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First DVD player in the FMJ Range
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Based on the award winning DiVA DV88 DVD player
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Sil503 Silicon Image de-interlacer for stunning progressive scan video output
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Wolfson WM8740 audio DACs for superior sound
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Dual toroid transformer power supply
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Outstanding audio and video quality
The DV27 DVD player was designed in the UK by the Arcam team of specialists in video and audio electronics. They were set a demanding brief to produce a class leading DVD player to complement Arcams existing FMJ range of high end electronics. It had to play music CDs to the same level of quality as a dedicated CD player and also meet the highest standards for its performance on video and movie sound track replay.
The DV27 incorporates many innovative features, such as the use of dual power supplies, with a frequency locked switch mode supply for the digital electronics and separate linear supplies for the sensitive analogue circuitry. The twin mains transformers are both toroidal types for high efficiency and low radiated magnetic field. A vibration damped 3 layer Sontech chassis and 8mm solid aluminum faceplate add considerable mechanical integrity to the design as well as helping the overall performance of the player.
Two separate multi bit sigma delta Wolfson WM8740 audio DAC's are used in differential mono mode, with one DAC handling each stereo channel. Each DAC can operate up to 24bits, 192 kHz sampling rate, for future compatibility with DVD-Audio and has its own separately regulated DC supply. These, and the analogue filters and output stages, all receive their DC power supplies via a separate dedicated low noise toroidal mains transformer. This arrangement improves upon the acknowledged high standard of audio playback already available in Arcam's award winning DiVA series DV88 DVD player, launched in September 2000.
As in the DV88, great care has been taken to reduce the high levels of jitter seen in many DVD players. The DV27 uses two audio clocks and an asynchronous master video clock, all derived from separate crystal oscillators, to ensure excellent jitter performance. (Nearly all DVD players derive the audio clocks from the video oscillator at 27MHz and commonly suffer from poor jitter.) The coaxial SPDIF (digital) audio output uses a high bandwidth coupling transformer to provide the cleanest possible signal to an external decoder.
The DV27 supports the major analogue interlaced video connection standards, with component, RGB, S-VHS and composite outputs. All video signal paths use the best quality video op-amps instead of transistors for superior bandwidth and distortion. Additionally, state of the art progressive scan video output is provided for use with suitable projectors and other display devices. The progressive scan decoder board, designed and built by Arcam, uses Silicon Image's SiI503 motion adaptive de-interlacer chipset, with DVDO Pure Progressive@ technology - this is arguably the most advanced solution available on the market today and is visibly superior to the de-interlacers incorporated into all currently available Japanese DVD players. The SiI503 uses advanced algorithms for 2:3 pulldown and video mode detection, coupled with 4 field storage of video and sophisticated motion interpolation, to deliver top quality artifact free progressive scan digital video even under adverse conditions. This is converted back to analogue video with an Analog Devices ADV7196 triple 11 bit video DAC running at a sampling rate of 54 MHz, and is followed with top quality wide bandwidth video buffers for the Y, Pr and Pb component video outputs, to ensure state of the art video quality. This chipset supports both 480p and 576p video standards and YUV to RGB transcoding. To comply with current licensing standards only 480p YUV is available, but the player will in principle be able to provide the other types of output via a firmware upgrade should this be appropriate in future.
The player is designed to playback regular DVD-Video discs and CDs as well as CD-R and CD-RW discs. It will also playback HDCD and some MP3 encoded CDs.
The modular multi-board construction and flash programmable memory employed in the DV27 gives a flexible platform on which to upgrade to DVD-Audio. Arcam later offered DV27 owners a new DSP board and an additional plug-in audio board with 4 DACs to provide DVD-Audio playback capability.
The DV27 was designed and manufactured in the UK and available in black or silver.