Product Description Introducing the world's first Network Blu-ray Disc Player that streams from Neflix instantly. Enjoy Blu-ray Discs in Full HD, watch standard DVDs in near-HD up-scaled to 1080p, gain access to over 12,000 select Netflix movies and TV episodes in standard definitions and take advantage of interactive experiences, exclusive downloads and tons of extra features with BD Live. That's innovation. That's LG.
After 3 weeks, I love itNovember 18, 2008 3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I received it about 3 weeks ago, and I truly love it. The glossy black unit has a thin and elegant, understated look that should not clash with other equipment.
Setup is simple and for me required 3 cables -- the power cable, the HDMI cable, and an ethernet (CAT-6) cable to my network. This unit will not work with wireless networks, as far as I know, because the streaming video quality would suffer on a large screen TV. You should also have a USB thumb drive of 1GB or over capacity for the system to download enhanced DVD content from the internet. Plug the thumb drive into the front panel (there is a hard to see door with a latch that will flick down with a fingernail) after the unit does its self-test and upgrades its firmware.
Blu ray picture quality seems quite good. As a medium, the improvement in picture from a DVD is quite pronounced. Even fast action sequences are crisp and smooth, with no artifacts on any disc I've played. The improvement in audio sound is more subtle -- on most action movies, I haven't noticed it. I will await some opera or concert blu rays to make a judgment.
However, I compared regular DVD pictures to my Denon DVD player that cost about 3 times the price of the BD300, and the blacks were a little more defined on the Denon than the LG. On the whole, it plays DVDs that I use for comparison (The 5th Element, Kingdom of Heaven, Sin City) in an acceptable way, and the picture is quite crisp.
This blu ray picture loads pretty fast -- about 20-40 seconds, so that is a real improvement over the earlier blu ray generation, and the remote is satisfactory if difficult to read in low light. This would be the only complaint in my book.
When you turn on the unit, and it's hooked into your ethernet network (no wireless), it automatically uprgrades its firmware and software first -- once again, this was seamless and only took a couple of minutes.
Now, what makes this unit so special is the NetFlix features, which having set up your account online, you activate on the unit from a 4-character code which you input into your Netflix Account via your PC. You must select "instant view" movies from your Netflix Account on the PC before they will show up as available on the BD300. Activating blu ray discs on your Netflix account will cost you an addition $1 per month.
Having everything set up, you can select the streaming to search for your Netflix Instant View features. You select the feature, and then it gives you a choice of starting them where you left off (if you were interrupted) or from the beginning. You can also rate the feature from your BD300 or remove it from your Netflix Queue. The quality of video you will see ranges from 1-4 "dots". 4 dots, the highest, I receive over my DSL Cat-6 gigabit switched network about 10% of the time, and the quality is about the same as blu ray -- very high indeed. All streamed movies seem to be stereo audio only, and no subtitles are available. 3 dots is the equivalent of good DVD picture and I get that about 60% of the time. One is not concious of any tradeoffs in picture quality. 2 dots is acceptable for all anime and many movies where there is not a lot of fast action or dark scenes, but you notice a loss of detail in those circumstances. The background can be a little blocky, but the picture will look about like regular definition TV viewed on a high-def device. 1 dot has a very blocky background and darks are pixelated and un-defined. If I get 1 dot, I stop the movie and hit replay, and then we see if the connection speed increases. If it does, I stick with the movie. If not, I wait until another time.
You will really enjoy a Netflix subscription much, much more with this unit.
Flawless Blu + Netflix streamingNovember 18, 2008 I got mine a few weeks ago and it has been perfect. The Netflix streaming looks great and was easy to setup.
Excellent Idea, a bit bleeding edge thoughNovember 12, 2008 6 out of 6 found this review helpful
I received my BD300 last monday and so far am loving most of it. The Blue ray quality is outstanding, and setup and operation is very simple. The first thing I did after I connected everything and turned it on was have to figure out how to manually change the resolution without being able to see what I was doing. For whatever reason the player incorrectly guesses the wrong resolution for my tv(an LG flatpanel via hdmi) so it's always initially out of sync. and even though I change the resolution manually, when I turn the player off and back on the resolution resets back to the incorrect one again.. this is obviously annoying, but I can live with it.
Once it's up and running it's really pretty awesome, setting up netflix streaming was dead simple, and the blue ray disc quality is really nice. One thing I've also noticed is that when viewing netflix content the picture brightness fades up and down a bit, I'm hoping that this is just a glitch that can be fixed via a firmware update later on down the road.
If the netflix instant queue could be fixed so that you could add movies to your queue directly from the device I would definately give this machine another star, but because of this, and a few other minor glitches I can only give it a three out of five.
LG Blu Ray Player's Netflix 'Instant Watch'November 8, 2008 16 out of 17 found this review helpful
I first learned about this product through a netflix advertisement in the mail. I rushed out to the store to buy it because it offered the capability of streaming netflix movies. (I have netflix, and netflix has 'instant watch' for PC users only, and I use Apple computers, so this was my way of watching instant watch netflix movies over the internet) Once I bought the DVD player, I learned that it did not come with Wi-Fi and I would have to plug the DVD player into an ethernet socket in the wall, and since I did not have one downstairs for the living room, I had to buy a wireless ethernet adapter in order to use the netflix feature.
Once using the netflix 'instant watch' on my blu-ray player, I was somewhat tied about how I felt about the machine.
As the video gets ready to steam, it will give a quality range (from 1 to 4). the very first instant watch movie I watched was horrible quality. It was more bit-mappey then a bootleg movie. But as I watched a few more movies, the quality was better.
What I didn't like was: 1)in the middle of a movie, it would pause for a few seconds and tell me the network speed connection is adjusting and please wait while the movie updates. 2)Sometimes the audio is out of sync when you watch the "instant watch" movies 3)you have to log onto your computer to update your queue. you can't do it from the menu. 4)you cant stream instant watch movies on your computer if you're streaming instant watch movies from your dvd player. (cant do both at the same time. its either one or the other)
Better than expectedNovember 3, 2008 6 out of 6 found this review helpful
My wife and I got in the habit of using netflix's streaming service. I just got tired of hooking up my laptop to the plasma everytime we wanted to stream. Then I saw this on LG on the netflix website. It seemed like the perfect solution as I was looking for a blu-ray player for the living room anyway. And it was!! I have now owned it for 4 weeks.
Love the easy setup. It took literally 5-10 minutes before it was hooked up and streaming netflix. The blu-ray player is exceptional. I am comparing it with my PS3 which I love as well and it is as fast if not faster at loading blu-ray discs. The quality of dvd's is truly exceptional via the hdmi. The remote control is easy to use- even my wife who is technically challenged loves it and uses it frequently with no issues. The streaming quality is good- looks like really good SD signal, but it is fine for watching and really convenient. Once you add shows or movies to your watch it now queue online they will show up on the LG BD300 when you access the netflix from "home." The setup for the streaming involves hooking up a ethernet cable to the back of the player and putting in a code from your pc where the player tells you to (it gives you simple directions in the set up including the web address to get the code). Point being they have made it real easy for just about anyone to hook up and use this baby. The only cons I can think of is it has no wireless solution and there are no real attachment cables worth anything in the box. You will need your own hdmi cable, ethernet and whatever else you need for your system. But those are minor as the pricing is still pretyy competitive for what the player does and is does it all very well.
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