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Today we bring you our first review of a Blu-ray Player. Blu-ray hasn't really caught on in India and at the moment only a niche audience has a collection of Blu-rays. The best I've come across is around 70-75 Blu-rays, and those who own them share and exchange what they have with other enthusiasts.
There are two main reasons for this; one is the obvious - cost and the other is that India falls under a weird 'C Region' that has Russia and China as the other two countries in this region. Movies take rather long to release in the C Region, as it doesn't have much of a market, thanks to a lot of piracy.
The Blu-ray we review today is from LG- the BD370. This is a simple Blu-ray player that comes with BD Live with internet capabilities. Let's see how this player turns out.
Bundle
- LG BD370
- Remote
- HDMI Cable
- AV Cable
- 1 x AAA Battery
- Manual & Warranty Card
The LG BD370 is a very simple looking Blu-Ray player. The size of the player is a little on the larger side as compared to a DVD player. The LG BD370 is taller as well as longer in length but the width is the same as a DVD player. The face of the player is divided with a steel cube sitting right in the center. This center cube has a circular button, which is a Power ON/OFF button. The circular button has an LED that runs around it and glows when playing media or is powered ON.
The LED glows blue when playing Blu-rays and red when playing DVDs or VCDs. The cube has playback buttons on the bottom corners. On the left corner there is Open/Close Tray and on the right corner there is a Play/pause button. I feel it would have been ideal for these buttons to be placed on the top corners rather than lower.
On the left side of the cube is the media tray of the player which hides behind a glossy flap. The flap auto lowers and shuts to give way for the tray. The mechanism is smooth and assuring. The tray takes about three seconds to release or shut.
On the right side of the cube we have another flap that has a transparent section revealing the display. Behind this flap we have few playback controls and the USB port. The flap features a magnetic shutter. Only when the flap is really close to the body does it attach else, or else it falls open but very slowly.
At the rear of the player we have all the other connectors. There is component, composite, HDMI, and coaxial and optical. There is also an Ethernet port for connecting to the internet. The power port is present towards the extreme left.
I liked the overall design and layout of the player. It's subtle but still has a very modern look because of the steel finish cube placed right in the center.
Remote
The remote of the LG BD370 is very neat. It provides you with the most essential or most used controls all in the front and is comfortably accessible with the thumb, all thanks to a clean grip space. Now don't mistake it for a poor remote as the same grip space that is provided slides down to reveal advanced controls. The remote works on a single AAA battery. It has a good texture to maintain grip and a neat layout of buttons.
Features
The LG BD370 is a simple Blu-ray player but still bundles the necessary features that come with the present Blu-ray. It has an Ethernet port and supports BD Live. These are the key features but along with this, the player is also capable of Netflix and Youtube.
BD live is a feature that supports the bonus stuff that is available online and can be accessed with the Blu-ray and an active internet connection. Having this feature brings more goodies or extras than bundled in the Blu-ray. With the provision of internet connection the player has java and flash support, so it's possible to view videos streaming from Youtube as well.
In addition to this the LG BD370 also has an image viewer as well as Music player. So if you insert a CD or connect a pen-drive with images and audio in it, the player will be able to display it onto the large screen LCD TV. You also have the option to play some audio while viewing images or viewing a slideshow of the images.
Interface
The interface of the LG BD370 is pretty straight forward there isn't anything confusing about it. As long as you know what options you are looking for you will find it. Here are a few screenshots of the simple and intuitive interface of the player.
Performance
The LG BD370 boasts of having express playback, which basically is quick load-time of media and smooth operations. With inbuilt quality enhancement options let's see how the LD BD370 performs at playback.
Now since we don't have any previous reference we will compare it with the Sony PS3. The Sony PS3 is quite a Blu-ray player option, with many choosing the PS3 as a setup for their home theater just because of its Blu-ray playback capability. Also, we have used a PS3 earlier for Blu-ray playback. To test the audio capability of the player we let it tag along with the Logitech Z5500. For display we used a full 1080P 46-inch LCD connected via HDMI.
The player has a good quality video playback. I watched the escape from R.U.F. scene from 'Blood Diamond' and the video clarity was good. Even in 'Black Hawk Down' and 'Indiana Jones' the playback of quality of video was really good. You have the option to set the FPS between 24 and 60 fps. This helps you slow down some of those movies that show moving objects a little too fast than what they are supposed to be. I would like to add that the browsing on the Blu-ray was terribly slow. It was sluggish and I had to wait for the player to react while browsing contents. Like in scene selection I used to move a couple of scenes ahead but had to wait for a few seconds before it came to focus.
The audio quality of the player is good and when connected to the speaker via optical, the digital audio output is also good. It delivered clean and clear 5.1 channel sound. The volume was loud and clear and even though the player is capable of 7.1 channel, it did a great job at 5.1. We also played DVD media and the player did a decent job at upscaling video to 1080p.
The LG player is capable of DivX as well. Running it through our DivX/XviD set of benchmark files the player only failed in two formats - Divx 3 fast and QPEL. Surprisingly the player would display a 'cannot play file' after playing the first few seconds of the QPEL video.
Verdict
The LG BD370 sells at an MOP of Rs. 17,999 with a one-year warranty. The pricing of the player is good as compared to most players, as most are priced over 20K. Nevertheless, it's an expensive deal and it will be sometime before Blu-ray players become affordable. I'd still put my bet on the PS3 for now as it's not just a Blu-ray player but way more than that. But if you still want to opt for a Blu-ray then the LG BD370 is a good option as it delivers the quality and is affordable, though with a glitch in speed.
Test unit sourced from LG Electronics