LG BP220 2D Blu-Ray Player with Smart TV (Black)

I bought this to replace a WDTV Live HD, as I had problems using the WD with my streaming server. This player does everything it advertises, and does them as well or better than the WDTV, plus adds in a bluray player.

While not the best thing out there, it is a solid player, that does what's needed for a media player.

Pros:

-Plays video from any DLNA source.

-Does most major online video streaming services.

-Plays bluray/dvd, as well as local USB sources

-Easy to navigate menus

-Fairly regular firmware updates.

Cons:

-Slow, java based menu system. Not terrible, but takes a bit going from main to online apps such as netflix.

-Only wired ethernet again not terrible, but for some who need wireless to connect, they'll have to look to a higher model.

-Changes to menu system in early firmware updates. Seems to have stabilized at this point.

-No digital optical audio output; only coax. Another minor inconvenience, for those of us not able to use HDMI for audio output.

Overall:

Again a solid player, that does what it needs to, at a cheaper pricetag than some standalone media players. I use this with TVersity Streaming server, and have not found any format that doesn't work properly. Some tweaking was required, but it works for me.

I bought the LG BP220 along with 3 other blue-ray players Sony s185, Toshiba BD2150. The LG BP220 stands way ahead of the others.

At $89 it is $10 more, but well worth it. To be honest, I didn't try the internet capabilities. That was not much of interest to me. Just playing DVD's, and USB hard drives.

On the USB section, this plays any hard drive I threw at it, and plays every format except ogg and flac.

The menu displays are dazzling. The unit uses a Mediatek MT8551 processor to obtain all the functions.

Its a fairly heavy unit. At lease compared to the Toshiba.

The only issue I would say is the rather small remote. The keys are kind of rubbery.

I especially like the counter display on the front of the basal. It shows time elapsed and "HELLO" when turned on. For some reason I want to know how much time was used, and on other units I have to use the remote menu info.

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Bought this at my local Walmart for $79. I cannot speak compared to many other blu-ray players, but this was a huge step up from my dvd player and at least on par if not bettr than any other blu-ray I have seen. I also own an LG tv, and the player and remote automatically sync'd to my tv. This is really convenient as I no longer have to change which input I have on to switch from tv mode to the blu-ray. I would definitely recommend especially for the price and the ease of the online content.

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I'm not sure you can beat this unit for the price. Blu-ray playback appears to work really well. Netflix looks VERY nice. I have my TV connected to my PC through an HDMI cable, so before buying this unit, I'd just open up a browser window on the TV as if it was a 2nd monitor. But the difference between that method and using the dedicated Netflix app on this player was night and day. The picture quality is truly HD. I'm very pleased.

So why the deduction of a star? The menus on this player are cumbersome, clunky, slow, and non-intuitive. It seems to me that things could have been designed so much more simply. This is, after all, a simple blu-ray player vs. the rest of the LG lineup. Now that I've figured out how to navigate, I just have to contend with the slowness, aka red spinny loading wheel of death. That complaint aside, this product is well worth the money.

Update 8/16/12 As other reviewers have pointed out, this player does not support Amazon Prime Instant Video. I don't use the service so it wasn't a factor in my purchase decision, but I did find this LG response on their website to a customer:

"Amazon is not available on this player, nor on any of our Smart TV products this year. This was a determination made by Amazon. We have no indication of when or if this app will be allowed for our products."

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We only use this player to watch DVD and Blu Ray movies. I use the HDMI out to the TV and digital coax to my old receiver for the 5.1 sound. It gets almost daily use. I've updated the software a couple times without trouble. The only problem is that it occasionally locks up and has to be unplugged to reset it. This has happened maybe five times in the three months we've had it. Other than that it was a great value.