Blu Ray Disc Players

The Blu-ray player’s triumph in the high-def disc war has unfolded the floodgates for the player manufacturers. Though it has won the battle, it has to still go a long way in order to persuade the users to rely over them. As the Blu-Ray markets are getting more and more crowded, Sharp has also joined the party by releasing its first Blu-ray disc player, BD-HP20U AQUOS Blu-ray Disc player. It has attempted to leap out from all the other models by attending to their one of the major complaints which is slow disc load times by providing Quick Start Feature.

Sharp BD-HP20U AQUOS Blu-ray DVD player does not support any of the latest Blu-ray disc players features, has sacrificed on the picture quality, is also the most sluggish of all the HD players that we had ever seen and is not complaint to profile1.1.

Design:

Body:
With a moderate size and comparatively a light weight of 8.8lbs, the player can fit in a standard A/V rack. The carefully narrowed edge of the top layer of the player has a shiny-black finish and the other parts are matte black. The front faceplate of the player is black and mirror-reflective; it has a small LED display in the center of the unit. The display can be turned off by either using the options in the set-up menu or by using the light button that is available in the remote. The front-face of the disc has circular indicators which glow depending on the type of disc that is inserted.

Menu:
The menus are stuck to the standard definition and they lack some visual dynamism. Yet there are no issues with navigation.

Remote control:
This Sharp BD-HP20U AQUOS Blu-ray Disc player has a rectangular Infra red remote control with curved edges which can be said as an average one for a Blu-ray disc player. This clicker has a finger well in its back which gives us a comfortable, solid grip. The four-way directional pad is logically placed so that, when the remote is held, your thumb directly is placed over this navigational pad. An attached section which when opened reveals the numerical controls have the playback controls. This is not a disadvantage as this flip-down panel hides only some of the non-essential features. The controls are labelled which is very handy, but the remote does not have any back illumination.

Features:

Connections:
The rear side of the player has all the port connections. It has the HD-compatible video outputs such as HDMI and component. The audio ports include the optical and coaxial digital and also the 5.1-channel analogue. It has an USB port for loading firmware updates from an external storage device. This player has omitted the Ethernet port, undesirably which means, future updates must be done by burning a CD.

Media types:
BD-HP20U AQUOS Blu-ray DVD player can play the standard CDs and DVDs apart from the Blu-ray discs. This player can not support anything competing HD DVD format. This implies that this player can support BD-ROM, DVD+R, CD, CD-RW, DVD-RW, CD-R, DVD+RW, DVD, BD-R, DVD-R and BD-RE.

Performance:

The forgetful list of a few compulsory formats in BD-HP20U’s specifications includes only Dolby Digital, DTS, and Linear PCM (LPCM) audio formats. LPCM is a very good option for those looking for lossless digital output. This player does not offer a decoder for DTS-HD encoded audio in both the formats. Sharp BD-HP20U’s high-resolution audio support is regretful, offering no ability to listen to the high-resolution DTS soundtracks, which are available on many Blu-ray movies

BD-HP20U’s selection of video formats is that of a typical modern type discs and hence has a solid connectivity package. This player can output up to 1080p/60Hz video with DVD and BD movies over HDMI. With the help of HDMI, this disc player also mechanically switches to 24 Hz with BD movies when it is connected to a HDTV that is capable. As most of the films are originally recorded in 24fps, if your HDTV displays video at this pace, you can enjoy smooth, judder-free (A shaking or wobbling effect in a video image) playback. But the bad news is that, the player can not upscale DVD videos to 1080p24Hz. When 24Hz output is enable, it is not indicated in the screen which can not be appreciated. Output of up to 1080i with BD movies and 480p with DVD videos is supported by the player’s component video ports. When it comes to DVD up-conversion to HD resolution, the BD-HP20U delivered superb detail with authored movies transferred from film of 24-Hz type. The player displayed fewer details and had some distracting artefacts with the 1080i video output.

The Quick Start Feature:
Sharp claims that the player can deliver BD video in around ten seconds which has been technically proven to be accurate but there was a catch as the player took 20 times longer than the other similarly priced Blu-ray players to begin the playback of the main feature.

When you enable the players Quick Start Feature, the player’s start-up time can be reduced highly from around 36 seconds to an immediate start or just say, zero seconds. In order to get the video on-screen at a lightning speed requires the disc to be preloaded. After this process of preloading, all which is required for you to do is, just press the play button. Some of the latest BD movies contain some extra advanced menu features that require some extra processing and for this BD-HP20U ate up a full one minute whereas, this job was done by Samsung BD-UP5000 Blu-Ray Player in just around 20 seconds and Sony’s play station3 completed the job in a blasting 5 seconds. This Quick Start feature also makes the unit consume more power in the stand-by mode. This is because this feature essentially works by leaving the player on for most of the times.

The Sharp BD-HP20U Blu-ray Disc player is not so appealing and is outdated. The player’s seller point which is the Quick Start feature is itself very weak as its competitors can bring the main movie onscreen at a faster rate. As Sharp is trying to stuff many features into the player, it is sad that the player does not handle any of the newest BD players features like PIP and BD-live. And this product comes with one year warranty.

Sharp BD-HP20U AQUOS Blu-ray Disc player Technical Specification Details

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