Sharp Aquos BDHP20U 1080p Blu-Ray Disc Player

I've had my BDHP20u for nearly one year. Rent Netflix videos, watch 5-10 monthly and have only had 1 video not play in the last 11 months. The Blu-Ray is not a recorder in the sense of a VCR, instead it is actually a computer that has a large hard-drive in it that you store your movies on. All computers take time 'booting' up, and Blu-rays are no different. Some manufacturers incorporate proprietary software that tries to speed up the process a little by storing some of the basic command functions in firmware so it is not required to load off of the video. This only saves a few seconds at best, so far. I think many people want the functionality speed of a VCR and are disappointed when confronted with slower times. I'm happy with mine so far. Am looking forward to new firmware before too long.

Maybe I have the only good BDHP20u ever made or you guys don't know what your doing. Sure there is wait time. Don't all BD's have that? I own over 50 new blurays and my BDHP20u can play every one. Possibly you guys don't realize this is NEW technology and shit will happen. Patience! These machine's are not DVD's that have been on the market for YEARS. I own a 46 inch Sharp 1080p TV with this Bluray and could'nt be happier.

This has to be one of the worst purchases I've made in recent memory. Claims to have Quick Start functionality but this only applies if the movie has already been pre-loaded and the machine is waiting on standby, which is useless unless youre going to watch the same movie continuously. Who watches the same movie over and over again unless youre a 2-year old with Thomas the Train on continual loop? In reality, movies take several minutes to load. The worst part is that you can wait for it to load only to find out that the disc is incompatible with the player. This has happened on at least a third of the discs I've purchased/rented. Wall-E, X Files, The Happening (although I've heard it did me a favor on that one) and others would not play and are currently serving as drink coasters. Sharp does appear to be offering formware updates to address incompatibility but they are slow in coming and customer service is apathetic at best. The unit is also very large (large footprint) and m... Read more

First of all, I was very skeptical about buying a bluray player knowing about all the time wasted doing firmware updates and the slow functions. This machine confirmed my fears 100%. This thing is slow, taking nearky a minute for the empty tray to open, and another minute before the disc menu to show. Dreading to do my first firmware update, I had no choice, so I downloaded the latest firmware from Sharps website, and my player would not accept it. I call Sharp and they walked me through the process and it still would not accept the update. So they emailed me a shipping label and 4 days later I get my machine back. Did they fix it? No. It still won't play the same 3 bluray discs "Ironman", "Transformers" and "Resident Evil 3" which are all new releases. I am not looking forward to contacting customer service again, but If they don't refund me, I may send it back in pieces using their free shipping label of course.

This is a very slow operating player. When first turned on it takes a full 45 seconds to initialize. When a disc is inserted it takes another 30 seconds to figure out what type of media it is playing. While it is "changing gears", you see static, good old black and white no signal type of static...

Won't play several movies. Firmware updates have been non-existent, customer service is useless. I will NEVER buy another product from Sharp ever again. Absolute garbage. Stay as far away from this company as possible.

I have had this for about a year with minimal problems. I picked up a Blu Ray copy of Young Frankenstein but it will not play anything but the title screen. Sharp has not released a new firmware update to make this and a few other titles playable. They have not bothered to update the firmware since June 9th, 2008. I contacted them about this and they told me that it may be 2 months or more until they get new firmware released. That means, a movie I bought in October may not be viewable until December or later (there is no particular date for a firmware update). This is unacceptable to me. I would not advise anyone to buy this player without warning you that you may not be able to play new releases. Also, their customer service was useless.