54 of 56 people found the following review helpful:
A good player with a few caveats.
The player ships with component cables but no HDMI cable so make sure you have one in your cart if you don't have a spare laying around the house. The unit doesn't support blu-ray live and since the network hardware and connections aren't present you'll never be able to upgrade this to support that feature, so it's not future-proof.
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
Great player with some issues.....
I got this player at Sears during a pre Black Friday sale for $179 last year. Every blu ray disc that I bought worked fine. I did however have a problem playing Traitor, Rocknrolla, and Righteous kill when I got the disc from Netflix. I know that Netflix was not the problem. The disc were clean, but when I got to the title menu of Traitor and Righteous kill it froze after...
This review is from: Sharp Aquos BDHP21U 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player (Electronics)
The player ships with component cables but no HDMI cable so make sure you have one in your cart if you don't have a spare laying around the house. The unit doesn't support blu-ray live and since the network hardware and connections aren't present you'll never be able to upgrade this to support that feature, so it's not future-proof.
The player is also quite large and deep, more at home in a high-end component audio rack. This isn't really a drawback since the unit is quite sturdy and you won't feel to worried setting a decent size TV on it.
Setup was a snap, plugin HDMI, plug in power, power up, chose english as the language, put in a disk and you're watching the movie. Eventually you'll want to get to the configuration screen (like the sharp TV's the navigation is clean and easy) and enable quick load which, for some reason, is not enabled by default -- it really makes for a better product experience. There's also a setting to disable all the dashboard lights save for the power indicator which is a really nice touch.
Out of the box, this unit played all my blu-ray disks, not one failed to play and it upconverted my regular DvD's nicely. As expected the picture was sharp (heh), crisp and played smoothly.
The big selling point for me was the integration with my sharp TV and the unit does not fail to deliver. They work flawlessly together.
Without network support (BD-Live) product upgrades are handled by downloading a file to a usb thumb drive with your computer and connecting the drive to the player. I haven't had to use this option yet and since this unit adheres to the final spec I don't expect to need to use it.
You can find much cheaper players these days, but I'm satisfied with the purchase. It works as advertised.
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This review is from: Sharp Aquos BDHP21U 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player (Electronics)
Great Blu-Ray Upconvert DVD player. Got the player and it was easy to set up. The picture is GREAT! Very Sharp and crisp. i really dont care about BD Live because i usually watch the movie and only somestimes watch the special features. Back as a usb input so you can update the software easily with a USB storage drive. Watching a regular DVD is also good. The player upconverts a dvd to almost blu-ray quality. If you are looking for a good Blu-ray player and dont really care about BD Live then this is for you.
My only gripe about this is that it may take a while to load.
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This review is from: Sharp Aquos BDHP21U 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player (Electronics)
I have had this for 1 month and have played 4 new BluRay releases and several DVD's. This player excells at everything you want from a BluRay player. Picture quality of BluRay discs is excellent. Upconversion of standard dvd is so good, you might think you are watching BluRay. And the audio will blow you out of your seat. I have had no compatability issues with any disc, as many have reported with players from other manufacturers. It has a Quick Start feature which speeds up load time, and works in tandem with my Sharp Aquos tv. If you turn on the BluRay player the tv will turn on and automatically switch to the proper input. If you turn the tv on and turn the source to dvd, the player will turn on and begin to play the dvd. And each remote contols both the tv and the player.
One other thing to note, is that Sharp recommends installing a USB thumb drive in the rear of the unit for certain BluRay discs which have a lot of added features which require additional memory. This will allow you to take advantage of additional program features on the discs and may speed up the load time.
I would definitely buy again!
BTW, there is a firmware upgrade available from the Sharp website. It comes with instructions, and it is very easy to install. It is intended to facilitate the loading and playing of some specific new release BluRay discs (I beleive James Bond).
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This review is from: Sharp Aquos BDHP21U 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player (Electronics)
I got this player at Sears during a pre Black Friday sale for $179 last year. Every blu ray disc that I bought worked fine. I did however have a problem playing Traitor, Rocknrolla, and Righteous kill when I got the disc from Netflix. I know that Netflix was not the problem. The disc were clean, but when I got to the title menu of Traitor and Righteous kill it froze after the I hit the play button. Rock n rolla froze 10 mins into the movie.
So I looked online to see if anybody else had these issues and then I found out this player has alot of issues with specific movies. So I downloaded the latest firmware and it works like a charm now. I've played the incredible Hulk, Dark Knight, Crank, Cars, Casino Royale, Wall E, Transformers, The Matrix, and Quantum of Solace with no issues.
If you see this Player for $200 dollars don't get it!!!! You are better off with a profile 2.0 player. If you can find it for $150 or less go ahead and grab it. You won't feel so cheated if you have some issues.
Just make sure you have the most up to date firmware and it will work fine.
This player takes a while to load a movie, but once it does it works great. The picture and Audio is great.
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This review is from: Sharp Aquos BDHP21U 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player (Electronics)
Plays DVDs and CDs (although not ones that have heavy-duty copyright protection on them) and will do slidshows of CDs with JPGs on them.
I bought 3 movies with this and all started up find, played perfectly. Some older players take a long time to start up...this one is great.
If you own an Aquos TV, this model communicates with it directly. Turn it on, the TV goes on...etc. Nice add on. The only thing I'd add on is coax digital output, but it has optical digital out...so that's OK.
I'd buy it all over again
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This review is from: Sharp Aquos BDHP21U 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player (Electronics)
I have a Sharp Aquos LCD TV. I bought this blue-ray DVD player to go with it. I read the reviews before I purchased it and was confused by how many people thought it was the best DVD player ever and then those who said it didn't work. I wish that someone had bothered to explain...I am not the best on these new things...my brother calls me a "tech tard". Turns out that these players, if they are not working right to start with need updated software from Sharp which needs to be loaded onto a flash player and plugged into the back of the tv. It was somewhat of a challenge but with a little help the player is now working and working just fine. Excellent picture and very crisp sound. I guess the lower price on Amazon makes the extra work and trouble that goes with this player worth it but I can't understand why Sharp doesn't have them programmed properly when they leave the factory. My player was built in Dec 2008, so it is new, I bought it in April 2009. But it would not play blu-rays without the updates and it took a while to get it properly hooked up, initially all it would play were regular DVD's. Obviously, the people who thought it was great were either getting one that was programmed properly or they were tech savvy and made all the right assumptions about this player.
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This review is from: Sharp Aquos BDHP21U 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player (Electronics)
I returned my Sylvania NB500SL9 blu-ray player after I got this Sharp BDHP21U blu-ray player as a gift from my stock broker TD Ameritrade. My set-up has a Sharp LC52D85U 52-Inch HDTV and a Panasonic SC-PT960 Home theater system. Here are my assessments:
Pro:
1. Send out 1080p24 video automatically when it detects the HDTV is 1080p24 capable. The 1080p24 is better than 1080p60.
2. For the blu-ray disks that the player can work with, the video output is great.
3. Up-convert regular DVD to 1080p and the video quality is good.
4. Overall, setup is easy....pretty much plug-and-play.
5. Firmware update is also easy. The latest firmware (11/06/2008) is easily found in Sharp's web site.
Con:
1. To my knowledge, most of blu-ray players are slow in responding the remote control. This sharp blu-ray player is slow also.
2. Here is the biggest flaw. This Sharp blu-ray player has problem with some of the latest blu-ray disks. Like feedbacks from other reviews, this player failed to play the Prince Caspian (confirmed). And the firmware fix is not yet available from Sharp at this point.
3. Come on! how come the HDMI cable is not included.
Overall, this Sharp blu-ray player is about the same performance like the entry-level Sylvania NB500SL9 blu-ray player (because Sylvania NB500SL9 blu-ray player also has problem with some blu-ray disks).
In summary, this Sharp BDHP21U blu-ray player is an entry level blu-ray player. I don't have too much to complain as I got this one for free. However, if I need to spend moeny, then I would go with Sylvania NB500SL9 as it has better value than Sharp. I give this Sharp player 3 starts as it can not play some of the latest blu-ray disks.
***** Update *****
News: Sharp release the latest firmware on 2/4/2009 as following:
"Firmware update file and installation instructions.
This Firmware Update improves playback of Walt Disney BD movie titles such as "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian," as well as improving the load time of 20th Century Fox BD movie titles such as "X-Files: I Want to Believe."
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This review is from: Sharp Aquos BDHP21U 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player (Electronics)
I'm a 52 year old grandmother, not a "stealth advertiser" -- whenever you are in doubt about a product's reviews, click the "see all my reviews" link as "stealth advertisers" tend to review only ONE product that they want to malign or promote. If you find only ONE review for that ONE product, you might want to take that review with a "grain of salt."
We got this dvd player for free with our purchase of a Sharp Aquos 65 inch LCD TV in late January of 2009 -- it's a great dvd player. I don't understand all the bad reviews for this player as ours plays all of our old regular dvds, along with every single new blu-ray dvd we've tried, including THE DARK KNIGHT, which I bought from Amazon, and every single blu-ray dvd that I've rented from Blockbuster and Netflix. It works seamlessly with our Sharp Aquos TV -- I think they were made to work well together. When we pop a dvd in, it automatically switches the TV over to dvd viewing mode, which is a really nice feature. No fiddling with the remotes anymore! We really love it - it is our first blu-ray dvd player and we think its' great!
As an aside, last week we upgraded to HD cable and while the installer was checking out the remotes, he accidentally turned on the Sharp Aquos blu-ray player and the blu-ray Iron Man dvd which we had left in the player came on -- my husband said the installer was simply blown away by the beautiful picture and said he hadn't known Sharp made an Aquos blu-ray player! He was very impressed by the player and the picture!!
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This review is from: Sharp Aquos BDHP21U 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player (Electronics)
I bought this product during the '08 "black friday" shopping season. I feel confident enough to leave useful feedback.
First off, when the blu ray player works, the display and sound are awesome, even with traditional dvds. Sometimes even the traditional dvds can be mistaken for blu ray quality.
However, there were several movies (usually 1 out of every 3 blu ray discs that I attempted to play)that would freeze and become pixelated. This was extremely annoying! And make you look bad when you're trying to impress friends or family. I had to take the disc out, clean it, and clean the lens on the player. This was a big hassle! Especially that this player does not have resume. This means that once I cleaned the disc and the lens, and re-inserted the movie, it would start the movie from the beginning or sit through the previews again. And even the cleaning process did not work all the time. Sometimes I had to skip through certain tracks to avoid having the scene freezing. All this happened to discs that were flawless, no scratches whatsoever.
Finally, I got fed up and called sharp. They promptly sent me a shipping label and I sent the player back for repairs. They repaired it quickly and notified me when it was on its way.
So far, no problems. I am happy again. I would recommend any owners of this player to send their players back to sharp to upgrade the hardware and software if its giving you problems. Maybe the recently manufactured players are higher quality (I hope they recognized this malfunction) and don't have these issues.
Overall, the player is a very good value when it is functioning properly. But it can be a headache when it doesn't work. Again, if the player gives you problems, send it to sharp. They will upgrade the hardware for you.
Hope that helps.
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This review is from: Sharp Aquos BDHP21U 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player (Electronics)
This product arrived dead on delivery. Inserted 2 new Blu-ray discs and failed to read. Inserted 2 factory DVDs that have worked in other players and failed to read.
Amazon return was very quick with RMA and shipping label.
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