BD370/390 LG Blu-ray player Master/Owners thread - Page 103

The only way a DVD can look as good as a BD, is when you are comparing it to the aboslute worst BDs that look like crap. DVD just does not have the resolution. Every DVD has no detail in it. Even the best scaler can't create something out of nothing. I've been using external scalers for around 8 years now and I've yet to see one that can create detail from a DVD that doesn't exist.
Just look at the background of an HD image from BD and compare it to the background of a DVD. It is always a huge difference.
I used to own hundreds of DVDs, and even the best looking ones, don't come anywhere close to what you see in BDs.

I purchased DVDs starting in 1998. I went HD in 2001. By 2005 I couldn't take watching DVDs anymore and I stopped watching them in 2005 in anticipation of the HD optical formats coming out in 2006. I purchased Windows media DVDs with 1080P content in the meantime to feed my HD appetite and broadcast HD had to fill the rest. I had been recording HD content from OTA since summer 2001 so by 2005 I had several Terabytes of HD movies that I had recorded from broadcast.

The HD picture has a softer image than the HDX. I can see the difference on my 67" Sammy DLP and my 40" Sammy LCD. Although on my 40" LCD I'm using the original VUDU box while my BD390 is on the 67" DLP.

Which combination would give me the best picture on Vudu?
Without a side by side it is difficult for me to tell...but if anyone knows....

I have a Pioneer 50" 720p Plasma (got it the last year they had the break-out box for connections). My BD 390 is hooked up to my draft n network. I can get HD quality on Netflix and HD on Vudu. If I try HDX on Vudu, I usually get the reloads every 10 minutes or so. I have a 5 MBs DSL internet with fast-path.

The choices are: HDX downscaled to 1080i; HDX downscaled to native 720p; or HD at 1080i or 720p?

The same question would apply for playing BD DVD's. (1080i or 720p)

I figure, for Netflix and Vudu HD, having both the BD 390 and the Pioneer set for 720p would involve no scaling. But does downscaling from 1080p (for Vudu HDX and BD DVD's) have more detail? The only way I can get acceptable rates on my network for HDX would be to go through considerable hassle to run a long, wall and crawl space Cat 5e cable or purchase a $90 Dlink Extreme N wirless access point (to pair with my Dlink Extreme N router.)

Any opinions appreciated.

I don't get an error but when I try to play anything from my Hulu queue the player just gives me the spinny hourglass thing forever. I can stream internet radio from TVersity and I can see my Hulu queue so I don't think it's a firewall issue. Do any changes need to be made WRT transcoding?

What firmware version are you on?

For their previews: watch preview and put in your Netflix's queue.

I've tried the latest and the one that's on the support website (I think that's the same one you've got)

How did you use Ripbot264? What did you use for blue ray playback? Do you have blueray player in your computer? Or can you use the BD390 with the computer? I would like to try to create MKV, please, give me technical advice how to do it. Thanks

http://www.makemkv.com/

http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/

I have a LG BH08LS20K 8X SATA Blu-Ray Writer in my PC.

I used the guide here

I'm now trying a different method.
Rip with MakeMKV and AnyDVDHD into a MKV.
Then use HDConvert to X to shrink it for streaming.

I does, for sure. However, I found the trade-off in quality acceptable for avoiding the pauses in the streaming. I'd prefer HDX all the time, of course, but until we're all getting three bars all the time, I suspect I'll be watching my occasional Vudu rental in HD more often than not.

Only mkv files that dont work in my case are based on orig VC1 encode BRs? Tell me if they work for u. e.g some of warners titles, like Matrix, Casa Blanca etc are VCI and they dont work as MTS or MKV even with my PS3 with our without PS3 MEDIA SERVER.

Only had one with VC-1 so far. David Gilmore - Remember that night. It is in 1080i. The m2ts stuttered bad when trying to play the m2ts from the stream folder on the BR drive. And when I coppied the m2ts to a hard drive. Only way to get them to play properly was playing the .mpls file in the playlist folder. Also, the only way I could make them into a mkv that didn't sutter was select the mpls file using HDConvert to X. But I messup someweher and didn't get DD5.1 But it did play fine streamed. It's on my list to do again.

I hate VC-1

I just got the BD390 and I have 2 DVDs that have problems when I view them using the component outputs.
On Seven Year Itch and Dr. Zhivago, the entire movie the video has wide ghostly horizontal bars that roll vertically thru the picture. Sort of like the old NTSC broadcast days of 60 Hz beat noise. The picture also has some brightening/darkening pulse to it. Like the some TV had with the old Macrovision VHS machines. These effects are only seen on component output and I verified it on three different televisions. The effect is not seen on HDMI.

Has anyone noticed this?

Oh yeah: these artifacts only should when the output resolution is set to any of the progressive modes. It does not show up in the 480i resolution. This leads me to suspect faulty de-interlacing.

Hunter

"N" wireless doesn't guarantee smooth streaming of 1080p. You might want to look into powerline networking if you want to be 'wireless'.

http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProdu...duct_Id=495008

That was screwed up. Video was messed up.

So I used HDConvertoX to compress Benjamin Buttons to MKV. A 2hr 46min movie. 42.2gig file. Settings were 1 pass quality, CRF 20, extreme quality on the slider. Copy DTS audio.

7hrs. later, I ended up with a MKV that was 4.95GB with DTS audio. Video bitrate 2677Kbps.

I expected this to look like crap. OMFG it looked amazing on my 65" DLP streamed!! I am stunned! I am very picky about video quality. I didn't see any macroblocks, banding, motion blur ect. Backgrounds looked great. It looked clean. I was trying this as only a test, but I will be keeping this file.

With out the DTS the video part is less then 4GB. I am speechless. MKV is amazing!

I now know that I've got an HDMI resolution issue (HDMI cable is OK) between my BD390 and my Hitachi Ultravision HDTV. I'd like some BD390 owners to run this test: go to Home > Settings > Video > Resolution, and then try manually changing the resolution to other settings than Auto or 1080p, like 1080i or 720p or 720i or 420p, etc. Does this cause the color to change to and from psychedelic, and what HDTV are you using?

I set 390 to 720p, it had weird colors for a second and then everything was fine. My TV is Samsung DLP.

Phillips LCD HDTV, changed to each of the settings and no psychedelic colors on any of them.

Does anyone know anything about the LG BD350c? I haven't found much info on it.
http://www.lge.com/ca_en/tv-audio-vi...yer-BD350C.jsp

I've been using 1080i over HDMI to my Hitachi 57F59. When the player boots up and switches from 480i to 1080i I get a brief flash of color when the TV adjusts to the new resolution. Other than that, no problems at all.

Crap, this was starting to look like the player to get if you wanted to play bluray rips besides bluray discs.

Do you know if the 390 can play bluray ripped folder structure(BDMV) on a usb ntfs drive? i would really like to be able to play bluray rips with loseless sound and no video compression. If it can, will it be able to still decode the loseless codecs to LPCM? So that I can have my hdmi 1.1 receiver play it.

There is also a very good program called Clown BD that does bluray rips to ts,m2ts,bluray isos, or bluray folder structure.

okay im pretty sure im down to this or the sammy 3600. the jvc looks nice but lacks a couple things i think i *may* use not sure though.

my question is this problems reported aside what is the better player? i do a LOT of mkv stuff mostly from a hdd or usb stick since my 3 year old has messed up a few of my discs i usually rip them and put the discs away i keep a couple hdd's with different selections like one is hers one is the wife's etc...

my whole house is wireless but i can easily use a second router as a repeater or add a apoint for it no big deal.

i use a onkyo 875 out to the tv so either could upscale for me. im pretty sure the onkyo is prob better than both of these.

is there any advantage to the sammy over the lg really? i get get the 390 for 230$ through a freind and i have not checked on the sammy from him yet.

im very confused lol i hear a lot of people complain about both so im more looking to any advantages to one over the other. pic quality, sq, i also play a lot of standard dvd's so that is VERY important.

thanks

It really depends on the features you need/want.
Assume you have looked at the P3600 thread
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...&postcount=511
Seems like there are problems reported there.

The 390 can stream from NTFS formatted HDD with files greater than 4 GB. A user with a TV tuner on the computer can record HD shows .. HD movies etc and stream those to the 390. A poor mans HD DVR. This works well for me. It avoids having to disconnect one of my monitors, plugging in the DVI HDMI adapter and stringing 15 feet of HDMI cable from the computer to the TV or the AVR.

For the price you quoted for the 390 it looks like a no brainer.
SD DVD movies look very good to me on the LG 55LH90. I happen to have a Magnavox Laser disc player (composite output only) and about 12 discs for it. These look like crap compared to SD DVD and really shows the capability of a modern video processor like the 390.

Both the TV and the 390 have LG Simplink. Powering up the 390 turns the TV on and sets it to the HDMI input assigned to the player. Does not work when the player is connected via the AVR, a Sony 820 with 1080P pass through.

An .mkv created from a BR movie will stream to the 390 if the BR uses the AVC coder, but the VC coder causes extreme unwatchable pixelation. The are ways around this, documented in previous posts.

So if these features important to you, go for the 390. I like mine but cannot speak for the Sammy .. do not have one.
I do have the Panny BD60, also a good player. The only feature on the Panny, but not on the 390, is the capablity to play at 24 fps on SD DVD. Again this may or not be important to you and requires a TV that can process 1080/P24.

Can you tell me how to do this? I just recorded "Supernatural" last night on Windows Media Center and would like to test watching it on the 390. Every time I've tried to watch any windows folder via the 390, it asks for some CFIS password. The only thing that works are the folders on Nero. I don't have Nero installed on the Media Center PC that has the TV tuner.

You did not specify the OS so assume it is XP Pro media center edition.. Do not have that but on plain XP Pro SP3 bring up the file manager, navigate to the folder with your recordings, right click and select 'sharing and security'. When that window pops up click the checkbox titled 'share this folder on the network' Give it a new name if you like and apply.

But keep in mind that a firewall or some (antivirus programs) may block this and will require adjustment. With Zonealarm set to 'trusted' on my internal network no adjustment is necessary.

I have not encountered the CFIS password situation but there are some posts on this thread that reference that. Do a search.

I am thinking of buying a blu-ray player. Now it narrows down to the following 3 :
1). LG BD390
2). Sony BDP-N460
3). Panasonic BD-60

The advantage of LG BD390 is that it has USB movie player and can stream video from NTFS drive. However, my Samsung LN52B630 HDTV also has a USB movie player. Do you think that LG's USB movie player is better than Samsung's (e.g., in upconverting SD videos)?

The advantage of SONY BDP-N460 is that it can stream an extensive list of sources/sites.

Panasonic BD-60 is much cheaper than the other two, but there are rumors about freezing issues.

Picture quality wise, how does these three stack up against each other?

Thanks

Pretty sure you can't play BR structure from a USB. You have to browse to the file you want to play. The only way to play HD audio is by playing a BR disc. It will not play any files with HD audio.

Best way to watch with uncompressed video is use TXMuxer on the ripped main movie m2ts. You have to highlight the HD audio track and put a check in the Downcovert TRUE HD to AC3 or DTS. I made .ts files. Rise or the Lycans with 25Mbps overall bitrate and AC3 streamed with out skipping using 100M wired. Benjamin Buttons with Overall bit rate 33.4 Mbps and DTS skipped when streamed. I put it on a 2.5 UBS drive and it played with no skips so far. Didn't watch the whole movie.

It seems the highest bitrate I can stream with my 100M wired network is 25Mbps.

Would a wireless N be faster then a wired 100M?

I know these questions are more Netflix related and player related, but I didn't know where else to ask, and I couldn't find a contact for Netflix on their site. Anyway, I just bought a BD370 a while back and just activated my Netflix trial; I have never used them before but wanted to give them a try since so many people seem to like the service. I was disappointed to find that you have to select any movies you want to watch from you computer (as opposed to onscreen), but I can live with that. What bothered me was that the first movie I selected for streaming (Superman: The Movie) was streamed in 4:3 pan and scan format instead of widescreen as I expected; I went back to Netflix and look at the description and could find no mention of widescreen vs. 4:3 format. How can you tell what format the movie will be in? I also noticed that the movie is available as a Watch Instantly (obviously my choice), DVD, and Blu-ray. I would certainly expect that the Blu-ray version is widescreen, but what about the DVD version? Is all of this information on the site and I am just missing it somehow?

I just saw in the "Other Features": enhanced for 16x9 TVs. This would certainly imply widescreen to me, but perhaps only on the DVD and Blu-ray versions. If so this should be noted somewhere.