IFA 2007: Sharp's First European Blu-ray Player September 04, 2007

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Sharp has announced its first European Blu-ray player at the IFA 2007 Show in Berlin. The Sharp Aquos BD-HP20S Blu-ray Player – which has been knocking around the news circuit for some time now – is expected to launch over here in the coming months.

The device is noticeably slim at 2.7ins high, especially compared to existing Blu-ray models and even the new Sony players. It's also one of the first to support Blu-ray Java, which will allow for full access to all those shiny extras and interactive features on the discs. It also promises to be ready for action in just a few seconds, compared to the long start-up cycles of certain players [around 1-minute on some].

It will support 1080p content, upscale standard-def DVDs and playback movies at 24fps. It also supports the latest version of HDMI – 1.3 – which means it can handle the latest surround sound formats like Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD and has a lot more bandwidth so images should be smoother and colours deeper.

There’s no price but speculation is that this is an “entry-level” player so don’t be surprised if it still costs twice as much as a HD DVD player. -Martin Lynch

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