“DVD players and DVD-Audio designs are fast becoming a commodity with many consumers,” says Rotel’s V.P. and General Manager, Mike Bartlett. “However, we know that this still leaves thousands of serious music and movie enthusiasts who understand that low-priced DVD or DVD-A decks don’t necessarily represent the best value.” Bartlett concludes, “This makes for a classic Rotel niche, and the RDV-1050 and 1040 are products we designed expressly to fill it; we expect them to be recognized instantly as the ‘value-high-end’ leaders in their respective categories.”

The new RDV-1050 DVD-Audio player reproduces high-resolution DVD-Audio multichannel and stereo recordings with state-of-the-art quality. Both the RDV-1050 and the $500 RDV-1040 DVD player deliver DVD-Video movies and videos, CD-Video discs, and SVCD discs. And of course, they both handle audio CDs-including discs on CD-R/RW media-as well as discs containing MP3 and WMA compressed-audio files. Both models even accept JPEG-image photo discs for “slide-show” convenience. What’s more, both players accept recordable and rewriteable DVDs, both DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW.

The new players also share many essential features such as robust, “over-engineered” power supply designs and meticulously selected audio and video digital and analog circuitry including costly high-current analog components and wideband audio and video digital converters. These include 24-bit/96-kHz audio DACs (on all channels for the RDV-1050), and the high-speed/wideband video DAC shared by both designs for pristine and stable screen images. There is even a new high-resolution graphical user interface Rotel developed to reduce the eyestrain of setup and everyday-use of on-screen menus.

Both players feature component-video outputs – user-selectable for progressive-scan or interlaced format – as well as S-Video and composite outputs. Each also furnishes digital-audio output in both optical and coaxial formats – an important convenience in many system setups – capable of sending PCM-stereo, Dolby Digital or DTS bitstreams to an A/V receiver or other processor. Both of course also provide stereo analog-audio outputs, to which the RDV-1050 DVD-A design adds the center, surround, and subwoofer outputs required for multichannel playback.

The two models also share an innovative function named Express Play Start, which dramatically cuts down on the waiting between loading a DVD disc and the beginning of playback. DVD-Video staples – such as bi-directional multi-speed slow motion fast search, and picture “zoom” and “strobe” features, are also common to the pair.

Additionally, the RVD-1050 and RDV-1040 also share Rotel’s Video Fine Processor circuitry that permits user-fine-tuning of picture parameters including sharpness, saturation, contrast, and more, ensuring fully optimized viewing with any disc.

As important as any single feature, however, is the clean, simple design and highly usable, intuitive control layouts these new players highlight. Both include full-function remote controllers; the RDV-1050’s is a unique “glow” remote handset with enhanced low-light readability.

The RDV-1050 ships in January 2004 and will be available with a black or silver finish, likewise the RDV-1040, which is available now.

Rotel are also introducing a number of additional new multichannel products at CES 2004. They include two new receivers, the $1,300 RSX-1056 (75-watts Ч 5 channels) that can be expanded to a 7.1-channel system with the addition of a two-channel power amplifier, and the 100-watt Ч 7-channel $2,200 RSX-1067. Both support Dolby Digital/EX and DTS/ES Matrix/Discrete decoding for digital-multichannel programs, Dolby Pro Logic IIx and DTS Neo:6 modes for spacious playback of surround-encoded and stereo home-theater and music productions. They can also handle HDCD compact discs, and can reproduce CDs encoded with MP3 audio files. There’s even a special mode on both models will bypass all digital processing and an integral 30 pre-set AM/FM tuner.