Customer Reviews

A great step up from the BD300, my favorite Blu Ray on the market right now.
Of the new model year '2009' Blu Ray players, we own the LG BD370, Samsung BD-P1600, and a PS3. By far, the BD370 is the nicest for Blu Ray content. Loading is FAST and the drive is completely silent (this is not the case on the BD-P1600 by Samsung). Piano Black finish on the face is plastic, and looks good. We have found that it does not scratch easily too! The rest of the case is black-ish metal and sturdy.

One of the great things about the LG BD370 is you can customize the look of the interface on your TV. There are 4 themes and all are in high-definition. The remote on the BD370 changed from the BD300, and I feel it was a step down. It's got a faux-leather finish on it - why? No idea. The one improvement is buttons that don't get used much are hidden behind a panel on the remote.

Netflix 'Watch Instantly' is very cool and the setup is literally 30-40 seconds if you already have an account. Just after we got ours, it alerted us that a firmware update was available! It added CinemaNow - we hadn't used CinemaNow before, but a quick registration on their site and connecting was just as easy as Netflix. Rented a couple movies to try it out - VERY cool. YouTube is also available on the player and it's AWESOME. I'd easily compare it with an AppleTV, though believe it or not, the BD370 is a bit faster at searching and playing YouTube videos - it also does them in Full Screen, no problem.

One odd thing we've noticed... with Netflix and CinemaNow and YouTube we have only watched 3 or 4 movies on Blu Ray. So much other content available that this player is really a STEAL - it's a fantastic Blu Ray player (audio and video as good as you imagine it would be), but WOW is it awesome to have a player that does so much other stuff.

No wireless on this player, nor does it have built-in memory for using BD-Live. Neither of these items should be cause for concern - I haven't seen a BD-Live feature YET that has been worth while... all the good stuff is usually already on the Blu Ray disk itself.

The thing that makes it just a bit better than our Samsung BD-P1600 is the front display. The circular button assembly on the front glows a soft blue when playing Blu Ray, soft red when playing DVD, and purple on certain Netflix, YouTube, and CinemaNow video. The main display is also helpful, showing 'NETFLX', etc and most importantly, you can SEE the display (the Samsung player's display is so dim you wouldn't believe it).

For the price and feature set, I don't think there's another player I'd even consider after having used them all!

Wild Blu Yonder
While LG broke new ground with their BD300, the first Blu-ray player to include Netflix online streaming and YouTube, the BD370 is simply more of the same, with slight improvements to their already quick disc loading times, but little to no improvement to their Achilles heel: video performance on DVD upconversion and 1080i Blu-ray content.

Choosing among current Blu-ray Disc players revolves around two things: performance (audio and video) and online content access. If performance is the most important element for you, then LG player should probably not be your first choice. The BD370 is decent at DVD upconversion but it fails to properly de-interlace 1080i material. 1080i is used for many nature documentaries and concert films on Blu-ray Disc due to the underlying frame rates not being compatible with 1080p/24 fps encoding. Because the player can't detect and correct for the underlying 2:2 or 3:2 cadence, 1080i material is actually resolved at half resolution (1920x540 pixels), which means you effectively lose half of those precious details from your high definition picture. It's true that 1080i content represents a fairly small portion of what's available on Blu-ray (most discs are 1080p at 24 frames/second) but people generally buy a Blu-ray player expecting top notch performance on ALL material and you won't get this with the LG BD370.

But the player's online content access is strong, with full BD-Live support, Netflix online streaming and YouTube. Between Netflix and YouTube, you get an enormous selection of professional (Netflix) and amateur (YouTube) videos that will keep you entertained for hours at no additional cost (above the standard Netflix subscription fee, that is).

Meanwhile, with its direct competitor, the Panasonic DMP-BD60, you'll get excellent performance on 1080i and 1080p Blu-ray discs and near excellent performance on upconverted DVDs. But the current selection of VIERA Cast online content on the Panasonic players is fairly limited: YouTube and Picasa photo sharing, plus weather and stock widgets (Amazon's on-demand movie streaming service is coming to VIERA Cast later this Spring). The VIERA Cast platform is extensible, so more content can be added without the need for a player upgrade, but based on what's available today, the Panasonic player's online offerings are fairly limited.

And if we look to Samsung, in the entry-level BD-P1600, we see video performance that is comparable or very close to the Panasonic players, plus Netflix online streaming and Pandora music streaming, which are two of the "killer apps" of the online content streaming world. The BD-P1600 is a little slower than the newest Panasonic and LG players (and even the step-up Samsung models), but still pretty respectable compared to earlier Blu-ray player models.

The best things going for the LG BD370 right now are its Netflix and YouTube online content access, its disc-loading performance and its low cost. But if you really want top-notch video performance from your Blu-ray/DVD player, you may need to look elsewhere.

A complete review of the BD370 is available on Big Picture Big Sound (dot com).

Initial Impressions
My 5 year old finally killed the DVD player in his bedroom and, rather than buying a cheap replacement, I decided to give him my (not-so) oldPhilips DVP5990 HDMI 1080p Upscaling DVD Player. The slow response times to its remote, especially when moving back a scene, which happens often when the aforementioned five year old needs my attention, had been a thorn in my side since we brought it home.

After doing a bit of research, I couldn't find a plain old DVD player, at an acceptable price point, that fit my needs any better than the one I had and hated the slow response time from its remote.

Then I started researching Blu-ray players. I'm a gadget girl. I constantly drool over the newest technology, but I've been sitting on the fence in the whole high definition disc wars (which was fortunate, since I would have thrown my lot in with HD-DVD) for years now. By the end of the war, I was so irritated that I continued my fence sitting even though one side of it was now barren.

I have 600+ DVDs, and perfectly fine upconverting machines. I don't need a Blu-ray player. So there!

Then my Netflix envelopes started advertising their streaming service via devices that took it right to your TV (I'd been using it via my computer for sometime). Eh, I don't need a standalone player. So there, times two!

However, when I started my research and found out there was a Blu-Ray player that also streamed Netflix to my TV? I have to admit: my curiosity was piqued.

So when the kid's DVD player died, I read the reviews, both critic and consumer. I have a fondness for LG products ever since I found my plasma TV, while living in Holland, and discovered it tolerated both 220 and 110 voltage power (not to mention the picture is still spectacular). So, I figured I'd give this black box a shot.

Several days later, I'm in love. I'd read horror stories about how long it takes to load up a disc on a Blu-ray player. Not this one. It loads just as quickly as any DVD player I've had. The machine's boot up time might be a BIT longer, but not so much as to be whine worthy.

Netflix set up was stupidly easy, my only nit pick on the functionality is that I'd like to be able to search and add to my queue via my television rather than relying on my computer. If the networks teamed up with Netflix to offer their lineup on demand (as most do on their websites now) to my TV via this technology - it would be perfect. (I'd happily cancel my cable to pay a la carte for the stations I actually wanted to watch!)

I've only picked up one Blu-ray disc so far, strangely a movie I already have on DVD. The picture and sound is fantastic. I did a blind test with a friend of mine asking him to tell me which disc was the BR and which was DVD based small samples. He was easily able to do so. So, maybe, as other people suggest, the picture quality on this machine isn't the best out there, but it's still playing BR discs at a resolution easily identifiable as superior to DVD.

Sound is full and rich, even on my middle grade surround speakers.

Response time to remote commands is fast and the remote itself is quite intuitive, with rarely used buttons hidden behind a slide cover. My one, small sticking point is I would have liked to have seen the TV input button on the outside of that cover.

I have my internet router and cable modem in my living room, so it was no issue for me to not have wireless built in (which the BD390 has, for about $100 more). For the best results for streaming video you really should have it physically connected anyway.

All in all, I have no bad things to say about this player that should dissuade you from buying it. If you're in the market for a Blu-ray player and don't need the biggest, best, most expensive one - this is a strong contender.