At CES in Las Vegas earlier this month, Sharp announced new players in its Blu-ray line, including a model with full BD-ROM 2.0 profile support (BD-Live) priced below $300. They also announced a new line of LCD TVs, including the first model in the US to include a built-in slot-loading Blu-ray Disc player.
The BD-HP22U ($299.99), which supports BD-Live, is expected to ship in May and the BD-HP16U ($279.99) will be available in March. Both players offer full HD 1080p output, BonusView, and a high quality "AQUOS Pure" mode for enhanced picture quality when used with Sharp AQUOS LCD HDTVs. The AQUOS Pure mode switches the player to 1080p/24 output and switches the TV to its native 1920x1080 resolution "dot by dot" mode for pixel-perfect reproduction of 1080p Blu-ray Disc movies.
Both players include on-board decoding of all of the advanced surround sound modes including Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD Master audio and DTS-HD High Resolution Audio. In keeping with the trend toward greener electronics, both players feature lower power consumption than their predecessors, both in standby mode and when in full operation. For added convenience, the BD players include Sharp's Quick Start feature for quick disc loading. The BD-HP22U includes 2GB of USB memory for full compatibility with BD-Live.
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