Originally Posted by TheMoose

My 2 year search for a new home theater receiver has finally ended!
Ever since I got into HD I've wanted a receiver with at least 4 HDMI 1.3 inputs without spending a ton of cash, I decided on the Denon AVR3808CI.
While several brands have come out with multiple HDMI 1.3 inputs at a similar price including the Sony STR-DA5300ES with 6 inputs the single option that put the Denon at the top of my list was the ability to upgrade the firmware.
As fast as things are changing it's nice to know that this can be upgraded.
The fact that not all firmware upgrades will be free tells me that some new functions may be added & it's not all just bug fixes in the software that can be downloaded.
While the 3808CI can be bought at Best Buy in the Magnolia store within a store I highly recommend that you purchase it from a custom installer, the CI in the model number stands for custom Install & there are menus that only trained installers can access & they can diagnose problems over the internet, when I asked the sales guy at Magnolia about that he didn't have a clue what I was talking about (big surprise!).
My dealer went to the demo at CEDIA & is going to take the class provided by Denon to support this line of receivers.
I'm not impressed with the remote but the fact that both remotes have direct input buttons is a big plus, I programmed my Harmony 880 to run mine & when I'm sure I added all the functions I need it will go in the drawer with all the other stock remotes!
The Audyssey MultEQ XT auto setup was easy to do (it helps to have a tripod to mount the mike on) & it got the size & distance on all my speakers correct but oddly turned my Sub Woofer down so low it was barely putting anything out, a quick trip to the manual speaker setup corrected that.
I got it hooked up to my computer with no problems & my computer recognizes it but I haven't figured out how to stream music from my computer or get internet radio yet.

I wondered if there would be any handshake problems with the HDMI connections, I have my DirecTV HR20-700 HD-DVR, Sony Playstation 3 & Sony DVP-NS3100ES DVD player hooked up through HDMI to the 3808CI & a HDMI cable going to my Sony KDS-R70XBR2 & there was no problems.
It does have the "Playsforsure" sticker on it which means that anything that has been certified by the HDMI group should have no problems hooking up & playing & that worked in my case.
I've only had it a couple of weeks & have been through the owners manual twice but there is so many things this will do I'm going to have to go through it again.

I'm sure there is much more this receiver will do that I haven't found out yet but I do know that Ted Nugent sounds killer on it & I can really crank it up on action movies.
I'll add more as time goes by but for now here's a couple of pics & the specs.

Originally Posted by DrPaulsen

TheMoose :

Just out of curiosity -- did you ever end up having any HDMI hand-shake problems (i.e. AV drop outs) between your Sony TV and Denon 3808CI? I have a similar Sony SXRD TV (KDS-50A2000) and am seriously looking at the 3808, but am concerned about running into the same type of video drop-out problems that have been widely reported (cf. Amazon reviews, AVSForum, etc.) with Sony TVs. FWIW, I'll mostly be watching movies via my PS3 and HDA3.