Sharp BD-HP20 Blu-ray player

Sharp brings its latest High Definition Blu-ray player. The outer design of this player is very simple but stylish. The facade is covered with a plate of both reflective and transparent materials. All instructions are via the remote control, there are no control buttons, which is great until the batteries of the remote run out at one am.

If we ignore the missing Ethernet jack that could lead to bonuses available on some movies on Blu-ray. You can count on HDMI 1.3, three RCA YUV, an S-Video, one Composite, audio output 5.1 analog and two digital audio outputs (one coaxial and one optical). It is observed that the player BD-HP20 offers integrated audio decoders: Dolby True HD and DTS HD.

It is a regret that there is not compatibility with DivX, MP3 and JPEG files with this model. Indeed, the BD-HP20 can read Blu-ray, DVD and audio CD and CD-R/RW only.

It takes about 33 seconds for the drawer to open when the machine is off. Count 1 minute to see displayed the first image of a disk placed in the drive. It's a very long time but conversely the readers are the fastest in this field.

The setup menus could have been much tidier, also the screen icons not very attractive or clear in terms of what they represent. This is overall a disappointing outing from Sharp, not one of their best devices.