Great Bang for your buck

UPDATE - July 2010



New features added to Network

Tageschau - Daily News feed in German

Pandora - Internet Radio

Fox Sports - Coming Soon

Twitter - Coming Soon



5 Stars sounds really generous but for the money this is a GREAT Network ready BDP.

This is the third network BDP I have set up and used I recently reviewed the Samsung BD-P1590 - Blu-Ray disc player - upscaling - Netflix Pandora against which (for similar money) this is a far superior machine. I also think the picture quality and upscaling for SD DVD's in much better than the similar priced LG BD 370 Network Blu-ray Disc Player



Running several Blu-Ray movies for testing including BD live enabled content boot times were very fast. The quick set up guide asks you about this and explains that it uses more power in standby mode but it's worth it for very quick loading.

Blu Ray looks SUPERB - Panasonic web site says (PHL Reference Chroma Processor Plus is a high quality image-processing technology developed to precisely process each pixel of the Blu-ray Disc video signal in the vertical direction) Sounds geeky but the picture is great at both 1080i and 1080p. By default the 24fps is set to off but if you have a home set up that supports it it's easy to switch back.

SD Card slot and USB interface great for home pictures movies and photo's very easy to use. Nicely tucked away under a discreet panel in the front so no fiddling among the back wires.



Out of the box set up for networking took me about 15 minutes.

Very easy on screen instruction easy to use remote and set up can be either set to easy mode or you can revisit the main menu at any time for finer adjustments on audio video output resolution and aspect ratio etc.

The more involved set up options are however a little limited if you are used to close to pro tweaking on high end visual and audio equipment. But then again this is an entry level kind of priced machine.



What do you get for network? The VIERA system is a breeze nice graphics menu screen and options.

I hard wired mine to the back Ethernet port with a Cat6 cable - Cat5 works without a problem but for streaming (especially HD content) the Cat6 made the Netflix signal bar light up to HD most of the time.

It is wireless ready. You can use a USB dongle (takes some tweaking) or better still a Linksys by Cisco Dual-Band Wireless-N Gaming and Video Adapter. What's nice is that(unlike Samsung) you don't have to buy a special adapter.

My preference would always be to hard line but if that's not an option and you must have wireless (assuming you have boat loads of bandwidth) you can buy an adapter or pay $80 more and buy it's big brother the Panasonic DMP-BD85 WiFi Enabled Blu-Ray Disc Player (Black)



Whats on the Network?



1)Netflix - unlimited free streaming movies (a lot in HD if your connection is good enough) documentaries and TV shows from their "Watch Instantly" library if you are a current subscriber of at least their $8.99 plan - free trial available.

2)Amazon on Demand - Bags of movies and content to rent buy or even view free webisodes trailers documentaries and so on. Not a huge thing for me personally as I like Netflix but very nice to have. Simply activate online at Amazon and you're there - very easy on screen user friendly menus.

3)Blomberg - Sort of on screen RSS feed with stocks bonds and news headlines. Nice to have but not essential.

4) Weather forecast enter your zip code and set to default or store multiple sites across the US for up to date weather news and information. Again not something I need but nice to have.

5)Picasa Web albums - share pictures with friends and family look at your own and other albums on your TV. Nice feature.

6)You Tube - browse or log into your account online

7)Coming Soon?? - Your guess is as good as mine could be for VUDU or something else at least they are thinking ahead and have the settings already started.



What you don't get.....



1)Pandora - a quirky to use online streaming internet radio site that's free with a lot of music. Doesn't float my boat either I don't like radio sites that choose my music based on a song or an artist - there are over 30000 online internet radio stations that are free Pandora doesn't let you search any particular station in any part of the World just their selections on what they think you like.

2) Blockbuster Online - unless you have an account and use the in store returns on DVD and Blu stick with Netflix their watch instantly movies are free with membership.

3)VUDU - next generation 1080p streaming to rent and buy this would have been nice to have but I can live without it for now. Amazon more than makes up for it as far as I'm concerned.

4) Any others I may have forgotten about (I'm sure there are more out there)



Sum up



PROS



Excellent value for money

Looks sleek discreet and runs quickly AND quietly (unlike some BDP's)

Very easy to Set Up - VIERA interface for online content is great.

Superior BD playback picture and sound quality - just when you thought it couldn't get better

Great upscaling best I've seen on a machine of this price or on any machine without a REON chipset.

USB SD slots on front convenient and discreet

Optional "wireless ready"

Nice Remote



CONS



No 3D - even if the content isn't there yet on BD live you know it's coming. Only the Sony BDP-S470 Blu-ray Disc Player in this price range is equipped. This would have been nice

No onboard memory - BD live requires a USB or SD but that's the same for most machines

No VUDU on networking - not a deal breaker but may be for some.



Bottom line.................Great machine if you want to get into network and streaming movies. Quality and everything else for the price is unbeatable.More detail ...

It Also Plays Blu-ray Discs

Having reviewed previous LG Blu-ray players including the vaunted BD390 our expectations for the BD570 were pretty high and happily LG does not disappoint. While some of LG's competitors (notably Pioneer and Sharp) think audio/video performance is the only thing that matters LG embraces the idea that convenience and choice of media and distribution format are also important to many consumers. So the BD570 includes one of the richest media playback offerings of any Blu-ray player including internet streaming from Netflix CinemaNow VUDU and Pandora. The player also supports DLNA networking so it can access audio and video files on a home network as well. For those who have a library of videos on their computers the BD570 supports Divx Xvid and MKV files as well as a number of other formats and codecs.



As far as load times are concerned the BD570's are decent but not winning any speed records. It offers a 17 second overall bootup time (while it loads all of the aforementioned content options in the menu) - this makes it 3 seconds faster than the Pioneer BDP-320 which offers no multimedia options. Standard DVDs load in about 12 seconds Blu-rays in 23 seconds and BD-JAVA-heavy Blu-ray Discs like "Pirates of the Caribbean" in 32 seconds. This is pretty close to parity with the fastest models of 2009 (including OPPO's BDP-83) but it seems like they could have improved things a bit with this whole new generation of players.



In terms of performance the BD570 delivers Blu-ray Discs in excellent audio and video clarity (as it should) and performs most of the difficult tasks of DVD upconversion right as well - excellent diagonal filtering and 3:2 cadence detection for example. But it does not handle noisy source material very well (its noise reduction processing could use some work). Overall as a DVD upconverter it's very good but not outstanding.



What is outstanding is the built-in 802.11b/g/n WiFi wireless networking. For us this worked right our of the box connecting to our wireless router and streaming VUDU's 1080p HDX movies like nobody's business. And although the remote looks almost upside down compared to many other BD player remotes the button layout is actually quite comfortable with the most popular buttons in easy reach of your thumb and transport buttons (play/pause/FF/REW) raised and angled for improved ergonomics.



Overall with its built-in WiFi DLNA networking multimedia playback and internet streaming offerings combined with solid Blu-ray playback the BD570 offers a good blend of performance and convenience for a fairly affordable price. Our complete review of the BD570 is available on Big Picture Big Sound (dot com).More detail ...