LG BD590

Little background on me: I owned or have owned a BH100, BH200, BD300, BD370 and BD390. So pretty much every LG Blu-ray player except the 270.

Pros:
Fast – I noticed DVD and Blu-ray loaded just a wee bit faster than my LG BD390. The difference wasn’t amazing, but maybe a few seconds.

VuDu, Netflix, Pandora etc – They work just as they should. VuDu is identical to that on the BD390, but Netflix is the new version that allows you to view new movies/TV to Instant, has Genres, collections etc. No, it’s not EVERYTHING that [...] offers, but you probably have a rotating selection of 300 different programs to check out if you don’t feel like breaking out the laptop.

GracieNotes – Wow. Freakin’ awesome. I managed to pull song information from a DVD, BD and a ‘movie’ file. As an added bonus; Hit the Display button while watching something (I assume DVD/BD only) and at the very bottom is ‘Movie Information’. Click it and it will tell you what you are watching (small picture), synopsis, actor names etc. Woah!

250GB HD – Big selling point and works well. You are able to copy directly from an external HD/USB to the intern HD or via WiFi. Your choice. Obviously a wired copy will be faster than WiFi, so I set mine to copy 100GB from my external HD and went to bed. Woke up, and watched some stuff. Works very well and was fast. Maybe it can be upgraded? Out of the box it had 246GB out of 250GB available. So everything else is stored on internal memory. I bet this can be upped…

WiFi – Faster. Before, VuDu was a bit choppy, but now it was perfect.

DNLA – Works fine on my MacBook (some had issues?)

Cons:
Pandora – Ok, it’s great to finally get this, but why can’t I assume the colored buttons to be an easy Thumb Up, zzzz, Thumbs Down, Bookmark? Seems like it would be much easier, but the colored buttons do other things in Pandora. Feels like a wasted opportunity.

Music on HD – Well, it won’t play iTunes DMR files or ones in m4a format (iTunes automatically converts them this way when you rip from CD unless you tell it not to). I spent 2 hours converting everything in my library to .mp3 so I could import them. Funny thing is, it actually imports the folder name, but none of the tracks. Took me a while to figure out why it skipped several CDs (I did 10 right away).

Size – Why is this bigger? I get it has a 250GB HD inside, but those are the size of an iPhone and the back of the units reeks of being a Gen2 unit and not a Gen5 version.

Menu – Sigh. All of the online stuff is in the Netcast icon, which means you have to click it, wait for it to load, and then you get presented with Netflix, VuDu etc. An extra step, but c’mon, there is a ton of room on that menu screen. Which is now redesigned to look like animated Ice Cubes in a pool. Odd choice…

Picture Settings – Remember how the BD390 could allow you to add/remove Edge Enhancement, DNR etc. That’s gone. I even tried using my BD390 remote and the player didn’t do anything. WTF? This is the top of the line player (out of 3 now!) and this was removed? Update: FIXED! The Picture Setting Menu is now found when you hit ‘Display’ during a movie. There are as many options as the BD390, but its better than none.

USB – Really, under a trap door? I get that some people may not want to pull their gear out to plug in a USB dogle, but get a $2 extension. Thankfully, with the Internal HD, I’ll never use it.

Meh:
Remote – I don’t hate it…but I like the BD590. I’ll never use the numbers, so I would prefer them to be hidden in a trap door so I would have less to look at. The Center and arrow keys do feel better, and the Power button is HUGE compared to the identical sized Power/Eject of the previous. The Play/Pause/Skip are clear white…not sure why. They don’t glow. So confused.

DVD Upconversion – Looks about the same.

Reviewed by : B. Lowenberg,   Feb 28, 2010

Samsung BD-P4600 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player

I know there have been a number of mixed reviews about this product, and it almost deterred me from selecting it when I was looking for a Blu-Ray player to go along with a Samsung 50″ plasma HDTV I recently bought.

After having this player for a little over two weeks now, I can’t be more happy with it. I wasn’t sure how I was going to react to the unusual form factor, and I would not have originally thought about mounting a Blu-Ray player on my wall rather than keep it in a entertainment center, but it has worked out extremely well and I very much like having it wall-mounted for both access and use of the remote control.

The player has worked as smooth as silk and I have not had a single issue playing any DVD in my library, including titles burned on DVD-R and DVD+R disks.

I also really love the additional features of Netflix and Pandora and was amazed at the HD quality of the streamed Netflix titles.

I also like that with the wireless network access comes automatic firmware updates, which from I’ve been reading will prevent me from having to worry about newer Blu-Ray disk features from being usable.

I really have only two criticisms and one warning about this player.

I would really prefer it if the USB Wifi Dongle was positioned to be underneath the visible edges of the player. Having it stick out takes a bit away from the visual sex appeal of this player.

I will also say that they should issue one of these players to CSI graduate students for fingerprinting exercises. This thing is so sleek and shiny that you can spot fingerprints and smudges on it from a 10 feet away.

Lastly, if you are planning on putting this unit in a TV/Entertainment cabinet/housing, beware. Because it is a side-facing slot-loading player, you will not be easily able to load disks without turning the unit sideways each time. Fortunately for me, I enjoyed mounting it on my wall, but it would have been slightly annoying if I had had to stuff it in the new TV cabinet I bought at the same time.

Overall, I am thrilled with this unit and would easily recommend it to anyone looking for a leading-edge Blu-Ray player that will be a great home theater component for several years.

Reviewed by : Peter Backman,  Sep 20, 2009