Sharp BD-HP20 Test (Blu-ray Player)

While well designed and comparatively cheap, The Register felt that the BD-HP20 was beginning to show its age, with the older Blu-ray Profile 1.0 and sluggish performance while navigating through discs.

When the Sharp BD-HP20 was first released, its palatable price tag managed to do much to offset a rather average performance, however, now that the format war is over and prices are dropping What Hi-Fi? magazine finds the player just doesn't do enough to justify a price higher than more recent players on the market. With only Blu-ray profile 1.0, no ethernet connection, an inability to stream High definition audio over HDMI and average audio and video performance, the player seemed to the magazine to have missed its window and subsequently loses a star.

"... There can be no complaints with the player's Blu-ray picture quality, which is incredibly clean and detailed and boasts radiant colour reproduction, and the 24fps mode makes movie motion seem fluid and judder-free. ..."

"... its lack of DTS HD, multimedia and especially Blu-ray Profile 1.1 support, together with its drab upscaling of your existing DVD collection, stop it well short of being irresistible."

"If Blu-ray is your choice format, this is as good as anything at the price."

"While Sharp's first Blu-ray effort is far from perfect, the pros certainly outweigh the cons. On the positive side, Blu-ray picture quality is phenomenal, delivering the sort of razor-sharp images that hi-def home cinephiles crave. ..."

"A fine effort; impressive given the spec and price."