The LG BD300 can be said to be a feature packed Blu-ray player. The main features of the player include BD-Live, a USB port for viewing multimedia, and Netflix on demand streaming. The player carries a price tag of $350. This player is one of the only three Blu-ray players available so far that can handle Netflix’s streaming video. The other two players are the Samsung BD-P2500 and the Samsung BD-P2550. While the Netflix functionality is a vey cool idea, it isn’t a foolproof approach to viewing videos.
The Netflix capability requires an Ethernet connection. The LG BD300 player has no built-in Wi-Fi. To use the service on the LG BD300, the user must have a Netflix account. As with the Roku Netflix Player, the user can use a PC to queue up video streams. These streams are then available to the user through the Netflix option on the player.
A point to consider here is that Netflix has a low bit rate, 720p or 480p video streams, whereas these days, with high-bit-rate, 1080p Blu-ray, better video image quality is possible. Hence, the video quality of Netflix is not as good as expected. Blu-ray players respond to commands like Gallipolis turtles. The LG BD300 takes less than 40 seconds to load and start playing a Blu-ray disc whereas most other players take more than a minute, and some more than two minutes. The player gives no lag when a movie is paused. The player’s native support for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD lets the user enjoy high-quality soundtracks even if the amplifier doesn’t natively support them. The players on-screen setup menu is bright, colorful, and reasonably easy to use. The remote control is very well designed and is programmable.
With extra features like integrated BD-Live support and a USB port, the LG BD300 is truly a feature packed Blu-ray player. With a lower price than Samsung’s BD-P2500, LG BD300 is a solid and a knockout option for the user.
