
I am curious to see how long this 13$ laser will last. And I just bought two more for 17$ (both) now on eBay.

PS: I have older (Nov 2005) Denon DVD-2910 that has a Hitachi HOP-1200R laser and that one is still working (as it should).

thanks for all your efforts showing details on laser replacement. I am curious as well how long your $13.00 laser will last

My wife uses the player every week day for some home school related DVD's, so yes, the player sees some "action".

FWIW I got my Denon 2930CI player ($850 list?) roughly 18 months ago at deep discount of roughly $200 when all the big manufacturers were dumping their existing DVD universal player stock.

THE best deal ever on a top quality player that I've yet got, and it continues to be my number 1 universal disc player.

But my purchase of a Denon 5910CI player ($4k list) at $1k is a close 2nd.

IMO sound quality improvement has gotten to be a slow thing thing this past 10 or 20 years. And odds are that Blu Ray is not going to solve that.

Cheers

Don't know if anyone is still on this thread but I have a question.
I just got a new Denon 3930ci and I love the picture but I have getting noise in the image. I see mostly in the black areas of the video. I looks like breakup like you would see in an old VCR. Its not the DVD because I tried it in my other player. Anyone know how to fix? I have the NR turned on but it doesn't seem to help.

How are you connected to your display? Component video? HDMI?

Try a different video cable, even if it's HDMI. Really.

When I've had issues with HDMI it's usually shown up as noise in the black areas of the video.

Honestly the same is true for component (or for that matter S) video.

I am hooked up HDMI but when I put the same DVD into my other player the noise if gone.
However I tried another DVD (LOTR) with the Denon and there was no noise in the black areas. So it must have been the first DVD (5th Element-Superbit).
Don't know why it would only act up on that one DVD. But the good news is its the DVD and not the 3930ci.
My other DVD player is an Oppo93 and this 3930ci beats it on SD PQ.

For those of you who have owned the 3930ci over the past 3 or 4 years, I am curious how your unit is holding up. I just bought a new in the box Denon 3930ci and a little nervous about how long an older player will last....even though it is new it is really not having been setting in a box for the last few years.
If you don't mind I would like to get your experiences with the durability of the Dvd player.

The Denon's quality is rather suspect... A number of owners are having issues where the laser assembly seems to go bad. I bought a 3930CI when it was first released. The display would go wonky on me right out of the box. Turned out it was a bad HQV processor which would act up when it got warm (the HQV video processor is a known issue with Onkyo receivers. They use a similar processor and the HDMI boards would go bad after a year or two as the excessive heat would dry out nearby capacitors).

A few months later, the player would refuse to play back movies. It turned out to be a bad laser assembly. It took two months to repair by Denon. Another few months later the laser assembly failed again right before the warranty expired. The laser assembly costs a few hundred dollars from Denon but a number of users have been able to replace the laser itself in the assembly for a nominal sum.

To be frank, for an expensive player, I find the Denon to be unreliable (I also had a Denon receiver to match the player which would not work with current audio codecs. The audio signal would be digital noise as the signal overloaded the decoders in the receiver. The new codecs are supposed to be downmixed to the older DTS\\DD formats) for the price. Their quality seems to have been suspect ever since they moved manufacturing to China instead of Japan.

What really deters me from buying another is that their warranty is a substandard one year period (most high-end warranties are two or five years long).

My 3930ci has been in service for 4.5 years. It has played DVDs several hundred times, CDs 1-3 hundred times. And a few SACDs. No repairs. Worked as good as new last night.

Try to adjust "picture quality" adjust#3 setting called "setup level"(page 35 on manual). Makes a big difference in black levels. Maybe that will help.

Thanks....I hope mine will hold up like yours.

Yes, I don't understand why they only offer a one year warranty.
My Sony E5000ES Blu-ray has a 5 year warranty. Not reassuring.

I have done this myself and am still running into one problem. I can't "decode" the service manual instructions to update the "current value" for the new head, and frankly don't even know where to look on the head for the new value.

The player does in fact now play DVDs fine, but still doesn't recognize CDs. I saw in someone else's instructions that aside from the current value, he mentions "initializing" the player and his claim was that if you didn't initialize it, the player would still not play CDs (as is the symptom I am experiencing). I understand it may still play SuperAudio CDs, but I have none, so I'm handicapped at the moment.

Your instructions are both thorough and helpful (wish I'd seen them earlier), but I might add that I didn't need to remove the entire player assembly. Instead, I ejected the tray and then disconnected power, leaving the tray in the fully open position. This gave me access to the entire rail assembly from above, and I worked completely from the top inside the player.

What I did do wrong the first time is to crack loose one of the hex screws and take it out, the one on the rail that goes through the head in two spots - the wide end or bottom in your images. Fortunately the threadlock was visible on both the screw and bracket, and I was able to place the screw back in its original position.

Also, you don't actually need to remove the other rail (the one on top at the narrow end of the head) since the head's narrow end has a slip-over guide rather than completely closed guides as the pair in the wide end have. Only the rail that goes through the white gear assembly and wide end of the head need be removed.

Back to my problem...

So, can anyone help me by describing the process of entering the new "current" value for the head, where I might find that value (there's two sets of numbers - one on the bottom and one on the curved side)? Also if there is something I was doing wrong to initialize, a little help here would be great as well.

Hopefully with an update to those numbers (and initialization), the player will come back to life completely. Otherwise, I'll be relegated to using it just for DVDs and I'll have to keep using my Pioneer DVL-909 Laserdisc player as a CD player!!

The numbers on the head, as you call it, have nothing to do with the "current value" and "initial value." These are the "current," as in Ohm's Law (milli amps), that the laser is pulling. The procedure to reset these values is in the service menu although it is in broken english. I was able to work through the procedure. You need to carefully read the instructions in the service manual.
To reinitialize the unit:

1. Turn off the player with the ON/off button (not the standby)

2. Turn on the dvdplayer while holding the PLAY and SKIP FORWARD button.

3. The player should now say INITIALIZE again....turn off player....DONE

4. Now set up the player again with your custom settings.

Be sure to have the player connected to a TV with a S-video or composite connection because the reinitialize process will turn off the HDMI output.

PM me and I may be able to help you a little more, but, frankly, if you can't understand the service manual you shouldn't be messing with these settings because you risk breaking the unit.

Hello I'm about to change the laser head on my 2930 as well (we have Denons crap laser heads here in Australia as well!!!) and was wondering if these current settings really need changing? Or will reininitializing the unit be enough for it to work, also where can one find the "service manual" or is it the "service menu" of the player that one needs to get into. How does one get into the service menu? Thanks in advance for any assistance/info

See the following for the service manual: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...0#post17513490
The service manual will tell you how to change the settings. The instructions are not clear and will take some patience to wade through.
You raise a good question. It may not be necessary to change these settings.
Let us know how you make out.

OK, I did figure out how to change the values for both the DVD and CD settings. It was a bit tricky but I was successful as when I went back in to check, they were the values that I had set. For those who are interested, the values are first determined by the player itself when you go to the proper menu. Once the values (which change a few times initially) stabilize, you then set them and the saved value reverts to the one determined by the player.

For me, I then initialized the player as instructed, however it still won't play CDs. I am stuck at this point, but I will simply use it as a DVD player and continue to use my Pioneer DVL-909 as the CD player in my system. I don't have any SuperAudio CDs so I suppose I am not missing much without being able to play CDs on the 2930.

If anyone else has any further suggestions about how to resolve this issue and wants to chime in, go ahead. I will post step by step instructions on how to read and set the current values for the DVD and CD lasers in a future post.

Thanks.

Nice work! Too bad about the CDs. You may need to replace the entire traverse unit. But I don't recommend it because, the last I checked, the traverse unit was about $90.
If you can translate the instructions on changing values to good english, I will salute you.