Send in the Reinforcements!

While the HD-DVD camp has gained low-cost manufacturer Venturer, mid-range electronics maker Onkyo and high-end Integra as new makers of HD-DVD players, the Blu-ray Disc Association hasn't exactly been standing still. Both Sharp Electronics and Denon are showing off their first Blu-ray disc players at CEDIA Expo in Denver this week, and each company is expecting to ship players this fall.

Sharp actually showed prototype Blu-ray Disc players as early as two years ago at CES 2006. But they've been silent on actual release time frames or player details. Now that silence has been lifted with the new BD-HP20U Blu-ray Disc player, coming later this month for a list price of just $549.99 (shipping later this month). The BD-HP20 will be the first non-TV product to carry Sharp's lofty AQUOS brand


The player features an HDMI 1.3 connection, through which users can take advantage of AQUOS LINK™ - integrated operation of the Blu-ray disc player and any compatible AQUOS LCD TV. The BD-HP20U supports full 1080p HD output at 24 fps (frames per second), so movie action, from film-based sources, should look extremely smooth on 1080p/24-compatible display devices. The player also includes component video output for those consumers who have an HDTV without HDMI.

The unit's "Quick Start" feature is claimed to allow the user to begin watching Blu-ray video with a touch of a button in less than 10 seconds (though a later visit to the Sharp booth clarified that this time is only possible for a player that is already powered up). Even still, our observed start-up time from power up to disc playback was not too shabby coming in under 20 seconds, a vast improvement over first and some second generation BD and HD-DVD models.

The player decodes Dolby® TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus on-board (in addition to legacy Dolby Digital and DTS formats) and can pass these formats over an HDMI bitstream, but its support for DTS-HD is via bitstream only. This means you can use it with a DTS-HD receiver and pass the raw DTS-HD High Resolution or DTS-HD Master Audio signal to the receiver in the digital domain.


Denon is introducing two Blu-ray Disc source devices, the DVD-3800BDCI ($1999) a full-fledged Blu-ray Disc player, and the DVD-2500BTC (SRP: $1,199), a Blu-ray Disc "transport" which requires an A/V receiver to accept and decode audio signals via its HDMI 1.3 output. The disc player is the first to include the advanced Realta processor from Silicon Optix, which offers improved scaling and video performance even over the Silicon Optix Reon-VX processor found in some other high-end DVD, HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc players. This processor makes standard definition material approach high definition quality, and it makes high definition material look even better.


The DVD-3800BDCI offers on-board decoding of all legacy and next generation audio formats (including Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD High Resolution and DTS-HD Master Audio). These signals can be output via its analog 7.1-channel outputs, or output digitally via PCM over an HDMI connection.

The DVD-2500BTC has no internal audio decoding, or analog outputs, but it passes virtually any audio bitstream (including next generation Dolby Digital and DTS formats) digitally to a receiver or processor, over its 1.3-compatible HDMI output. For those who have already invested in an advanced home theater receiver or processor with on-board next generation audio decoding and video processing, the DVD-2500BTC should make an excellent lower cost alternative to the DVD-3800BDCI.

Both Denon units are expected to ship later this fall.