Marantz unveils BD8002 Blu-ray player

Marantz BD8002

The £1800 Marantz BD8002 can play Blu-ray discs, DVDs, CDs and MP3 and WMA files recorded on a CD or the built-in SD card.

Upscaling to 1080p is handled by a Silicon Optix Realta chip with HQV processing, and the HDMI 1.3a connection supports 24fps video, Deep Colour and all raw high-definition data.

Onboard decoding for Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD is provided and high-definition 7.1 PCM soundtracks can be outputted via HDMI as well.

Profile 1.1 only
However, the player is only Profile 1.1, so won't handle BD-Live content, and doesn't play multichannel SACD or DVD-Audio discs. A true 'universal' BD player from Marantz is in the pipeline.

Connections on the BD8002 include HDMI, composite, S-Video and component for video, and one coaxial digital, one optical digital and multichannel 7.1 analogue outputs for audio.

A 297MHz/12-bit DAC handles digital-to-analogue video conversion, while twin SHARC DSPs decode DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD for outputting 7.1 analogue audio.

The player measures 14x44x40cm (hwd), weighs 10.5kg, and is available in black.