After reading various threads around here and other places on the LG Bh200 I think I'd like one but I'm really seeking some expert opinions on the matter.

Currently I have a Toshiba XE1 [XA-2] and a Pana BD-10. These machines have been great to me. No problems, have played everything I've thrown at them flawlessly.

Problem is I really like the idea of just having 1 machine to do it all now. Especially since HD's died its death and i won't be getting any more HD's. But I have no intention of replacing the 60 odd HD's I do have with BD's [yet - not that they're available] so I still like something to play them with and I just don't get the use out of the XE1 that i should.

Question is, for those out there who have 'upgraded' to the LG from a Toshy, do you think it a wise move? Am i better off just keeping the 2 stand alones? Apart from the odd disc it wont play is there any other significant problems issues I should be aware of on the lG?

Any opinions would be greatly appreciated in helping me decide.

cheers

Do you play DVD-A's on your Panny DMP-BD10? I'm not looking at the Toshiba. I'm looking at the profile 1.0 Panny you have that can't bitstream high res audio. Unless you need the 7.1 analog outputs or the DVD-A playback capability of the Panny, you could use a BH200 to replace it. You can keep the XA2. It will play the problem HD DVD's the BH200 can't. Moreover, it will also bitstream like the XA2.

Dont wait till there no longer available, Just GET ONE !!!!! :D


Athanasios

I'm not familiar with the other players, honestly, so the BH200 might be a good choice for you. But I think that you might want to keep the XA-2, which is more stable for HD-DVDs than even the BH200, and wait a little bit more and then get a player which works well with BD 2.0. Not to knock the BH200 (which has been great for me and which replaced a A20 for me), but I think you should evaluate how important having only one player is.

Well I switched over from HD DVD. I have 100+ HD DVD movies and 15+ Blu rays. For me it was a very wise move. But I was coming from an A30 and a A3. Your coming from a better player.

The LG BH200 has been perfect. Ive thrown everything at it and it has played it with no problems. Ive had one issue and that was just some weird menu issue with French (damn the french) Rambo. Didnt make it unplayable just annoying that the video in the menu was restarting. So there was like a 3 second amount of time where the video and sound in the menu played and then it was start over. No biggie.

I truly love this player. Its pretty fast and its pretty lol.

It would do you good to check the thread dedicated to problem discs for the BH200 if you haven't already. For the most part, you'll probably be surprised by how few discs do have problems (providing you can handle updating the firmware which takes all of 5 minutes).

I used to have a Toshiba A2 and I upgraded to a BH200 and I love the damn thing. As far as HD-DVDs go i haven't noticed anything different. The upscaling quality looks great to me too.

I'd get one before they're too hard to find. They already cost more on ebay then they did when i bought one.

Does anyone have one running over hdmi with a Onkyo sr805 receiver? If so how is DTS Master and True HD on HD-DVD. I do not have BD yet and have over 100 HD's and ready to break down. II currently have an A-35 and a A-2. I hear under normal viewing conditions that there are video and audio dropouts. Has this been corrected with the latest firmware? What is the likelihood of a BD 2.0 firmware upgrade? Lastly I have heard that SD is unwatchable due to the green line at the top of the screen. Has this been fixed? I want to pull the trigger this weekend while there is still stock. BTW what is a good reference disk on BD? What would be a good price to pay?

Thanks for the help.

I got mine for $400 on ebay a while ago.

green line on DVDs was fixed in the first firmware release a longgg time ago. I dont get any dropouts, personally i think the occurance of dropouts has a lot more to do with the receiver or television that its connected to then the player itself.

Profile 2.0 has a good likelyhood. The hardware has enough memory for it to be capable and LG has mentioned a few times that they are going to come out with an update to add it.

I dont know of any HD-DVDs with DTS Master Audio, but I've got an Onkyo 606 hooked up to it and it plays DTS MA from the blu-rays i have fine. Just set the player to bitstream it and the receiver will show DTS HD Master Audio on its display as it outputs it.

Excellent. Thank you. The only HD that I have with DTS MA in T2 import, Total Recall, and Pans Labrenth which sounds awesome.

As far as I know Studio Canal were the only company (except for the New Line Pan's Labyrinth) to ever use DTS-HD on HD-DVD. Studio Canal authored the European/Australian T2, Total Recall etc...

Profile 2.0 has a good likelyhood. The hardware has enough memory for it to be capable and LG has mentioned a few times that they are going to come out with an update to add it.
Maybe but until it comes is it worth still thinking about? I'd say it's 50/50 that it will come or not.

I dont know of any HD-DVDs with DTS Master Audio.
There's only one North American HD-DVD with DTS-HD (HR or MA) and about 2 dozen European/Australian discs.

Impulse buy. Got lucky and talked shop with Worst Buy Magnolia manager. His eyes lit up and offered to sell me for a number I through out of 449. I replied 399 and he took it.

Is this a great deal?

Should i go back and get the 4 year warentee for $50?

My first BD player sad as I was an avid HD-DVD supporter and a little exciting:)

They had a open Box BD 100 for cheap. Is this box any good?

$399 is a great deal if you ask me.
I paid 469, and so far I feel it was worth every penny.
I wish this thing was available for that price from the very beginning, I would have been purple Eons ago.

Extended warranty? That's entirely up to you.

As far as I know Studio Canal were the only company (except for the New Line Pan's Labyrinth) to ever use DTS-HD on HD-DVD. Studio Canal authored the European/Australian T2, Total Recall etc...


Maybe but until it comes is it worth still thinking about? I'd say it's 50/50 that it will come or not.


There's only one North American HD-DVD with DTS-HD (HR or MA) and about 2 dozen European/Australian discs.

There's only one US mainstream movie with primarily DTS-HD MA. There are quite a few concerts and music (audio only) HD DVD's with DTS-HD MA.

Many thanks fo all the feedback/opinions. Its all good to hear. Will ponder a little more an make a decision this weekend. Thanks all.

$399 is a killer deal, don't look back as the Qdeo processor in the BH200 was listed as "on-par" with the Reon.

Thanks. Just got back from drinking beers with the ladies at Surfweek. Will attempt to set up and update firmware and enjoy Batman in HD-DVD. No BD yet. Thanks to all and all opinions welcome.

yep, $399 is a good deal. I got mine for that plus shipping. I've seen em go for more on ebay.

Be sure and update the driver too. The LG BH 200 stickied thread will help with just about anything you want to do with it.

Awsome rig so far and I am really impressed. Bourne U is good, Transformers is good, Beaouwolf is good and Total Recall (UK) is good BSG Season 1 is good. All play back with the interactive web features working and the correct sound is displayed on my receiver. No funky sound or dropouts as I have read about. The A-35 is boxed up for a rainy day. By far one of the best HD-DVD players made. Props to LG.

$399 is sweet for this outstanding machine - have two and love them both. Good purchase.

After reading various threads around here and other places on the LG Bh200 I think I'd like one but I'm really seeking some expert opinions on the matter.

Currently I have a Toshiba XE1 [XA-2] and a Pana BD-10. These machines have been great to me. No problems, have played everything I've thrown at them flawlessly.

Problem is I really like the idea of just having 1 machine to do it all now. Especially since HD's died its death and i won't be getting any more HD's. But I have no intention of replacing the 60 odd HD's I do have with BD's [yet - not that they're available] so I still like something to play them with and I just don't get the use out of the XE1 that i should.

Question is, for those out there who have 'upgraded' to the LG from a Toshy, do you think it a wise move? Am i better off just keeping the 2 stand alones? Apart from the odd disc it wont play is there any other significant problems issues I should be aware of on the lG?

Any opinions would be greatly appreciated in helping me decide.

cheers

I had an HD-XE1 before my BH200 (Still do). PQ for DVD and HDDVD use is pretty much identical on the LG. The big advantage the Tosh has is it's analogue outputs and superb compatability. The LG is faster though, very reliable and can output DTS bitstream over Coax (Allows for it to output DTS-ES 6.1 tracks).

If you dont use the MC Analogues on your XE1 then the LG is better for HDDVD, the same for DVD. I've no idea how it compares to the BD10.

I came from having an A3 Tosh standalone. Best move I could have made. Also had a Sony BDP player so having the BH 200 is a space maker for me as well as being a damn fine machine.

Can you BH200 owners comment on BD playback quality?

I know many of us HD guys are being forced to adopt BD as the high def disc of choice going forward, so there have been mostly comments on the HD side of performance.

However, any BD performance review would be of interest to me.
Thanks.

Can you BH200 owners comment on BD playback quality?

I know many of us HD guys are being forced to adopt BD as the high def disc of choice going forward, so there have been mostly comments on the HD side of performance.

However, any BD performance review would be of interest to me.
Thanks.

I've experienced zero BD playback issues. It's my only Blu-Ray player so I can't comment on the PQ vs. the PS3, the Pioneers, the BDP-S300, etc.

I've experienced zero BD playback issues. It's my only Blu-Ray player so I can't comment on the PQ vs. the PS3, the Pioneers, the BDP-S300, etc.

Ditto for me.

yep, $399 is a good deal. I got mine for that plus shipping. I've seen em go for more on ebay.

Be sure and update the driver too. The LG BH 200 stickied thread will help with just about anything you want to do with it.

I updates the latest firmware and it appears that the one update updated both the firmware and the driver. The online update said that no updates are available and I am up to date and the driver and software numbers match the latest numbers in the BH-200 thread. Does this sound right? One update to update both?

Ditto for me.


So most of the minute issues have been HD related?

That would be awesome if future BD plays on this thing headache free.

$399 is sweet for this outstanding machine - have two and love them both. Good purchase.

I bought a second player as well a few weeks ago off Ebay. With the Paypal 25% cash-back MS promo it came to $390 total (I paid about $435 total on my first player last spring). These days it's tough to find any around the $399 price point.

This machine, overall, is phenomenal. I owned several BD standalones -- one Phillips, two Samsungs -- prior to the BH200 and had FAR more glitches on BD playback alone. The LG does outstanding on BD and more than good enough on HD-DVD for my money. The upconversion with the QDeo is every bit as good as the Reon (I owned an XA2 as well with the Reon so I often did comparisons), and the region hacking options to play out-of-region BD's and Standard-def other-region titles (including PAL) right now is a major bonus with this unit.

Could not recommend it highly enough, really. :)

I've experienced zero BD playback issues. It's my only Blu-Ray player so I can't comment on the PQ vs. the PS3, the Pioneers, the BDP-S300, etc.

Yeah ditto for me too. Looked great and played without any issues. Although I should add I've only played 4 BD's on it so far - compared to about 20 HD-DVD's. Its gonna take a while for me to get through my 100+ bargain HD-DVD collection :D

Hmmm so ~$400 +/- cashback is a good price for this unit?

Hmmm so ~$400 +/- cashback is a good price for this unit?

Yeah. I'd say if you find a unit for $399 total price one way or another -- as in that's the final price after the cashback promo, or you manage to find one in-store around that number -- that's probably the best you can do for a new unit.

Hmmm so ~$400 +/- cashback is a good price for this unit?

Yes, the only comparable standalones are the Sammy BD-UP5k, the Panny DMP-BD50, the Denon and the new Pioneer unit.

The Panny can't upscale worth a crap, but it is profile 2.0 out of the box.

Here's my story. I have 3 HD DVD players (all a2's). All my TVs are 720p. Yesterday, I bought a BH200. It was on sale at Circuit city for $449. I had a $50 Best Buy gift card and a $50 Visa gift card. Went to BB and they price matched. Got the player for $385.99
tax incl. Today, I called LG customer svc and they are shipping a firmware update disk.
I couldn't get connected to the internet for a network download. The firmware on the unit is too old to permit a network connection. So far it has played everything but blu ray as I don't have a disk yet. It even played the combo of Bourne Ultimatum (both ways) and the Studio Canal version of The Graduate (no green line). So far, I'm very satified. Now to see if the update gives me the internet connectivity I need. Build date of March.

you do realize that the firmware can simply be burned onto a blank cd or put on a flash drive and plugged into the unit right?

I do know that but my computer is so old it only has usb 1.1 and the cd-rom isn't working. I was going to have my nephew download it to a USB flash
drive but I'm really not in a big hurry as everything is working very well at this point.

I have another question regarding this unit.

Can someone tell me if the Dolby TrueHD decoding issue has been address yet via firmware update? [ie. the machine decodes it to only two channel]

Manythanks
Jon

I have another question regarding this unit.

Can someone tell me if the Dolby TrueHD decoding issue has been address yet via firmware update? [ie. the machine decodes it to only two channel]

Manythanks
Jon

My Onkyo 805 shows True HD on the receiver with the passthrough on HD-DVD and so far the three Disney discs I have tried were uncompressed tracks or LN** not sure of the acronym.

The last FEW firmwares have enabled THD and DTS-MA via Bitstream.
I have seen Dolby True HD, DTS Master, and Multi-channel in on my Denon 988.

Selecting Pass-through as has been stated above.

That 2 channel limitation has been gone for awhile now, but MY player has a build date of jan/08- so I HAD to update the FW to enable this.

Piece of cake, and I have no issues with any of the formats, including Bitstreaming DD+ to my Denon (no helicopter noise here), which still seems to cause problems on some AVRS/Pre-Pros.

The build date doesn't mean anything, it's the firmware that it's installed, that matters :).

I'm well aware of that, I was stating the build date ONLY because that will give a clue as to the FW that came installed with MY machine.
No other reason.

Thanks

I bought this machine for $394 delivered a few months ago and had a few problems with the initial unit. LG honored the warranty when I told them the drive had a problem consistently recognizing disks. They swapped out the drive and sent the thing back to me within a week, even though they couldn't find anything wrong when they tested it. Since then it has worked perfectly. I like it much better than the A3 that I was using previously for HDs. I now have a sizable library of BR disks and they have all played flawlessly since the machine was fixed. I couldn't recommend it more and LG gets my kudos for excellent support. Right now, Circuit city seems to have the lowest price, $449. I can't seem to find it for less than $500 anywhere else. Good luck.

The BH 200 was my 3rd Blu Ray player. I started out with the much vaulted Panny BD30. However, I was surprised at how poor the DVD upscaling was on it. I returned it and picked up the Sony S300 from Sonystyle. The Sony was really slow AND the DVD upscaling was as poor as the Panny, for Blu Ray it was hard to tell the difference in PQ. I needed something that would be at least as good as my Oppo in terms of DVD upscaling.

I decided to go with the LG, because I had heard good things about the Marvell QDeo chip they were using for Video Processing (same one that Meridian uses as well as top of the line Pioneer. Plus only the most expensive Blu Ray recorders in Japan use this chip for video processing - or so I am told). It really came down to Reon (Sammy 5K) v. QDeo (LG) for me. When I got the BH 200, I immediately noticed how fast the player was (I like the compact, solid build quality of the unit) and the excellent DVD upscaling. This really was easily the best of the 3 units I tried as BOTH a Blu Ray and DVD player.

Of course, the unit also plays HD DVD, so I tried out a few and given the low prices I even ended up buying them - so now I have as many HD DVDs as Blu Rays! That was a bonus feature for me :)