[Pirate]

Introduction_______________________________________________________

I’ve been an HD DVD owner since day one and have been spoiled by the format’s excellent picture and sound capabilities (I also frequent DLP cinemas). So, being that the Sharp BD-HP205 is my first foray into the world of Blu-ray, the player needed to impress. And, for the most part, it does. However, my initial impressions of the Blu-ray format are mixed.


Player Specifications:
• BD Profile 1.0
• HDMI (v1.3)
• Component
• Analog Audio Out (5.1ch)
• DVD-R/+R/RW
• CD/CD-R/CD-RW
• USB

Video Specifications:
• 1080p/24
• DVD upconversion via HDMI

Audio Specifications:
• PCM (Internal Decoding)
• Dolby Digital Plus (Internal Decoding)
• Dolby TrueHD (Internal Decoding)
• DTS-HD (Internal Decoding)
• DTS-MA (No support at this time)
• Dolby Digital (Internal Decoding)
• DTS (Internal Decoding)


Firmware Updates:
The updates for this player can be found at Sharp’s website. You simply download the file and place it on a USB thumb-drive, then connect the drive to the player’s USB port. The update takes about 10 minutes.



Player Review______________________________________________________

Design & Aesthetics: 6/10
Coming from the Toshiba HD-A1 HD DVD player, the Sharp is a thing of beauty. The build feels sturdy enough and the disc tray is made from solid plastic. It’s still a little large for my taste, but it’s not bulky or overly heavy. The ports on the rear panel are nicely laid out and marked.

The front panel, however, has these silly blinking rings (which you can turn off) and a very unattractive (and cheap looking) mirror finish. I have a 110” screen and I was really worried that it would reflect. Thankfully my component rack shields it just enough for it not to be an issue. But, keep this in mind if your player does not reside with your display.


Remote Control: 7/10
I use a master control, so the player’s remote is of little concern. However, unlike many of the HD players out there, the Sharp’s remote is actually decent. Button placement is nicely laid out and everything is clearly labeled. There is no backlighting, though.


Setup Menu & Features: 4/10
The setup menus offer little in the way of customization. There are the basic setup options such as TV aspect ratio, output presets, etc., but you cannot tweak any video settings. Audio offers more options. You can adjust DRC and how the player detects HDMI. If you’re using the 5.1 analog outs, you can customize the speaker distance, volume and size.

The menus can become cumbersome to navigate during your initial setup. For example, you cannot make any changes unless the disc is out of the player—and you can’t just open the tray, you have to take the disc out and close the tray.


Loading Times, Operation Speed & Quick Start: 6/10
It’s important to understand that these new HD format players are no longer just stand-alone DVD players—they’re computers. And what do computers have? That’s right: loading screens. Well, at least Blu-ray has loading screens. Being new to the format, I’m not used to this extra bit of thumb-twiddling time, and I found I was losing my patience watching the key rotate for over a minute while Pirates of the Caribbean loaded or watching the bar under Seth and Evan (loving sketched as clothes-wearing penises) slowly fill in for the Superbad menu. And, it seems, that a lot of this extra loading is due to ridiculously over-produced menu screens. A most unwelcome addition to the DVD world, in my opinion.

Anyway, below are the load times for the player itself. Just expect to add a minute or so for certain Blu-ray discs. The numbers below are an average time from a test using several discs from different studios.

Time using the eject button on the remote to power up the player and open the tray: 30.2

Time from tray closed to the Blu-ray disc’s program start or initial loading screen: 50.4

The Sharp sports a feature called Quick Start. Let me be the first to say that this feature is, for the most part, bullshit. Every time you load a Blu-ray disc, the player reads the disc and loads the content. The Quick Start feature is supposed to shorten this time by taking you straight to the disc’s program start. However, the time this saves is about 5-10 seconds—and it doesn’t even work for all discs, especially java-heavy ones.

I could see this feature being worthwhile if it could bypass the player’s loading as well as the disc’s loading, but as it stands, I don’t really see the point. Especially since leaving this feature on also increases power consumption.


Blu-ray Playback & Navigation: 9/10
Since there are currently no calibration tools such as Digital Video Essentials for Blu-ray, I had to adjust my 720p projector’s settings by feel. It took several hours of tweaking, but I finally got the picture where I wanted it.

After the time I’ve spent with HD DVD, I can say that I’m very pleased with Blu-ray’s performance. Most of the discs I have are AVC/MPEG-4 encoded and while I do prefer the look of VC-1, some of the discs I’ve previewed have been nothing short of astonishing. The E-Train sequence in Spider-Man 2 is mind-boggling, and just pick any scene in the Pirates of the Caribbeanfilms and securely position your drool bucket.

The Sharp produces a stunningly . . . um . . . sharp image, with deep blacks, rich colors and excellent contrast. I still think the Toshiba HD-A1 produces a nicer image, but only slightly.

Accept for some of the arduous menus and their excessive bells and whistles, navigating Blu-ray menus is a breeze. I like the pop-up menu feature (similar to HD DVD), but I especially like that almost every Blu-ray disc I’ve previewed has a main menu. I don’t like it when the film begins without letting me setup the audio first, because more often the not the audio is defaulted to the non-HD option.

I’m sure there are stronger Blu-ray players on the market, but I doubt you could find a better one in this price bracket.

Note: For those who care, the player-generated subtitles are easily readable and smoothly rendered. And they’re white . . .


DVD Playback & Navigation: 5/10
This is where the Sharp crashes and burns. DVD upconversion—when noticeable—looks painfully artificial and actually seemed to soften the image. I couldn’t run any complex tests, but I did notice an increase in jaggedness and video noise. My standard non-upconverting Pioneer ELITE DVD blows this Sharp away, so if you’re looking to play anything but Blu-ray, this player is not for you. Even if you’re not a discerning videophile, I think the SD playback’s faults would be noticeable.

Navigation for SD-DVDs is also a let down. I was not able to skip any of the menus when watching DVDs. Normally I can hit "menu" or "next" to get past the usual trailers and warning screens, but not with the Sharp. Instead I get this wonderful "cannot operate" message that damn near drove me crazy. Again, this player should not be considered for SD-DVD playback.


Audio Performance & Capability: 8/10
At this time, I am only able to utilize HD audio via the 5.1 analog outs since my receiver does not have HDMI. I had to do quite a bit of tweaking to get the sound right (thank you, RadioShack meter), but once I got it right, I was in surround sound heaven. This is my first experience with PCM audio and I am very impressed. I normally have to turn my HD DVD player up to 11 because of the analog issues, but with Blu-ray I was turning everything down. The PCM tracks are crazy loud!

I sampled discs with TrueHD, DTS-HD and PCM sound, and all performed without a hiccup. The TrueHD tracks sound just as good as they do on HD DVD and I was very pleased with the DTS-HD. Unfortunately the Sharp cannot decode DTS-MA and it does not bitstream any of the new audio formats. So, when considering this player, understand that you will not be able to send any signal to be decoded by a next-gen receiver (even though this is a HDMI 1.3 player).

But, bitstreaming aside, this Sharp sounds incredible. The imaging, presence and sheer power of the sound is awe-inspiring. When Doc Ock’s tentacles swipe over your head or when James Bond is beating folks to death in bathrooms or destroying his beautiful Aston Martin, it’s like being in a goose bump factory. If it weren’t for the bitstreaming issues and lack of DTS-MA this would be a definite 10/10.



Glitches & Hitches__________________________________________________
These are a few problems that I’ve encountered that don’t hinder playback, but are an annoyance. Hopefully Sharp will correct them with future firmware updates.

• Laggy Menus
I’ve only had this occur with the Spider-Man menus, but the background animation lags and causes navigation to slow down. The film isn’t affected, but it makes selecting audio options and special features a (ahem) drag.

• Resume Option
This player has a resume feature which a lot of BD owners seemed very excited about. However, the feature doesn’t work for all discs. In fact, it seems to only work for Sony discs. Fox, Disney and Lion’s Gate discs made me start from scratch after I stopped playback.

• 7.1 Flagging Issues
I’m still researching this issue, but there seems to be a flagging issue using HDMI. It seems that when you play 7.1 PCM or TrueHD tracks, your receiver cannot add any processing such as THX or Dolby EX. Not having an HDMI receiver, I can’t really test this, though. You get the correct sound, you just can’t modify it. This is not an issue with analog playback.


Overall___________________________________________________________
If you’re looking for an all-in-one deck for DVD and BD playback, look elsewhere, but for just Blu-ray playback, I think this player will satisfy most. The Blu-ray image is stellar and the audio is outstanding. There are a lot of limitations here, but if you’re just looking for something to tide you over until the big guns with their 2.0 profiles and DTS-MA decoding arrive, this Sharp might just be what you’re looking for.

-Pirate


P.S. If I’ve neglected to mention anything or you have a question about something, please feel free to ask.