LG BD 390 Network Blu-ray Disc Player
by LG
List Price:
Our Price: $145.49
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Category: Home Theater
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Customers in the UK,
buy this product at amazon.co.uk
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Digital Photo Product Details
Manufacturer: LGBrand: LG
Edition: Electronics
Model: BD390
Color: Gloss Black
Publisher: LG
Studio: LG
Music Label: LG
Product features:
- Networked Blu-ray Disc player connects to Netflix and YouTube streaming video without a computer via Ethernet and Wi-Fi (802.11n)
- Full HD 1080p output for Blu-ray Discs and upconversion of standard DVD video to 1080p
- BD Live capable for accessing bonus content from BD-Live Blu-ray Discs; Dolby TrueHD/Digital Plus and DTS-HD; 1 GB built-in memory
- Outputs: 1 HDMI, 1 component, 1 composite, 1 analog audio (L/R), 1 digital optical audio, 1 digital coaxial audio, 1 discrete 7.1 channel audio
- Includes remote control and component AV cable; measures 17 x 2.2 x 10.9 inches
- AmazonBasics High-Speed HDMI Braided Cable (6.5 Feet/2.0 Meters)
- AmazonBasics RJ45 Cat5e Ethernet Patch Cable (14 Feet/4.2 Meters)
- AmazonBasics RJ45 Cat5e Ethernet Patch Cable (50 Feet/15.2 Meters)
- AmazonBasics Ultra-High-Speed HDMI Cable Braided (9.8 Feet/3.0 Meters)
- Cables To Go Impact Acoustics 40430 Infrared (IR) Remote Control Repeater Kit - Black
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of LG BD 390 Network Blu-ray Disc Player
Customer Review: Better than I expected!
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this player after what I would consider somewhat exhaustive research into the merits of several brands. This one seemed to have a lot of features and excellent reviews overall. I've had it for about a week, and every day I'm even more satisfied than I was the day before!
First, the obvious: The unit is easy to set up, the menus are easy to follow and it interfaces beautifully via HDMI with my Sony Bravia XBR LCD television. Blu-Ray disks play quickly and beautifully, as do DVD's (even some that are 'copies' made using DVD Shrink - um... for evaluation purposes only!). The up-conversion is very good - movies that looked 'ok' on my older Sony progressive scan DVD player look really terrific on the BD390. I tried several older DVD's (like Independence Day) and then something a bit newer (Lord of the Rings, Special Edition), and finally a copy of the latest Star Trek DVD. They all looked great - much better than on my DVD player, AND I noticed that the annoying layer switching lag (a little pause when the player switches between layers on a multi-layer DVD) was gone - I haven't seen that yet on any movie that I have played.
Netflix works very well, although if you have a 'G' or less wireless network, I REALLY strongly suggest you consider using a wired connection, as you won't get full HD quality at the speeds that are provided by those older wireless systems. When I connected wirelessly, the picture was ok, but twice I had the movie stop part-way through to re-evaluate the stream and adjust the quality. On a wired network, the image is HD and never wavers (I have a pretty solid internet connection).
I plugged a 1 terabyte external USB hard drive into the jack on the front of the unit and was able to easily navigate to pictures and video and they worked beautifully!
I did try YouTube, but am not terribly interested in that content, so while it worked, it didn't make a very big impression on me one way or the other. Quality was ok, but nothing to write home about. I also haven't tried the Vudu or CinemaNow items as I am not really interested in another pay movie site.
The one thing that I was initially less than thrilled about is the DLNA functionality. For the uninitiated, DLNA is a standard that defines connectivity to a media server device (like a PC). LG includes a CD with the player with a limited copy of Nero MediaHome 4. The purpose of this software is to allow you to `stream' video and pictures from your home computer to the player in much the same way that you can play music and video from a connected USB drive. My hope was that it would allow me to connect to internet streams and feed them to the player. Unfortunately, it doesn't do this at all. The way it should work is that you share a folder on your hard drive with the MediaHome software, and it appears as a folder on the player. The reality is that it seems to work pretty well if the folder you want is in your `My Documents' folder. I was unsuccessful in getting the player to ever recognize any folder outside of the My Documents folder. It's possible that this was because I installed it on Windows 7. At any rate, I have since uninstalled and packed away the Nero software - it's not worth the trouble! I did a little searching around the internet and found something FAR better! It's called TVersity - do a Google search and you'll find it. I installed it last night and am going to take a moment for a sidebar about it since it greatly extends the capability of your LG BD390.
So what is TVersity? It's another Media Server software package like the Nero package. It's designed to be used with things like Xbox 360's and PSP 3's. It purports to allow you to stream from the web into your DLNA compatible device. I downloaded it and installed it and within 10 minutes was watching Caprica from HULU on my BD390! To get this functionality, you'll need to download the Pro edition - it appears to be honorware - software that costs $29.95, but is not crippled in any way if you download the evaluation edition and hopes that you will pay them if you like it. I'll be giving these folks their money and recommend that if you do use it, and it works as well for you, that you do the same. Here's the lowdown on some of what you can do with TVersity and your BD390 player:
- Stream from Hulu
- Stream nearly any live audio stream from the internet (caveat here: I have only tried it with Windows Media Player compatible streams - I couldn't get it to work with a quicktime stream)
- Play movies and pictures from your hard drive
- Retrieve and display/play RSS feeds (I haven't tried this yet but based on what I've seen so far, I don't doubt that it will work)
There are a couple of minor problems that I've found with TVersity - It seems like if you set up a live stream, after about an hour, the stream stops, and the only way to get back into it is to delete the stream from TVersity and re-add it. If you try to restart it from the 390 menu, it restarts back at the point where you began the streaming. Since I haven't read the TVersity manual yet, I'm guessing that this is a configuration problem, and not a software issue. Also, with both the Nero software and TVersity, I've had a couple of lockups on the BD390. In both cases, waiting a few minutes allowed me to power it down and back up - also in both cases, I was `playing' with the controls during streaming and may have induced the problem, so I don't have enough long-term experience with this unit yet to know if it's a real problem or not.
I do need to mention one thing about the Hulu streaming. I haven't gotten to play with the `quality' settings yet, but my test last night, while successful, didn't `wow' me in the quality category. There are several options that I need to play with on TVersity to see if I can improve that quality. I believe the problem is that I was using the out-of-the-box settings. It was certainly watchable, but the quality wasn't great, just "ok".
One other thing that I find VERY interesting: TVersity does not explicitly support the LG BD390 or any other Blu-Ray player per their website. However, when I set TVersity to automatically detect the type of DLNA device that it's connecting to, it reports that it is connected to a PSP 3! And no - I do NOT have a PSP 3, so it wasn't finding another device on my network. Since the streaming actually works, I'm beginning to wonder if LG didn't license the DLNA package from Sony. Not a big deal either way, but interesting all the same...
A couple of other comments about the BD390:
- Some of the other brands of player (Sony's 460, for example) require a USB flash drive in order to properly stream video from services like Netflix. The LG has 1 gig of internal memory so this is not required (at least, so far). I streamed the Costner movie, "Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves" (no comments on my preferences here, please!) at HD quality and didn't have a single hiccup. The Sony DOES require a memory stick in order to properly stream from Netflix, from my understanding.
- A good friend of mine bought the Sony BDP460 in a package with an HD television and we were both surprised to learn that it does NOT appear to have any DLNA support. It can't connect to an external Media Server - one more reason to NOT buy the Sony, even though it is quite highly rated.
- LG is about to release their newest flagship device, the BD590. It has an internal 120 gig hard drive (you can find info about this all over the internet from reporting from the CES show). It appears that the use of the hard drive is fairly limited, so... it's a personal decision if you'd rather buy that unit or this one. I'll be interested to read some reviews of the 590 when it hits the stores.
The bottom line? This is a solid device, with some great features, picture and sound quality and it can actually do a LOT more than just what's listed on the box using outside software packages! I am very satisfied with the LG BD390 and would absolutely recommend it to anyone looking for a good, reasonably-priced Blu-Ray player!
Description of LG BD 390 Network Blu-ray Disc Player
Blu-ray Disc Player w/1GB Memory, 7.1 discrete analog output, BD-P, Netflix HD, YouTube, CinemaNow Full HD 1080P Output via HDMI, DVD 1080p Up-conversion.Digital Cameras and Photo Categories
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