LG BD300 BD-Live player with Netflix video streaming support - Page 2

Thanks for your report Kosty. I am keeping my eye on this player. I am helping my neighbor (home theater newbie) build out and configure a dedicated home theater room in his basement and he is looking to buy his first BD player. I was leaning towards recommending either a PS3 or Sony S550, but this player might be a contender as well.

I've pre-ordered this player and will run it through some tests as soon as I get it. I have 300 blu-ray movies and will immediately start playing discs known to have issues as well as report on load times etc...Can't wait to play with the netflix settings etc...After reading some faigue reviews, I must say I'm excited...

Unless I've gone crazy, it seems that Amazon has pulled this from their website.

Maybe it was posted prematurely...

The LG BD300 manual has been posted online as a PDF.

If you search for BD300 in the Support section under model information it will get you to the download link.

It does not directly specify if DTS-HD Master Audio is supported/decoded, and only lists DTS-HD as 5.1.

See..told you.....I bet it's based on the same broadcom chip as the BH200- it only supports DTS-HD.

Nice find on that user manual. So now I have some questions/comments.

I certainly don't like this line: "Not all HDCP-compatible HDMI or DVI devices will work with this player."
I hope they are just covering their butts.

I thought that BDLive requires 1GB of memory. I assumed that meant built-in memory, but it appears that the user must provide the memory via a USB flash drive. This is both a pain, and yet, it is sort of convenient. I will have to have a pen drive attached to the front panel at all times. Of course I can then add much more memory, such as a 32GB flash drive. I wish the USB port was on the back, but then that would limit accessibility. They really need two USB ports; one in the rear for permanent memory and one in the front for viewing user pictures/videos. I wonder if it would support a USB hub?

My wife needs closed captions on movies. Will the Netflix streaming include this? I think we tried this before via a computer but there was no closed captioning.

I have more questions, but this is enough for now. I guess I don't really expect any definitive answers until the player becomes available.

It does support DTS-HD-MA...Here is the spec sheet... Also upscales SD-DVD's in 1080P.

http://www.abt.com/images/products/P...spec_sheet.pdf

Look more closely- LPCM conversion is TrueHD and DTS-HD

Still not clear, but it looks like it will not decode DTS-HD MA, just DTS-HD.

You need to look more closely...under "audio format"...The words DTS-HD™ MA kinda jump out at you...

AUDIO format
Dolby® Digital •
Dolby® Digital Plus •
Dolby® TrueHD •
DTS™ •
DTS-HD™ MA •
MPEG 1/2 L2 •
MP3 •
WMA

BTW, I was assuming folks thought that this unit didn't bitstream out DTS-HD-MA. I could care less if it doesn't internally decode it.

The logo and text on the PDF is pretty clear...


DTS-HD Advanced Digital Out logo on the sheet also.. which means bitstream.

If it decodes DTS-HD HR/MA, they have the wrong logo.... regardless of the bullet point, I think it won't decode HR or MA.

And to add to their confusion..

Audio Chart from the Manual:



If DTS is limited to 5.1, that a pretty good sign that the unit only supports core decoding.

I was referring to decoding.....usually the fuss is about the ability of the player to decode DTS-HD MA. Sorry, I assumed that is what you were talking about.

This whole bring your own memory thing is really a joke and worse off you have to have a USB stick hanging out of the front of your player to use BD-Live. Sad.

I really think that this player will be the one to have if you have a receiver that bitstreams. I'm thinking it will be the "new BD30" so to speak...with the added ability to netflix and use SD 1080P upconverting...I wouldn't be surprised if the unit is faster at loading than the BD30 also. I have pre-ordered and will post as soon as I get it.

As I said, it has its advantages and disadvantages.

Question: For streaming, what size flash drive should I use? 8GB units are dirt cheap and would store an entire streamed DVD. But should I get 32GB and hope it holds most of an entire Blu Ray movie? Most likely I will use an 8 or 16GB flash drive now and put a 64GB unit in when they become cheap. And is there any significant advantage to having more memory?

And are Blu Ray movies going to be streamed? I have a 6Mbps connection and hope that will be enough. The manual recommends 4Mb but I am not sure if that is for DVD resolution or Blu Ray.

As you can see, I have way more questions than answers!

Does this have the same QDEO video processor as the BH200? If so, this will pretty much be the best upconverting (other than the Sammy BD-P2550?) Blu-Ray player under $500.

The Netflix streaming won't be Blu-Ray quality. It doesn't need to be. The HD could be HD-lite satellite quality and it would still be acceptable to most users.

Filmmixer is right. 5.1 ch DTS = DTS core just like the BH200 not DTS-HD HR or DTS-HD MA.

So far (just like countless others have said) this is looking like a BH200 sans HD DVD support with Netflix bitstreaming support.

I wonder if it'll upscale the netflix video?

The BD300 has now been posted in the product section of the lgusa website, along with an updated 2nd version of the manual in the support section.

Does anyone know the technical details on how this memory is used. Since it is FAT32, the max file size is 4GB. Is there (currently) any need for more than a 4GB Flash drive? Or are there multiple files created, in which case, more capacity can be used? 4GB drives can be had for under $10. I don't want to use a hard drive and I see no reason (yet) to have a storage capacity greater than a streamed movie (~4GB for SD or ~32GB for HD.)

Hi, I am a newbie in the Blue-Ray area..
What are the chances that this player could be unlocked for the multi-region DVD viewing?

Thank you!

Does anyone know if the Netflix downloaded movies can be viewed in Blu ray quality and in the audio can be played in any of the advanced codecs?

Thanks for your help.
Ceeg52

I'm with you on that! I really loved the BH200 a LOT. It had great HD and BD quality, and the SD DVD was amazing - even better than the Samsung (the LG is way better quality!). It's just the BH200 had a horrible HDMI bug with my new Pioneer SC-05 receiver where it thought it was getting a stereo signal, and so would get loud modulating static coming out of all my speakers. It did, however, work with my Onkyo 805 (long story, don't ask why am dumping Onkyo) most of the time (some HD DVD audio problems), and so that is how I got to love it.

And, I like many others, only need it to bitstream and I am happy


Everyone is getting so crazy about the memory thing. REMEMBER, the BD Live spec players that have built-in memory only have ONE GIG internal. So why are you all going crazy about 8, 10, 60, 160 gigs and on???

The answer is here
http://us.lge.com/bluray/
Click on the FAQ section

Of course not. The rights for HD streaming has not been okayed yet. (Although It's gonna happen eventually).

DRAT! Finally found the maual, and no mention of QDEO

But still, I think this very well might be on the top of the list of my next BD player choice! I am already a NetFlix subscriber, so it would be a win/win for me! It just comes down to if it will upscaled SD DVD like the BH200 did.

Without the QDEO, it probably won't... remember the BH200 started at $1000 when it first came out... we've quickly moved into the period of cheaper player, and I think it will be rare outside of the flagships for outstanding SD up-conversion at these prices..

Outside of that, this looks like a great player.

The only reason for more than 1GB is with regard to streaming. If the connection gets slow or interrupted, it would be nice to buffer an entire movie (assuming that it even uses the USB drive for buffer storage). Since it appears that only standard definition is used for now, I guess there is no need for anything over 4GB.

But then, wouldn't it already announce that for "future specs"? Though this does make some sense, as how would even the SD video be able to be put on pause?

But, on the bright side of things, everyone should think about this = IF you later do need more memory for streaming online video, isn't it better to run off of easily replaceable USB flash drives, then being limited to only whatever interenal memory they made it with, which could not be changed? I would think that would be on the + side for this.

Now, as for the BH200, I found 2 open box units at a BB! So I will grab one and try it again with my Pioneer SC-05 to see if it will work. That QDEO worked really great - I think better than the Samsung 2550 with Reon. And, the BH200 allowed use of both the internal memory as well as any USB flash memory you might install.

Of course, what would be totally AWESOME, would be IF LG fixed the audio issues I have with the BH200, fixed the 4:3 picture stretch problem, added BD Live, AND added NetFlix to the BH200! Then it would become the perfect player overall.

Oh well, the two open box BH200's I found were so badly trashed, you could barely recognize them as a player! So I ended up finding a Samsung 5000 dual format player = JUNK! It's going back in a day or so.

So, I think this BD300 is going to be my next, and LAST player! The more I read up on it, the more I like it. And as I had really liked the BH200 a lot, I think this will be near the same quality. I see that CC now has it on their website, and with a $50 rebate, it is now $349. Now that is even BETTER!

Just wish we knew WHEN they were coming out