LG BD590 250GB HD Network Blu-ray Disc Player

• Blu-ray Player with 250GB Hard Drive 802.11N for Wireless networking NetCast for YouTube & CinemaNow
• BD-P NetFlix HD BD live
• Full HD 1080p output via HDMI with Cinema mode at 24 or 60 frames per second
• Superior audio performance with Dolby Digital, TrueHD & dts-HD
• Quick boot with instant tray opening

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.

Buy LG BD590 250GB HD Network Blu-ray Disc Player Now

I purchased the BD590 from Best Buy a couple of days after it first appeared in stock. I have had some experience with LG Bluray before since I own the also excellent BD390 so when I needed another one for a different room in the house the newer model LG was at the top of my list.

Having owned it for a few weeks I have the following to note.

Pros

1. Fast Blu-Ray loading times. Very crisp clear image and fortunately since I own a receiver capable of decoding Lossless HD formats I really like the sound as well. Does the Blu ray format justice

2, My favorite aspect of this and the BD 390 by far is the VUDU functionality. I think Vudu is a tremendous service (perhaps will get even better now that's its been purchased by Wal-Mart). To have a large library of 1080p HD available at your fingertips is fantastic and the LG does a nice job displaying very pleasing audio and video off Vudu. I would buy this for this feature alone.

3, Although no shortage of Netflix ready devices in my HT lineup having this and other internet sources such as Pandora are nice options.

4. I read some complaints about the new interface compared to the older LGs but to my eyes its nicer looking and just as easy to navigate

5. I used Ethernet to connect this player but did test out the 802.11n and was able to connect to my Airport Extreme powered network with no problems

6. CD ripping is a great feature and I was able to archive a library of 200 CDs or so with little trouble. Gracenote does a nice job tagging the tracks.

Cons

I really didn't find much not to like about this player. Mostly just nice to haves. I would have liked if it supported Amazon VOD since that's my other source for video and I did think that the footprint was still a little large although sleeker and lighter that my older model.

I first lucked into the BD390 when it was highly recommended by a HT installer. I am pleased to note that the 590 is a nice upgrade with newer functionality on an old favorite. Highly recommended.

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LG has made a great product and it has slow mo for blu-ray disc. To many that may not see like anything special but my other 2 (Sony BDP-BX1 and Samsung BDP-1590) blu-ray players do not have this feature for any type of disc being played. Overall the unit does everything very well to excellent. The speed loading of blu-ray is not more impressive than that of my almsot 2 year old sony blu-ray but still fast enough for me.

Internet connections were a breeze via wired or wireless though I wished it would retain the wireless setting (SSID and passwords)when you switch to a wired setting. The online offerings are very impressive and all work: Google's Picasa; YouTube; AccuWeather; Netflix with a free trial offer; CinemaNow; VUDU with one free rental; and PANDORA. I hope they add more apps with software/firmware updates.

The remote is large, easy to hold and has all the buttons needed to use all the features of the unit and also will in my case control the most basic of functions of my TV: power and volume.

Having the large 250GB HD is a luxury but not a necessity as the front USB port can be used to access an external HD at a excellent speed. So you could really save about a $100 by buying the identical BD570 less the HD. I like the luxury, lol.

I do not like the front panel having a flip down panel that always drops down to insert/eject a disc but not too much of an issue. The flip door becomes an issue when you need to insert a USB stick or cable then the door has to remain down. In addition when they designed these new LG units they should have added an additional USB port in the rear.

But that is all I can find fault with the unit. They are not too small but small enough and very light even with the HD and the remote and internet access are all great. Picture quality is fantastic with blu-ray and same for non-blu ray disc. The fact that you can actually insert a CD and rip it to your HD is nothing short of omg what a nice feature.

I have placed my entire music and picture collection onto the HD and it is sweet to be able to get such easy access to these files. The link to my Laptop PC files works even without having to use the LG software for sharing files bewteen PC/Laptop and the player and that too is a nice feature to have available.

The unit works and works great! I would recommend it highly to any or to save money the BD570 and then hook up an external HD. Love the unit. My biggest knock is the price given that 3D Blu-ray players are just around the corner it seems this unit would be better priced at or below $300.

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I would rate this product 4 starts if all the features worked or if their customer support department would respond to me. The Netflix streaming is a big feature for me. It does not work. It works on my PC and my old Samsung. All the other streaming features work. LG customer says it's Netflix fault which I might believe if it didn't work on the other platforms. Then they told me I could take my machine of 3 hours to a repair shop. Netflix customer service spent a lot of time investigating this issue. They finally contacted their streaming department and were informed that it is a known bug that LG must fix. I have written to LG customer supprt to get a confirmation or denial but they just ignore me.

If you want to get this machine ask to see that feature work first. If you care.

Update 5/29/2110

I finally got a response to my email. It was a stock response which did not adress a single question I asked and in fact told me a fix to try in case the product was a TV. I called their customer service department for the 5th time today and they finally admitted it was a known bug.

Update 6/2/2010

This issue is now a thing of the past. LG released a new version of the FW yesterday. I installed it but it did not seem to fix the problem. LG Customer Service told me, "Yes. There was a new release but it did not address the Netflix streaming bug." Today I received email from Netflix Customer support and they told me that this release did, in fact, fix the problem but after you install it you must deactivate and reactivate the treaming service to the player. I did this and finally I have a working device.

This is my first Blue-Ray player.

I bought this player mainly because it plays DivX and HD DivX.

So my plan was to copy HD DivX movies onto a USB memory device and then play them using this player or use the internal hard drive. I had a Samsung DVD player (not Blue-Ray) and it worked great but couldn't handle anything HD.

I've had the player for a couple of weeks now and this is what I've found.

1) Took about 10 seconds to get the player on the network.

2) The software that came with it installed in Windows 7 easily.

3) Plays movies really great. Picture quality is amazing.

4) The menus are fine. I don't know why people complain about them.

5) I played with the added services. I didn't try NetFlix but I did press on the link. Connected up really fast. I don't have an account so I didn't try any movies. YouTube worked really well as well as the other free services. I have FIOS with 35 up and 35 down.

So about the USB port (my original plan). I still have yet to use it because the player can grab movies right off my computer's hard drive. I doesn't need to copy the movies onto the internal hard drive. It can play them right there. That is very cool.

The only negative so far that I've found is the internal hard drive.

So my plan was to copy all my music, videos and pictures onto the 250 gig drive. Use it like a backup and also have it readily available.

The problem is the hard drive is not accessible from the network. So you can't copy files TO the player's hard drive.

The player does not make it easy to copy large directory structures using the player either. The player does not support copying folders using the network.

The only way to do this is to copy your directories onto a large external hard drive and then use that to copy the files onto the player.

Also, I spoke to LG Tech and the guy says the player only supports directories three levels deep (I haven't confirmed this).

So I like the player.

There is the initial major inconvenience when filling up the hard drive.

Since the USB supports external hard drives I would suggest getting the lower model (the BD570) which is exactly the same except for the hard drive. Then use the $100 saved to buy a 500 gig external hard drive and just use it the same way. You can even just keep the external hard drive plugged into a computer and access it from the player.

Update:

I made another discovery about the internal hard drive vs using a remote network hard drive: The remote network hard drive allows you much faster fast forward than the internal hard drive. There are six speeds on play back. The internal hard drive allows regular play and a slightly faster fast forward. If you use a network drive you get all the way to the sixth level (six arrows).