What's more, the 1740 delivers deep and convincing blacks, and shows outstanding subtlety when it comes to displaying dark scenes. For example, when Paul Giamatti confronts a scrunt in the darkness, its excellent shadow detailing (coupled with the aforementioned lack of noise) gives the picture a terrific sense of scale, not to mention detail that makes blades of grass and even individual strands of fur clearly visible.

In fact, we can report no major picture flaws from this deck, even when it comes to DiVX playback, which is both smooth and stable.

However, it is disappointing that the deck doesn't support any other MPEG4 video formats as do some other players costing less than this one. On the plus side, though, JPEGs look extremely crisp and vibrant and are surprisingly free from jagged edges.

Piping a Dolby Digital or DTS soundtrack to a competent amp results in astonishingly good 5.1 performance, but a better gauge of the 1740's sonic prowess is its two-channel CD playback - and on that score it delivers the goods.

Corinne Bailey Rae's beautiful cover of Editors' Munich sounds fantastic, with Ms Rae's soothing voice reproduced in a warm and controlled manner, supported by a crisp and authentic-sounding acoustic guitar. The results aren't quite as clean as our dedicated CD player, but they are superb by DVD deck standards.

MP3 and WMA files also sound great, particularly when they've been encoded at 192kbps or higher.

The 1740 boasts sensational picture quality, making it perfect for owners of bigscreen displays who want the best possible picture quality for a minimal outlay.

What's more, its solid build quality and high-grade components put supermarket cheapies to shame and perfectly illustrates the 'get what you pay for' adage when it comes to purchasing a DVD player.

But from a features perspective, some rival players offer better value for money, boasting extra functions for the same price or less - and it's arguable that the Denon's picture quality (while excellent) isn't sufficiently superior to excuse the missing features.

Taken at face value, however, the 1740 is a typically classy deck of a standard that should appeal to home cinema fans everywhere.