First of all…SAVE YOURSELVES!!! While there is still time.

I bought the Sharp AQUOS BD-HP22U 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player on July 22nd 2009. I chose the Sharp because I bought a Sharp AQUOS LCD Television last April and I thought the benefits of the Smart-Link system [or whatever] would be worth it.

NOT. I say again. *_NOT!_*

The picture is wonderful, but that is probably because the AQUOS television is wonderful. The Sharp AQUOS BD-HP22U 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player is the slowest piece of electronic hardware I have ever owned. It takes forever to load/read the discs. It takes forever to start up into play mode. It takes forever to search and scan the movies. A harsh breeze knocks it out of play mode and into a hover/pause limbo unlike anything I have seen. More time wasted and lost.

Wait, did I say limbo? I meant purgatory.

Because just like purgatory, you CAN get out of it. It just takes freaking forever. Maybe you are actually being REINCARNATED because _most_ of the time you have to start all over from the beginning.

There were many movies it had trouble playing. I had the most difficulty with WATCHMEN, INGLORIOUS BASTERDS and tonight, DISTRICT NINE which it would not play at all.

*UNABLE TO READ DISC* it kept telling me.

Then: *DISK TRAY IS OPEN* as it spat out the offending virgin disc.

I took the disc out, realigned it and then reinserted it.

*UNABLE TO READ DISC*.

I took it out, cleaned it, and then reinserted it.

*UNABLE TO READ DISC*.

I took it out, cleaned it again then took a vow of celibacy, [I really wanted to see that movie].

Just because I was without hope I then offered up the life of my first born child [it was two days before Christmas] if only the player would play the movie.

Then I reinserted the disc.

*UNABLE TO READ DISC.*

I took out the disc and then I took it out in this review. We haven’t even touched upon my INGLORIOUS BASTERDS experience.

To recap: SAVE YOURSELF! SLOW. 5 MONTHS OF FRUSTRATION. *UNABLE TO READ DISC*.

I am *UNABLE TO RECOMMEND* this Sharp AQUOS BD-HP22U 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player to my worst enemy. Well, maybe to her. But everybody else should buy something else to play their Blue Rays. Maybe that company that invented the technology….

Tell your friends. SAVE YOURSELVES!

My AQUOS *Television* is REALLY very nice though.

Rating: 1 / 5

I’ll never know, however, because mine came in DEAD.

At first I was very surprised because I had researched Blu-ray players for a while and had heard good things about the Sharp BD-HP22U. FOUR of the FIVE existing reviews here on Amazon touted it rather highly. So when mine was hooked up and did not play (and YES I hooked it up correctly), I came back here to Amazon to check the reviews one more time to see if I was missing something.

I found that this model, the Sharp BD-HP22U, was rated well, but it is so dang new (released about 2 1/2 months ago) I realized that this is why there were so few reviews.

When you look up the slightly different “sister” model with a few less features, the Sharp BD-HP21U, which has been around for almost two years, the preponderance of reviews are 1 STAR with numerous problems playing Blu-ray discs and DVDs and several Dead on Arrival stories like mine.

I only wish I had paid a little more attention when I was doing my research yesterday. That said, this boat anchor is going back to the store tomorrow and I’m going to buy a different brand.
Rating: 1 / 5