5 Star Bd55 Flash File
Doménica Spielmann
It's not easy being a Blu-ray player. With its predecessor, the DVD, all we cared about in a player was picture and sound quality and reliable, smooth operation. Now, just a few short years after the format's launch we expect more from a Blu-ray player: high quality 1080p picture, support for the latest surround sound formats, faster operation, internet access? Sure, we've got all that. But what else ya got? And for LG, that "what else" is Netflix online streaming and, as of a recent firmware upgrade, YouTube access, in the BD300 Network Blu-ray Disc Player.
LG sent out a nice package to reviewers including a box of Junior Mints, a film canister housing a color brochure and a Netflix envelope with Iron Man BD in there as well as a 2 GB flash drive for those who want to take advantage of BD-Live features. (Sorry, next reviewer guy, I ate all the Junior Mints). It would be nice if they included a 2GB flash memory drive in the box for the consumer but few CE manufacturers are doing this, even though the costs are fairly low.
Any time a consumer electronics component tries to serve two purposes, I'm reminded of that classic Saturday Night Live skit about Shimmer, the amazing floor wax/dessert topping. Can a Blu-ray player also act as a movie streaming, internet video-viewing set-top box? In the case of the LG BD300, it certainly can, and it makes a lot of sense to incorporate online streaming into a Blu-ray player. The player already has high definition video circuitry, high quality audio circuitry and a network connection. So the only thing LG needed to add in order to support online movie streaming was the Netflix software and YouTube front-end, and that they have done in the BD300.
The Netflix online streaming feature allows Netflix customers to instantly watch movies and TV shows on their internet-connected BD300 player. The selection is fairly limited, compared to the vast library of over 100,000 shows and movies available for rent on DVD and Blu-ray from Netflix. But still, Netflix claims over 12,000 titles are available online, including a fair number of major films and larger independent fare, as well as a good selection of recent TV shows. And the best part? It's all free.
Netflix customers subscribing to one of the "unlimited" rental plans are welcome to watch as many films and shows online as they like, with no "per title" fee. These plans start at $8.99/month for one DVD rental at a time or $9.99/month for one Blu-ray rental at a time. Some of my friends, looking for ways to cut expenses, are cancelling their cable and satellite services, switching over to free over-the-air HDTV channels, combined with a basic Netflix plan for movie rentals and online streaming. In just a few months, they'll save enough to pay for the player as well as a year's supply of popcorn.
In terms of video and audio quality, the Netflix online streaming definitely lags behind Blu-ray but can approach DVD quality on some titles. Generally speaking, online streaming titles exhibit slightly muted colors, some visible compression artifacts and significantly less detail than we see on Blu-ray Disc. There's only so much audio and video information you can fit over a typical home broadband connection. Even still, most of the titles we sampled, from TV shows to recent small and big budget movies, were eminently watchable, even on large high resolution screens.
Most of the Netflix "instant queue" titles are available in standard definition, some presented in 4:3 aspect ratio with black pillar box bars on the sides, and some in 16:9 widescreen. There are a few dozen high definition titles available and these are noticeably sharper with slightly more saturated colors than the SD titles. All of the HD titles are presented in widescreen. Currently sound is limited to two channels (stereo) though you can extract matrixed surround (e.g., Dolby Pro Logic) from some titles. For more details on the quality and operation of the streamed titles, check out our more detailed review of Netflix online streaming.
As far as YouTube viewing goes, the YouTube front-end on the LG player is pretty robust, allowing you to view featured videos, most popular, highest rated or search all of YouTube for specific videos. You can even login to view your favorites. By default, videos play in a small viewer (like on a PC or Mac), but by hitting the Display button on the remote you can instantly enlarge the videos to full screen. I was actually surprised at how good some YouTube videos looked, considering how heavily compressed most YouTube material is. LG must be doing some pretty fancy upconversion here. Of course, most YouTube material will look fuzzy when you blow it up to full screen, and the motion can be a bit jerky compared to DVDs, or even to Netflix streamed content, but this is more due to the quality of the actual low resolution YouTube recordings, not a shortcoming in the player.
The LG's menus are pretty simple and straightforward. I did most testing with HDMI video resolution set to 1080p and 24 Hz (24 frames per second) with an HDMI cable connected through an Integra DTC-9.8 preamp/processor into one of three different 1080p displays (a Pioneer, a Panasonic and a VIZIO, at various times). For audio, I alternated between bitstreamed output (which LG calls "Primary Pass-Thru") and multi-channel PCM, where the player decodes Dolby and DTS codecs to multi-channel PCM over HDMI. Unfortunately the player cannot decode DTS-HD directly to PCM (it uses the lossy DTS "core" instead), but it's perfectly happy streaming DTS-HD to a compatible receiver over HDMI.
The BD300 includes separate settings for HDMI audio and for SPDIF (fiberoptic/coax) digital audio.One nice audio feature on the LG player absent from many other players, is "DTS Re-encode." This feature is specifically for use with older surround sound receivers which do not include HDMI audio decoding. With DTS Re-encode engaged, the player will remix multi-channel PCM and Dolby soundtracks to standard multi-channel DTS digital output. This way you can enjoy discrete multi-channel surround sound from any soundtrack using a standard fiberoptic or coax digital connection to your receiver. On most Blu-ray players, the SPDIF outputs (coax/fiber) are limited to 2-channel output when playing back multi-channel PCM soundtracks, but on the LG, you can still get a discrete 5.1-channel digital mix from these tracks. Of course, the output is not "lossless" but it is certainly better than 2-channel PCM. The DTS Re-encode feature is also available for the HDMI output, but the need for this is much more limited.
The only other set-up required was to enable dynamic network addresses (DHCP) so that the player could connect to my home network and out to the internet. This worked perfectly with my Linksys network router. I also needed to obtain the unique Netflix code I would need to enable the player on my Netflix account for online streaming. This is generated the first time you attempt to connect to Netflix from the player. And lastly, I plugged in the 2 GB USB flash drive into the USB slot in order to take advantage of the (mostly lame) BD-Live features available on some Blu-ray Discs.
Oddly, LG chose to put the USB port behind a hidden door on the front of the unit, which means your flash drive will be protruding from the front of the player, breaking up the otherwise elegant lines. LG says they did this for convenience when temporarily viewing photos or listening to music from a flash drive, but I think it looks a little goofy. Hopefully they'll move this to the back, or add a second USB port to the back of upcoming models for those of us who want to leave one connected for BD-Live.
Over the course of my review, I was notified of two firmware upgrades automatically when powering up the player. One added HD support for Netflix online streaming. The other update enabled YouTube. Each update went smoothly and quickly completing in just a few minutes.
With all the excitement about the online streaming capabilities, you might forget that the BD300's primary purpose in life is to play shiny silver discs, be they CDs, DVDs or Blu-ray Discs. And as such, it actually serves quite well. What I noticed first, before even settling in for any critical viewing or testing, was just how quick the player loaded discs. Being an early adopter, I remember well the slow load times on first generation HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc players. It got to the point where I'd insert a disc and press play, then take a bathroom break, make some popcorn and maybe do the NY Times crossword puzzle while waiting for the disc menu to load. Not so with the BD300.
In terms of boot-up and disc loading times, we timed a few common tasks on the BD300 and compared these to the fourth generation Panasonic player (DMP-BD55) and the Sony PS3 as well as the Netflix-enabled Samsung BD-P2500. The initial boot-up time of the BD300 is about 24 seconds from fully off to the "LG/Netflix" splash screen. And during the start-up, we're treated to a nice animated loading screen, as opposed to some players like the Samsung BD-P2500, which revert to no output during parts of the start-up process.
This 24-second start-up is about 5 seconds faster than the newest Samsung player and comparable to the Panasonic BD55 (but slower than the PS3). When there is a disc previously inserted in the player (basic, non-Java disc - we used Hitch), the combined boot/load time comes in at around 47 seconds - that's 13 seconds quicker than the Samsung player, and just a few seconds slower than the Panasonic.
When the player is already powered on, the disc loading times plummet. Hitch (Blu-ray) loads the disc's Sony Pictures splash screen in a nimble 13 seconds and gets to the disc menu in about 30 seconds, as opposed to 29 seconds on the PS3. Loading a standard DVD (Gladiator) takes just about 11 seconds which is significantly quicker than any other Blu-ray player we've measured, including the PS3.
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