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| Sharp BD-HP20H Blu-ray Player Full HD 1080P HDMI 1.3 |
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Sharp BD-HP20H Blu-ray Player Full HD 1080P HDMI 1.3
Sharp
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| Product Details |
ISBN/ASIN: B000WQISP6
Release Date: 2008-06-04
Average Rating: 
Media: Electronics
Audience Rating:
Product Group: CE
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| Customer Reviews: Average Rating: 3.5/5 | | What a piece of junk!: Rating: 1/5 |
| I have come to expect to buy a piece of equipment, plug it in and simply enjoy it. Not the BD-HP20. I have today liberated myself from the torture of this piece of useless junk once and for all. I have had it over two years now and it has not worked properly from day one. I have no idea what the underlying fault is but it has exhibited intermittent problems right from the start. In the early days it looked like a cable fault but as soon as you think you've got it ... it shows itself another way. After 2 years of pulling my hair own with the confounded thing, swapping cables, updating firmware, (I am an electronics engineer so rest assured no stone went unturned), and repeatedly sending Lovefilm discs back supposedly faulty, I bought an LG BD350 today ... plugged it in and it worked beautifully from power up. Beginning with two Blu Ray discs which have been repeatedly ejected by the Sharp player as incompatible discs. We watched a film for the first time in 2 years that didn't freeze, skip or lose synch. The BD-HP20 has caused more frustration and disappointment in my household than any other piece of electronic equipment we have ever owned. Steer well clear. | | Good intro to Blu-Ray: Rating: 4/5 |
Forget all the techno speak... This is a good introduction to Blu-Ray and the fantastic picture and sound you get. If you do not have a true hi-def tv set then don't bother experimenting with Blu-Ray.
I have had this little beastie from December and re watched loads of standard def DVDs, because despite previous reviews I find it does a good job of upscaling on my 42" Sharp Aquos LCD.
True BD Discs are stunning and the sound to match. Also it has been reported that as no ethernet port is present, you cannot upgrade... wrong. I was having trouble with a BD version of "The Day After Tomorrow" it was jumping all over the place. After a quick visit to the Sharp website, a downloaded file saved to a memory stick, plugged into the USB port at the rear of the machine, update selected from the menu... hey presto updated to the latest sharp firmware version and a rock steady picture with TDAT.
Let's be honest it's a bottom of the range machine at a bottom of the range price, but, and it's a big but, if all you want to do is play big movies etc. it's good, very good. | | Quality matches price: Rating: 4/5 |
It's slooow to recognize the type of disc (DVD or Blu-ray). Sometimes it fails to recognize at all and I have to eject and close the tray to retry.
If it's doing something (like trying to recognice the disc type) it will not allow you to stop and eject (annoying when you have no patience like me).
Other than that it seems to work ok, and it is not the most expensive player. | | No surround sound on some disks: Rating: 4/5 |
| 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.: Rating: 5/5 |
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. | |
