LG BD670 3D Blu-ray Disc player
Wolf in sheep's clothing?
Review The BD670 is strangely anonymous for a top-of-the-range Blu-ray player from major brand. Admittedly, it’s not range-topping from any great height - it sells for a meagre £170 - but even so the dull black case, cake decoration buttons and flimsy disc tray proclaim “move along, nothing to see here” with utter conviction.
However, this player is most definitely worth a second look.
Not bad looking from a distance...
Not only does it offer access to LG’s burgeoning Smart TV IPTV portal, it’s also 3D compatible, has integrated Wi-Fi and is DNLA compliant with wide-ranging multimedia support.
The built-in Wi-Fi is particularly well executed. It’s fast and effective. You can connect it automatically using WPS, or manually if you don't mind entering WPA keys on the remote. The standard LG zapper is supplied, and with glow-in-the-dark buttons it’s any easy remote to live with.
...but up close, the buttons are stick-on jobs
In a token nod to customisation, users are also given a choice of three Home screen wallpapers, although they all look much the same. Sadly, you can’t upload your own JPEGs.
It appears that the BD670’s internal memory has been annexed for app downloads from the SmartTV portal, as there’s no persistent storage available for BD Live. If you want to watch discs with interactive content, you’ll need to insert a 1GB thumb drive into the front of the player, lifting a wee flap to reveal the USB port. This is akin to Worzel Gummidge needing to swap heads between a cup 'o tea and a slice 'o cake.
Bundled, LG's standard zapper
Still, the player’s user interface is a doddle to use. The main, Home menu comprises a row of function icons, designated Movie, Photo, Music, Premium and Apps. The first three are used to access media, be it on USB stick or across your home network.
Next page: TV: an app platform too far?
COMMENTS
I Love it...
When I see mkv, avi and the rest of the cohort on a big brand's official format (BRay) player.
It tells a story of industry failure, and it also tells a story of last resort pragmatism.
One word to people thinking about buying any of these:
Don't. They become outdated pretty quickly and do not get enough updates during the useful lifespan of the device.
Dear Reg Readertard buy yourself a media centre computer its the way to go.
The Devil Is In The Detail
I bought this device a while ago for mainly two reasons:
1: I wanted to watch IP TV like iPlayer, 4OnDemand, Demand 5 and ITV Player.
While iPlayer can be watched using an App, there don't seem to be apps for the other players. I expected to be able to solve this problem by watching these using a built in browser. But guess what: There is no browser! It seems that LG have removed the browser application from their LG Live on blue ray players (it apparently does exist on LG TVs!)
2: Use as CD and DLNA Media Player and Renderer (audio and photos) to stream music from my TwonkyServer.
Unfortunatly, the user interface is quite slow and not really suitable for large libraries. No problem I thought: I use it as a renderer anyway and use my Android phone or PC to controll the device as a DLNA renderer. That does work to a certain extend ... except that it plays MP3s too fast when sent from any controller. So if you want to enjoy music as it is supposed to be then you have to navigate using the LG UI.
While I receive automatic software updates regularly none of these issues have been fixed. Having contacted LG support regarding these problems I don't think they have the intention to add a bowser. The MP3 redering problem I think they didn't even understand.
Surviving Electrocution
Someone needs to have a look in the dictionary.
By definition it's not possible to survive electrocution.
I'm actually about to retire my Blu-ray Disc player
I actually had moved on from dedicated VCRs (VHS and Video 2000) to a simple PC running VDR, the standard video disc recording software for DVB. It simply worked. By now the solution has matured to a level where it doesn't need special DVB cards with video out and can just use a wide variety of graphics cards.
Recently I bought a Blu-Ray disc. I popped it into my Player, it recognised it, and then the screen went black and it didn't respond to any input... Now I got Virtualbox and some old operating system named after a German/English Pop Duo of the early 1970s (WTF!!!), and some obscure software only running under said operating system, and it simply decrypted the files for me. Now I have an obscure directory structure with lots of files. The one named 00800.m2ts contains the movie in a format at least mplayer, xine and XMBC can play.
Getting a pirated copy of the movie would have been considerably easier of course, but I did want to stay as legal as possible.
This is incredibly old news. I just bought the 690 for $169. So that means another series is due out soon. But I guess better late than never. Unless you're helping LG clear out inventory for the new model? The 690 is a far better machine and with it I don't need a "media center" PC. Just share any volume on my network, and even the card reader in the All-in-One printer is in the list, its SmartTV features and I have the perfect media system. Without a PC.
