Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19134 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Sharp
• Model: BD-HP20H
• Released on: 2007-10-03

Manufacturer's Description
Watching high quality movies on Bluray discs
This Player offers full high-definition Blu-ray disc playback.

Blu-ray Disc is the ultimate next generation optical media format, offering the following key features:
• Largest capacity (25 GB single layer - 50 GB dual layer) - with over 5 times the amount of content possible with current DVDs, particularly well suited for high definition feature films with extended levels of interactive features
• Pristine picture quality with the capability for full high definition 1920 x 1080p resolution
• Best audio possible with uncompressed surround sound (higher quality than even theater audio)
• Broadest industry support - ensuring more choice for consumers in the marketplace
• Hardware products will be backward compatible with DVDs, allowing continued enjoyment of existing DVD libraries
• Disc Durability - new breakthroughs in hard coating technologies gives Blu-ray Discs the strongest resistance to scratches and finger prints on a disc the same size as existing CDs and DVDs (i.e. no cartridge is required)

Enjoying different kinds of discs and contents
Use this Player to enjoy certain types of discs, like DVDs and CDs and to enjoy many kind of multimedia contents.

Simple connection and operation through HDMI
This Player is equipped with an HDMI terminal. You can connect it to the TV using HDMI and no other cable will be needed to enjoy movies. If your TV is compatible with AQUOS LINK, you can control both the TV and this Player with simple operations.

Experiencing surround sound with your speakers
This Player can output 5.1 ch surround sound to the speakers through an amplifier. Enjoy the rich feel of a movie theater.

Box Contents

Customer Reviews

No surround sound on some disks
Superb pictures, and sound, on my 52" Sharp LCD and professional sound system, but I struggled for ages trying to get anything out of the rear speakers before realising that the BD disk I was using (Pink Floyd at the Albert Hall) has only PCM stereo plus True-HD surround - no Dolby 5.1 track. What a disapointment that this player doesn't do True-HD! Other disks, do work fine, with 5.1 surround. I had assumed that I did not need True-HD because I was quite happy with Dolby 5.1, never suspecting that disks with the lossless True-HD do not carry other surround formats - presumably because there is no bandwidth left for them. Two other things are a great disappointment. The startup time is far too long. I want to play a music track at will, not a whole movie, and two minutes or so waiting is just ridiculous. The fast startup option only seems to speed up the initialising when you connect the mains, not the actual time from inserting the disk and at the expense of increasing power consumption on standby to 18Watts, which I consider to be totally unacceptable in the present climate where future legislation is likely to limit standby power to 1W. Finally, while my music concerts are fine, most movies seem to be in letterbox format. I find the grey bars top and bottom very distracting, and did not pay for all those pixels in order to watch films that use only two thirds of them, with a picture on my 52 inch screen not much higher than I was watching back in the 70's on CRT televisions! I undertand that movie fans want to see the original as it was shot, but it's time all this was sorted out. Why did we opt for 16:9 if that isn't the best format, why not 2.3 to one. Actually, I think 16:9 is best, and Imax doesn't use a wide format but chooses height to fill the field of view and create an illusion of reality. I only hope that future films, shot on 4k (twice 2k which is 2000x1080) will sacrifice a litte each side in the transfer to Blu-ray, to give us a full screen. In the meantime, lets have pan and scan blu-ray disks please, or the option to choose either format.

Excellent player for the price.
Forget the naysayers who gave this a one star review (and don't even appear to either own it or have used it!!), this is a great low cost introduction to Blu Ray DVD. Build quality is good, and it's pretty well specified given the price.

Sure it's only profile 1.0 with no chance of an upgrade to 1.1 but frankly if (like me) you are simply going to want to load and watch a movie and not bother about flashy gimmicks such as PIP extras, then it's a no-brainer. All other extras can be viewed as per normal SD DVDs. It also has HDMI 1.3 output and the player supports most HD audio except DTS HD. It also has a quick start option so the DVDs start up in seconds instead of the usual long wait!

With a display that can accept 1080p/24fps signals, this player's picture quality is truly top class. Detail is astonishing and colours are vivid and lifelike. SD DVDs don't fare so well, but this isn't why I bought the player so I'm not too concerned.

The player is well finished in a mirror piano black gloss and looks good. Even the drawer/transport has a smooth operation (something I've not usually found in a player at this price).

If you are looking for a reasonable priced entry into the world of high def DVD, then you could do a lot worse than choose this one. At this price, it's a steal.

Buy a PS3 instead.
I'm looking for a Blu-Ray player now that Warner Bros. has officially backed Blu-Ray exclusively. However, after doing some research i've discovered that unless you buy a PS3 you might as well not purchase Blu-Ray media altogether. You see, Sony in their rush to get Blu-Ray out to compete with HD-DVD forgot to add all the standard features that HD-DVD has had from the beginning. As a result almost ALL stand-alone BR players have been reduced to expensive scrap. Without an ethernet port, these devices are useless. Therefore, only the PS3 is a worthwhile purchase. Unfortunately its big and bulky due to it also doubling as a gaming console.
One more thing, its rumoured that the PS3 will be getting a price cut soon. So it might be worth waiting until the spring if you want to save yourself somewhere between £30-50