Like the and the , the BD-HP50U doesn't upconvert standard DVDs very well. Our The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King DVD appeared overly contrasty and disappointing overall. One judge said the image looked as if it were smudged, with indistinct detail. In a long shot (where the camera is far from the subject) during The Phantom of the Opera, a woman's face was an absolute mess--the worst imaging we've seen from an upscaled DVD.

The BD-HP50U performed better with Blu-ray Discs. The same Phantom of the Opera scene on Blu-ray appeared very close to that rendered by our reference player, and the BD-HP50U exhibited slightly better contrast. On the other hand, I thought that our test using The Searchers revealed a fake sharpness that made things pop but sacrificed detail. Judges' grades for the Blu-ray tests were mostly Goods and Very Goods, with a few Fairs and Superbs.

You'd expect a player in this price range to have plenty of extras, but you'd be disappointed. It has no ethernet port, and therefore no (though it does support picture-in-picture content). A USB port is in the back, but it's only for firmware updates and won't work for photos or music. The player can decode Dolby TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus audio.

At least the player is well documented. The trilingual manual (48 pages of English) is well laid out, easy to read, and helpful.

The Sharp Aquos BD-HP50U costs 1.5 times the price of the Insignia NS-2BRDVD, but you don't gain anything that makes this model worth the premium bucks.