LG BD670 3D Blu-ray Disc player

TV: an app platform too far?

The Premium and Apps icons route you through to online content. The former is a shortcut to a wide variety of streaming services, including the BBC iPlayer, YouTube, DailyMotion, pay-per-view movie service Acetrax and Cinetrailers. There’s also Vtuner, which provides access to thousands of internet radio stations.

The BD670's UI is straightforward and attractive

LG seems intent on drawing a clear line between streaming entertainment and downloadable apps. This is probably a good thing. I’m increasingly beginning to scratch my head about the value and longevity of the latter.

While having hours of IPTV on tap is obviously a boon for humanity, do we really need to download a Flash Card-based First Aid guide to our BD players? I’m not sure I want to spend downtime between my Battlestar Galactica and Dexter box-sets taking a quick tutorial on how to cope with Frostbite - unless we’re heading into a particularly cold winter - or surviving electrocution.

Do we really need all these apps on a telly?

The BD670 is a decent media streamer. File compatibility is solid, with AVI, MKV and MOV test files all playing from USB media and networked devices. Music support is limited to MP3 - with album art where available - and AAC. Flac and WAV get short shrift. In addition to reading small USB drives, the BD670 will pull media from an external HDD. It had no problem browsing a Fat32-formatted 160GB Iomega drive.