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BD370/390 LG Blu-ray player Master/Owners thread - Page 7

post #181 of 6866
4/29/09 at 8:43am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chuck_IV View Post

Ok, so besides the wireless, 1gig internal storage and the analog outs/internal decoding, is there anything else the 390 can do over the 370?

I currently have a 370 and while the internal wireless(I'm using a wga600n on my 370) and storage is nice, I really don't see anything compelling about the 390(I don't need the analog outs). Just wanna make sure I'm not missing something else.

It can apparently play Divx and MKV files off of a USB stick.
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post #182 of 6866
4/29/09 at 9:22am
Geez, were you guys this picky about features with DVD players?
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post #183 of 6866
4/29/09 at 9:30am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vipper IV View Post

Geez, were you guys this picky about features with DVD players?

No because at that time, there was no Divx, mkv, etc. And we will do anything to get rid of VHS. There's just too much options these days.
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post #184 of 6866
4/29/09 at 6:06pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by GizmoDVD View Post

It can apparently play Divx and MKV files off of a USB stick.

I was able to play mp4 and mkv files from a memory stick with no problems. I really like this play and have not had any issues yet.
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post #185 of 6866
4/29/09 at 8:42pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by bigjb419 View Post

I was able to play mp4 and mkv files from a memory stick with no problems. I really like this play and have not had any issues yet.

Could you please provide more info like:
Do you know which video codecs ASP/Xvid? AVC?
Audio: AC3? DTS? AAC?

What resolutions? 480p? 720p? 1080p?
Chapter Support?

Anybody been able to stream any of these?

I'm being picking because I'm looking to consolidate. I have too many devices. I'm running out of HDMI ports on my receiver. Not to mention the wife factor.

If it could play 1080p AVC 4.1 and AC3 640k (in either mkv or mp4), I'll probably jump. M2TS AVC/AC3 (Canon HF100) and mov AVC/LPCM (Canon SD780) would be really nice. 1080p VC-1/AC3 would frost the cake. I know, that's asking a lot.
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post #186 of 6866
4/29/09 at 9:13pm
Well, I picked up a BD390 on the way home from work and it's definitely a keeper. The BD370 is heading back.

The main differences I like are

1. The Wireless N being built right in. This linked right up with my router(Linksys WRT600n) with no issues at all. It allows me to return the WGA600N I had been running with(this just about makes up the $100 price difference right there).

2. The added Media option on the Home menu. It allows streaming from your PC. Plus parts of PlayOn seemed like they will work thru here(Netflix did work, but couldn't try Amazon), although parts didn't(ESPN videos kept locking up the unit).

3. The BD390 seems a bit quicker/snappier in everything from initial bootup to playing disks and so on.

4. The added 1 gig of internal memory is nice, since I no longer have to think about inserting my USB flash drive to get BDLive content. plus, th booklet does say it WILL read an external harddrive(even NTFS formatted too), although I have yet to try this.

About the only complaint so far is the little USB connection cover is a PITA to get open, to be able to insert a USB device.

It also comes with a copy of Nero MediaHome 4, which is a nice little bonus too.

For me, this was worth the upgrade since, like I mentioned, being able to return the WGA600N wireless adapter almost made up the difference and the added extras are a good bonus(nevermind the added analog outputs, which I don't need buth others might).
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post #187 of 6866
4/30/09 at 6:14am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chuck_IV View Post

Well, I picked up a BD390 on the way home from work and it's definitely a keeper. The BD370 is heading back.

The main differences I like are

1. The Wireless N being built right in. This linked right up with my router(Linksys WRT600n) with no issues at all. It allows me to return the WGA600N I had been running with(this just about makes up the $100 price difference right there).

2. The added Media option on the Home menu. It allows streaming from your PC. Plus parts of PlayOn seemed like they will work thru here(Netflix did work, but couldn't try Amazon), although parts didn't(ESPN videos kept locking up the unit).

3. The BD390 seems a bit quicker/snappier in everything from initial bootup to playing disks and so on.

4. The added 1 gig of internal memory is nice, since I no longer have to think about inserting my USB flash drive to get BDLive content. plus, th booklet does say it WILL read an external harddrive(even NTFS formatted too), although I have yet to try this.

About the only complaint so far is the little USB connection cover is a PITA to get open, to be able to insert a USB device.

It also comes with a copy of Nero MediaHome 4, which is a nice little bonus too.

For me, this was worth the upgrade since, like I mentioned, being able to return the WGA600N wireless adapter almost made up the difference and the added extras are a good bonus(nevermind the added analog outputs, which I don't need buth others might).

Hmm sounds interesting, but for $400 I'd might as well grab a PS3. I got the 370 for $249, but it hasn't really "satisfied" me. I might return it and grab a PS3.

60GB HDD, Wireless, YouTube, Games. The only thing missing is Netflix, but then again I can easily drop in Linux and get everything else. Hmm maybe that's what I'd do - return the BD370 and grab a PS3. It'd be real nice if all the features on the 390 is on the 370 for $249.
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post #188 of 6866
4/30/09 at 7:01am
Quote:
Originally Posted by dubbo07 View Post

Hmm sounds interesting, but for $400 I'd might as well grab a PS3. I got the 370 for $249, but it hasn't really "satisfied" me. I might return it and grab a PS3.

60GB HDD, Wireless, YouTube, Games. The only thing missing is Netflix, but then again I can easily drop in Linux and get everything else. Hmm maybe that's what I'd do - return the BD370 and grab a PS3. It'd be real nice if all the features on the 390 is on the 370 for $249.

I have a PS3 as well, driving my main system. It works for me because I have it away from my viewing area(it's on the opposite side of the room from the TV) so noise is not an issue. However, if it were near the TV, I could see myself not liking it due to the fan noise. At times the fan noise can be annoying, especially if it's not well ventilated(if the fan goes on high, it's like a mini hair dryer, which is not often tho). I thought about a PS3 for the second area too but I'd lose the Netflix and the ventilation is not all that great where the player would go, so I'd have fan/noise issues to deal with.

As for streaming, if you add PlayOn software to your PC(i think it's $40, after free trial) and keep your PC on, while running the PS3, you can stream quite a few things thru the PS3, including Neflix(although no HD), Amazon, CNN, ESPN and other things. You just gotta have your PC on all the time.
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post #189 of 6866
4/30/09 at 8:11am
Quote:
Originally Posted by dubbo07 View Post

Hmm sounds interesting, but for $400 I'd might as well grab a PS3. I got the 370 for $249, but it hasn't really "satisfied" me. I might return it and grab a PS3.

60GB HDD, Wireless, YouTube, Games. The only thing missing is Netflix, but then again I can easily drop in Linux and get everything else. Hmm maybe that's what I'd do - return the BD370 and grab a PS3. It'd be real nice if all the features on the 390 is on the 370 for $249.

That's what I thought too, until I actually tried using any of those features. The PS3 was such a continuous nightmare I was ready to slam it against the wall.

Playing Blu Ray discs was the only thing it did right. Everything else worked for about a minute before it had some kind of an error. I must have spent days reading forums and instructions on how to set up the wireless to work. Every time I thought I had it, it would work for an hour before the same error codes started showing again. I even tried wired networking with just about the same luck. I could never get it to stream a complete file from my computer, it froze several times every time I tried playing games, I was able to play online for maybe 3 minutes at a time...

Then there was installing linux... That was pretty much another wasted day. Other than seeing the desktop in some miserable resolution, I don't think I could do anything else in it.

If at least the web browser had any use... I got all excited when they updated the flash support, but streaming Hulu through it was awful too. Playback wasn't smooth at all, it was difficult to zoom to the full screen, loading and searching took forever and gave constant errors...

I can go on and on about it, but I am just glad I had enough self control to sell the damn thing before I threw it under a bus.
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post #190 of 6866
4/30/09 at 8:14am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vipper IV View Post

Geez, were you guys this picky about features with DVD players?

There are tons of other player we can get so yes - we are picky. We want to make sure it does the things we want.
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post #191 of 6866
4/30/09 at 11:59am
Playing mkv (mostly x264) or avi (xvid) files from USB works just fine with BD370. So far, I haven't had a single video file that has not worked. Reading this thread and some reviews it wasn't quite clear if you can play video files with BD390 from a NAS? If yes, do you need a specific media server on your NAS?

The only problem I have faced is with embedded subtitles in mkvs. While it was a big surprise that BD370 actually reads and shows the subtitles, there seem to be some bugs in the actual parsing.

The player does not recognize linefeed "\\N" and hence it prints out the line feed characters instead wrapping the text, which results in many cases to the beginning and ending of the row going outside the screen. I have verified that other players (VLC at least) do show the subtitles from the files I used.

Hopefully future firmware updates will fix this. Almost sent a bug report to LG, but gave it up since their support site is simply a mess

Great piece of machine otherwise! Fast, silent and reasonably priced. Never thought I would actually say that from anything that LG manufactures. Go figure .
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post #192 of 6866
4/30/09 at 12:45pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chuck_IV View Post

Well, I picked up a BD390 on the way home from work and it's definitely a keeper. The BD370 is heading back.

The main differences I like are


4. The added 1 gig of internal memory is nice, since I no longer have to think about inserting my USB flash drive to get BDLive content. plus, th booklet does say it WILL read an external harddrive(even NTFS formatted too), although I have yet to try this...

Hmmm... I'm in the market for my first standalone player but I would like it to 'play' various formats from an external harddrive (AVCHD, MKV etc.) via USB. The Oppo BDP-83 is on my short list and now maybe the BD390. If the BD390 can play (not just read) an AVCHD formatted on a NTFS HDD that would be fantastic (not holding my breath though) as the Oppo seem to only do it from a FAT32 formatted HDD.

According to Piizei and others, looks like the BD370 can play MKV files from USB - would that be on a FAT32 or NTFS formatted drive? I still need the BD390 though as I need the analog outs...

jidelite
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post #193 of 6866
4/30/09 at 12:51pm
My BD-390 just arrived today and I wasted no time in setting it up. I have a wireless router, so I tried that first. I use WEP2 encryption and when it came time to enter the password into the 390 there was no way to enter capital letters. The manual said nothing about how to do that either. I gave up and plugged in a wire stolen from another device nearby. Now I'll have to get a network switch to allow both to work at the same time.

The audio setup was next. I have an old Yamaha DSP-A1 that does not have HDMI inputs, so I connected it via a Toslink cable. I configured the audio settings to convert to DTS over SPDF but when I used the internal Test mechanism the back speakers and subwoofer did not emit sound. No combination of settings allowed the test to be successful. Sound only came out of the left, right, and center.

Playing a Blu-Ray disc worked flawlessly, and the sound was correctly down converted to DTS and all 6 speakers worked. Same thing for a DVD with Dolby Digital, all speakers worked. So the player audio test was a false negative.

Hooking up to Netflix was an excellent experience. Just select Netflix on the player, and it displays a code. Type that code into a browser that is pointing at the Netflix website and the player and Netflix auto sync, and my instant play list appeared, instantly.

Next was the DLNA feature, one the main reasons I got the 390. The Nero software included installed easily on my XP computer, and the 390 had no trouble finding it and showing the shared folder I had configured. I tried a few mp4 movies I had, no go. Snurfling thru the manual I see that the 390 only supports mpeg2. I like to create slideshow movies of travel photos, and I usually make them in mpg4, but the Pinnacle software also can output mpeg2, so that's ok.

Next test is an official movie night with Quatum of Solace. Not sure if I will see an improvement over my HD DVD player, especially on my 720p DLP TV, but all the other features make it worth the upgrade.
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post #194 of 6866
4/30/09 at 12:59pm
A number of posts state that the BD370 is incompatible with certain D-Link routers. It appears that this incompatibility is with the D-Link relaying DNS.

Try the following:

Choose the static IP option on the BD370 and reserve an IP on router.

On the BD370, make the following entries:

IP: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx (use your reserved IP)
Subnet: 255.255.255.0 (usually, match with your topology)
Gateway: 192.168.0.1 (default for D-link, use your router IP)
DNS: 4.2.2.1 (use Level 3 DNS instead of router)

Thats it. It should work like a champ. At least mine did.

Good luck.
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post #195 of 6866
4/30/09 at 1:10pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by CustomCastles View Post

My BD-390 just arrived today and I wasted no time in setting it up. I have a wireless router, so I tried that first. I use WEP2 encryption and when it came time to enter the password into the 390 there was no way to enter capital letters. The manual said nothing about how to do that either. I gave up and plugged in a wire stolen from another device nearby. Now I'll have to get a network switch to allow both to work at the same time.

Can't you just change the password to something with all lowercase letters? That's what I ended up doing. Plus, if you toss some numbers in there, too, it should significantly bump up the complexity factor so it makes it more difficult for someone to guess.
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post #196 of 6866
4/30/09 at 1:42pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vipper IV View Post

Can't you just change the password to something with all lowercase letters? That's what I ended up doing. Plus, if you toss some numbers in there, too, it should significantly bump up the complexity factor so it makes it more difficult for someone to guess.

Yes, I could adjust my configuration to match the lack of capability on the 390, but I was just trying the wireless as a test. I like to use a wired connection anyway, I just wasn't 100% ready for it when the device arrived. It surprised me that such a common thing was not supported.

It was an annoyance, not really a dead end.
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post #197 of 6866
4/30/09 at 1:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by jidelite View Post

According to Piizei and others, looks like the BD370 can play MKV files from USB - would that be on a FAT32 or NTFS formatted drive? I still need the BD390 though as I need the analog outs...

jidelite

BD370 only supports FAT32, don't know about BD390. Hopefully they will add NTFS support with a firmware update. Now I have used rewritable DVDs for bigger than 4GB+ files, which works fine but is a lot slower to use than USB.
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post #198 of 6866
4/30/09 at 2:49pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by CustomCastles View Post

My BD-390 just arrived today and I wasted no time in setting it up. I have a wireless router, so I tried that first. I use WEP2 encryption and when it came time to enter the password into the 390 there was no way to enter capital letters. The manual said nothing about how to do that either. I gave up and plugged in a wire stolen from another device nearby. Now I'll have to get a network switch to allow both to work at the same time.

The audio setup was next. I have an old Yamaha DSP-A1 that does not have HDMI inputs, so I connected it via a Toslink cable. I configured the audio settings to convert to DTS over SPDF but when I used the internal Test mechanism the back speakers and subwoofer did not emit sound. No combination of settings allowed the test to be successful. Sound only came out of the left, right, and center.

Playing a Blu-Ray disc worked flawlessly, and the sound was correctly down converted to DTS and all 6 speakers worked. Same thing for a DVD with Dolby Digital, all speakers worked. So the player audio test was a false negative.

Hooking up to Netflix was an excellent experience. Just select Netflix on the player, and it displays a code. Type that code into a browser that is pointing at the Netflix website and the player and Netflix auto sync, and my instant play list appeared, instantly.

Next was the DLNA feature, one the main reasons I got the 390. The Nero software included installed easily on my XP computer, and the 390 had no trouble finding it and showing the shared folder I had configured. I tried a few mp4 movies I had, no go. Snurfling thru the manual I see that the 390 only supports mpeg2. I like to create slideshow movies of travel photos, and I usually make them in mpg4, but the Pinnacle software also can output mpeg2, so that's ok.

Next test is an official movie night with Quatum of Solace. Not sure if I will see an improvement over my HD DVD player, especially on my 720p DLP TV, but all the other features make it worth the upgrade.

I was able to play .mp4 movie trailers from a usb stick. I was able to play mp4 encodes in 480p, 780p, and 1080p with no problem. I'm kinda knew to the AVCHD scene but I downloaded these trailers in .mov and converted them to .mp4 by using a program called YAMB. I'm hoping if I buy A HD camcorder I will be able to play these movie from the BD390 either by streaming or from a usb stick. Eventually, I'll buy a blu-ray burner and play them that way.
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post #199 of 6866
4/30/09 at 5:20pm
I went back to my Pinnacle Studio program and rendered my slideshow in DivX format, 16:9 and HD quality, and the 390 was able to stream it.

The image quality is excellent with this approach, much better than burning to a DVD. One problem was that the pans and zooms stuttered sometimes. Not sure if that was a problem with the streaming, the player, or my home computer. I'm using a 100MB/s network card on the computer.

The sound is simple stereo, but that is more a factor on the Pinnacle software, I think. Need a lot more experimenting to see how far I can push it all.
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post #200 of 6866
4/30/09 at 6:31pm
I have an HDMI Audio issue.

I posted in the Yamaha RX-V465 thread here.

I'm not sure the best way to go about troubleshooting this. Has anyone with the BD 370 seen similar behavior with DTS-HD MA?

Should I just go buy another receiver or Blu-ray player to see if the problem is resolved?
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post #201 of 6866
5/1/09 at 8:52am
Can anyone confirm whether the BD 390 will play vob files?
I have a media server with a bunch of DVD's ripped to the standard video_ts folders in vob format. It would be great if I could play these in another room via the BD 390.

Also, I presume AVCHD files are ripped blu-rays? What do people use to rip their blu-rays with? AnyDVD HD?

Thanks.
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post #202 of 6866
5/1/09 at 9:38am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Piizei View Post

Playing mkv (mostly x264) or avi (xvid) files from USB works just fine with BD370. So far, I haven't had a single video file that has not worked. Reading this thread and some reviews it wasn't quite clear if you can play video files with BD390 from a NAS? If yes, do you need a specific media server on your NAS?

The only problem I have faced is with embedded subtitles in mkvs. While it was a big surprise that BD370 actually reads and shows the subtitles, there seem to be some bugs in the actual parsing.

The player does not recognize linefeed "\\N" and hence it prints out the line feed characters instead wrapping the text, which results in many cases to the beginning and ending of the row going outside the screen. I have verified that other players (VLC at least) do show the subtitles from the files I used.

Hopefully future firmware updates will fix this. Almost sent a bug report to LG, but gave it up since their support site is simply a mess

Great piece of machine otherwise! Fast, silent and reasonably priced. Never thought I would actually say that from anything that LG manufactures. Go figure .

I assume your player is not from the US then?
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post #203 of 6866
5/1/09 at 10:45am
There was a mention of Yahoo Widgets in some of the documentation - do either the 370 or 390 support it? Also I see no mention of fan noise - is it quite enough? Thanks
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post #204 of 6866
5/1/09 at 12:06pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ssampath View Post

There was a mention of Yahoo Widgets in some of the documentation - do either the 370 or 390 support it? Also I see no mention of fan noise - is it quite enough? Thanks

I don't know about the 390, but the 370 doesn't have a fan, so there is no noise at all. I haven't seen any Yahoo widgets either (US model).
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post #205 of 6866
5/1/09 at 12:59pm
If there is a fan in the 390(I have no idea) I can't hear it at all.

As for the widgets, I'm not sure if the 370/390 supports that or not(if they do, I have not seen any reference to it at all).

It will be interesting to see if LG finally does add CinemaNow this month and if they stop there or add other streaming content, down the road(Amazon maybe?).
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post #206 of 6866
5/1/09 at 1:37pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chuck_IV View Post

If there is a fan in the 390(I have no idea) I can't hear it at all.

As for the widgets, I'm not sure if the 370/390 supports that or not(if they do, I have not seen any reference to it at all).

It will be interesting to see if LG finally does add CinemaNow this month and if they stop there or add other streaming content, down the road(Amazon maybe?).

They seem to talk about Yahoo Widget support on their TVs - guess that did not make it to the Blu Rays! Over all this seems like the most optimal box on the market for me. No noise, netflix, DLNA, youtube! I hope bestbuy has the 390 in stock.
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post #207 of 6866
5/1/09 at 11:49pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ikdo View Post

I have tried 1080p mkv but they only play the first 45min and stop. Do i need to Mux it so the full movie can play? Some .avi and .divx over 720 has problem playing.

Has anyone experienced the same problem? Could it be an issue with the format I burn the dvd, ie iso, dvd-rom, hybrid? Thanks for any help.
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post #208 of 6866
5/2/09 at 4:13am
Quote:
Originally Posted by GizmoDVD View Post

I assume your player is not from the US then?

You are right, I have european version. Is there a difference in US version when it comes to playing video files?
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post #209 of 6866
5/2/09 at 8:26am
Quote:
Originally Posted by mdbrit View Post

Can anyone confirm whether the BD 390 will play vob files?
I have a media server with a bunch of DVD's ripped to the standard video_ts folders in vob format. It would be great if I could play these in another room via the BD 390.

Also, I presume AVCHD files are ripped blu-rays? What do people use to rip their blu-rays with? AnyDVD HD?

Thanks.

Same question here, but since the BD390 has built-in (N) WiFi can it stream backup Blurays that you own from a mdeia server...

AVCHD is another HiDef media format - not limited to blurays that are ripped. AnyDVD HD has a ripper in it but that is not its main purpose. I have used tsMuxeR, Clown DB (frontend to eac3to, tsMuxer & ImgBurn) to backup BD discs I own (menus and movie only). MultiAVCHD is a fantastic tool that can be used to make compliant AVCHD files/folders.

Man, I'm starting to like this BD390 - it would also be nice to know if the BD390 could recognize a USB attached external HDD (one of those > 320GB liake a Passport or FreeAgent drives)...

jidelite
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post #210 of 6866
5/2/09 at 8:44am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Piizei View Post

You are right, I have european version. Is there a difference in US version when it comes to playing video files?

Yep - the American 370 does not play any movie file via USB.
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