I picked up this player after reading an overwhelmingly positive review from CNET. From a feature standpoint, this unit has everything I was looking for. Built in wifi (no crappy Samsung dongles, or the required archaic ethernet cord connections), onboard memory, super fast operating speed, and Netflix streaming. I'll start with the positives.
The unit's aesthetics are quite appealing. It has a nice, swanky, upscale look to it, and looks even slicker than its $399 price tag. As advertised, the load times on blu ray movies are terrific. Setting up wifi was also a breeze, and allowed me to quickly update the firmware. Netflix streaming was executed well. I didn't like that you had to add movies to your queue from your computer only (as opposed to browsing titles online directly from the unit), but this is still a nice feature to have if you're a Netflix subscriber. I kept getting error messages when accessing Cinema Now, but this is not a big deal if you use Netflix. Also, this unit deserves credit for displaying a nice looking picture on blu rays as well as DVD's. There's also a really slick scan mode that lets you jump to any part in the movie by using only your menu arrow keys from the remote (works great when programmed to a universal remote).
With all these pluses, why the two star rating? Where do I begin? Let's start with the remote. Without question, this is the cheapest, most thoughtlessly designed remote I've ever seen for such an expensive player. The button layout is uninspired, and there's a crappy, hard-to-slide compartment for TV commands on the bottom. On my remote, I wasn't able to get any of the commands to work initially. I later figured out that the copper ends of the battery compartment were not pressed against the battery properly. So if I manually pushed the battery up into the copper, the remote worked fine. Thank goodness for universal remotes. Not a good start, LG.
Next up is audio. I listen to the majority of movies through my TV (via HDMI from the player directly to the TV). I also pass an optical cable from the DVD into my receiver for movie listening through the stereo (about an 80/20 TV speaker/stereo split). While this unit had no problems passing sound through both outputs, I could not get my TV speakers to play movies loudly enough. I went to the audio setup and tried every combination of settings to get sound to play at a sufficient level, but nothing I did would allow movies to be played with any sense of fullness from my TV speakers, even with the TV volume set at maximum. I never had any sound loudness issues with my Sony BDP-S350 player.
And now for the two issues that killed this player for me: first, I noticed while watching several movies that the audio was not synching with the actors' mouth movements. While watching Major League on blu ray for example, I noticed that the ballplayers' lips would move a split second before the sound would output. Again, I tried adjusting all setup options to remedy this, with unsuccessful results. This became extremely distracting, and ruined my enjoyment of the movie. I did not notice this issue at all watching the same movie on my Sony.
Second, and most unforgiving, the player refused to play my blu ray copy of The Wrestler. It would attempt to load for 30 seconds, and eject the movie. This happened after repeated attempts. I wonder what other titles this player will not play. I popped it right into my Sony player, and it played immediately. Maybe LG will fix these compatibility issues with a future firmware update, but I refuse to wait until they do. Needless to say, I returned this player shortly after testing it.
I'm pleased to see that LG has incorporated features that should have been standard in players for a long time; built-in wireless for profile 2.0 discs (which access online content called "blu ray live") is an essential feature. And incorporating Netflix streaming should be a given (this means you Sony and Panasonic). I would also like to see "resume play" allowable in all players, regardless of whether the blu ray software supports it. Losing your spot in a movie by pressing "stop" is a ridiculous shortcoming of the format, and now that players are incorporating onboard memory, disc resetting should become a relic. However, despite LG's attempt to release a feature packed unit, audio and lip synching issues, as well as disc compatibility issues make this player a bust.
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