Official LG BD690/670/650/6xx Series Thread - Page 5

I think we all knew the browser wasn't coming but I like, not really, how the Amazon question was ignored...
Question

I just purchased a BD650. Does the LG apps store work with this model? What about the browser functionality I have seen demonstrated by LG, will this be available for the BD650 / 70 / 90 ?

Thank you,
David
Answer

Dear David,

Thank you for contacting LG Electronics. I would be happy to assist you.

The LG Apps store works with your BD650. Unfortunately the browser functionality will only work for Televisions not Bluray players.

If you have other questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us again. You may also call our customer service line at 800-243-0000.


Ricardo Estrada
Home Entertainment Supervisor
LGEAI | Customer Interactive Center



They actually REWROTE ( or inserted a form question for the reply)my question.... how rude!

Check the MLB app anyway. Even tho MLB says otherwise, I CAN stream spring training games on my Samsung BD-C6900 AND my Boxee Box. There's not a lot of games that are streamable, but there's usually 2 or 3 a day.

I have a question for everyone in this thread: as a current 390 owner who is having consistant problems with firmware releases that don't address issues with the latest discs (Avatar SE, Inception, Robin Hood), and responses from LG support that basically say "You're screwed" why on earth would anyone consider ever buying another LG player?

I know I won't.

I just went from a 390 to a 650. 390 never gave me as many issues as most seem to report. I cant speak to the specific titles you mention.

Just curious though, you think support is going to be better from other companies? Seems to me everything is about cheap, as a result so is the service. A reflection on our values as a society.

I'm getting the OPPO 93, and know that customer support is the gold standard. It's worth the extra $$$.

A very nice machine, enjoy!

Got my 650 yesterday to replace the 550 I've had for the last 3 weeks and will now be returning to Best Buy. From what I've been able to do so far, it meets my expectations. Very easy to set up, including installing the Nero media sharing SW on my laptop and playing files on the player. Most of my movies are .AVI and it played those fine, also an .MP4. The only one it didn't play was a .WMV and I'm not sure why yet (it was a free download from PNY for buying a USB flash drive and it plays on the laptop so if anyone has any guesses why it won't play on the player let me know). I tried the same files via USB playback and got the same results. I was also pleasantly surprised to be able to access my iTunes via the network file sharing and in a format that was easy to navigate too (a folder for every artist with subfolders for each album). For some reason I was under the impression that I woudln't be able to access iTunes at all or if I could it would be the entire library in one playlist folder that would be such a pain to navigate that I'd never want to use it. So that's a plus.

As for the premium features and apps, I like the improved UI for Netflix. I knew having a search function would be nice but it's also a big improvement to see your queue displayed in rows so you can see more of your titles and jump around to them faster (the 550 just presented the queue as one long row and you had to arrow through every title to get to something deep in your queue). I registered for the apps and installed Revision3 and White House with no problem, but the first thing I tried to watch on Revision3 the player shut off. After I turned it back on again though I played a couple of things off both and they seemed to work fine after that. (I also didn't do the firmware update until after I installed the apps so not sure if that had anything to do with it). Still have to set up Pandora, Vudu and all the other premium content. So far though, other than the improved Netflix UI, I'm not really seeing any big upgrade here over the 550. The updgrade is where I expected it to be, in the network file sharing and USB playback. Maybe with further upgrades (like Hulu Plus and Amazon VOD if/when they come) I'll see it, or if something comes to the app store I might watch more than once or twice. So we'll see. For now it appears to be a work in progress.

A couple other notes: I downloaded the LG remote app for my android and was looking forward to having a QWERTY keypad for search and for when you have to register/login for apps, etc. Problem though: unless I'm a complete idiot and just haven't figured out how to use it yet, it doesn't give you the option to bring up the keypad even in a text field. Basically it just duplicates the arrow and select buttons with home and back buttons etc across the top. So what's the appeal of using my phone to duplicate the remote the player already comes with? I don't get it. I'll try again tonight since I assume I must be doing somethign wrong.

Finally, the wallpaper. I know this is really superficial and I shouldn't care, but it's horrible. And it's nice that you have 4 choices of wallpaper, but they're all horrible.

Anyway, bottom line I'm happy w/the purchase so far but I still have a lot more playing around with it I want to do too. So I'll report back if anything else jumps out at me in further exploration.

Just connected my 670; the setup for wireless was painless. The menus are easy to see and understand. Youtube playback is razor sharp and fast.
I tried my "test blu-ray disk"... Fifth Element, and it loaded surprisingly fast.


Question to those more experienced; is there a button on the remote that will take you directly to the Weather Page ? It's cumbersome to navigate through the series of menus - just to get the current weather & forcast on the screen.

The only way possible I know to do that would be to create a macro on a programmable remote. The Macro would have to start from a known point. Example Macro step 1, home screen, then you would have to count the right direction steps to "Premium content", enter, then count the direction steps to Accuweatehr, then enter.

Quick update: I did figure out how to set my own wallpaper. Wasn't difficult I just somehow missed that page of the manual the first time.

Now a question for more experienced users: if my wife and I both want to be networked to our BD650 but not necessarily to each other can we do that by simply installing the Nero SW on both of our laptops? And if we do that and have both laptops on at the same time will it show on the player as 2 seperate Nero folders under each of the main page selections (Movies / Pictures / Music)? Just wondering if anyone has tried that before or if Nero is designed for sharing w/only one computer or network at a time. Thanks.

For those still on the fence, the LG SmartTv upgrader (ST600) is listed on LG's website in the video section. No pricing info listed yet.

Does anyone now how you designate an App as a favorite? According to the manual (p31 item 9)you can add ( looks like four) apps to the bottom of the home screen as Favorite apps. I thought going to the app and hitting display info would let me set as a favorite but no.

Anyone figure this out
?

I should add the manual does not specify how to add a favorite

***Update***
Called LG support, they put me on hold a few minutes, came back suggested pressing the green button when an app is highlighted ( netflix, youtube, etc). I had already tried this, tried all the colors and remote keys ( popup, etc). Did not work. As far as I can tell they forgot to implement this feature. Anyway took my phone number and said they would call me back.


Can anyone else confirm this issue on their 650/70/90 please?

Confirmed 670.

I can, however, add apps from the LG app store w/o problems to the lower bar.

Question for you guys trying to add apps to the bottom of the homescreen on the 670 (or for anyone who has these players), is it possible to have nothing on the bottom of the home screen (like the models from previous years) or do you have to have something there? I'll be getting one of these shortly and I am curious about it.

I had a strange issue with the 690 yesterday and today. When I powered it up, and went to the Movies menu, the internal Hard Drive was not selectable. It also couldn't be reached from computer at smb://lgbd690. I had copied about 80Gb of video to the HD this past weekend and all files had been playable from the HDD. Now they were unaccessible. I also tried to play a Blu Ray (Animal Kingdom) and stream a film from my Mac, but the picture was very jerky on both. Audio was fine.

I checked the setup, and tried to turn off Media File Sharing. It gave me an error dialog of something like "media server starting, please try again in a few minutes". I also turned off Wi-Fi Direct, but that did not solve the issue.

So, before going down the painful path of trying an Initialize of the software or the HDD, I checked the manual and found the means to do a softer reset on p57:
1. Hold the power 5 seconds so it turns off, then
2. unplug the 690 for at least 5 seconds.

I did that and plugged it back in. The 690 was still "off" but the display read "BOOT". Once it completed booting, the display went blank. I then powered it on and everything seems now fine. The HDD is available in the menus, I can connect to it via CIFS/SMB, and there's no video stutter on BD, HDD or streaming video.

So, my guess is that somehow the OS or a service (media sharing, file services, whatever) got hung up and was taxing the processor to make the BR and streaming video skip. The reboot after unplugging seems to have worked, but isn't exactly intuitive. Maybe there could be a "Reboot OS" option on the "Initialize" menu, but the 5 seconds without power may be what it requires to flush a capacitor. Who knows.

Since I had no disc in the 690, I also decided to check if there was a software update. The 690 found a driver update. I'm not exactly sure what the driver is (OS driver updates, perhaps for file system, network, etc?), but I went ahead and let it install. The update took about 5 minutes. I haven't noted any differences in normal function, but hopefully it addressed the root cause of my issue.

Driver Version (aka Servo Ver in the Software Information menu):
Original: H90301
New: H90356

Since the reboot, everything seems to be fine again. Just wanted to share my experience in case it happens to others.

Is there anyone here familiar with Cinavia? Are these players infected with it?

Is BD 690 factory sealed?

Hmm, maybe that is all you are supposed to be able to do. Bummer if so, I wante dto put Netflix, MLB, Pandora, Amazon???? Down there.

I have a question regarding the BD670 vs BD690. The main difference is of course the addition of a 250gb hard drive in the BD690. Any there any other differences besides that ?? Like say a web browser? apps?

I am also concern about streaming video files locally. All of these files are located in my NAS. I dont want to run into a problem where the 690 would only play files that are located in the included 250gb hard drive and not being able to play video files from the NAS.

If i can save the few bucks and get BD670 and then attached an external hd that i have laying around, then i would probably do that. But if that could pose some unforeseeable issue, then i might as well just spend the money on the BD690 and not have to worry about compatibility issues. i also dont want to miss out on anything that would be available on the BD690 but not the BD670.

aarrgh i hate shopping for blu ray players!

1 none
2 at the moment the browser does not work on any bd 6xx
3 same apps
4 both stream from Internet services and local area network shares or NAS the same
5 only time will tell
6 word

Has anyone had any issues running these with a directv receiver?

thank you sir .

So in other words, if i attached an external hard drive to the BD670, i would essentially have a BD690 ??

Heck; I'd like to put the supplied Weather App there; so I don't have to navigate through so many menus to get the weather page displayed.

That's the conclusion I came to before buying the 670. I have not found anything in the features lists or posts here to contradict.

Got notice of a new firmware update H90356, but am unable to install it over via internet connection. Anyone get it to install correctly? LG Website thus far is not updated to the newer firmware.

On another note, I have tried streaming MP3 and the player initially navigates well and plays songs. But while playing that song I can't navigate out of the folder. The player will show the background wallpaper, but freezes. The MP3 though is still playing. Only way to get out of this is to turn the player off. Anyone else having this problem?

This situation happened to my 690 again. The internal HDD was unavailable (but I did not have jerky video performance). Learning from the last time, I just unplugged the 690 for >5 seconds, then when replugged it in, I got the same "BOOT" on the display. Turned it on and everything was fine again. This will be a nuisance if I have to unplug and replug it every week to get the OS to reboot and find the HDD. Really shouldn't be necessary, but if a reboot is required, it should be a menu option. I'm hoping the next update will resolve, but...

I don't know the root cause of the issue, but over the past week I have connected to the internal HDD from both my Macs via SMB to copy/rename/move files. I connect as a guest, not a registered user on the 690. I haven't generally "ejected" those shares from the Mac when finished, so maybe the 690 gets confused when the computers using the file sharing are disconnected without manually ejecting first.

One other oddity I've noticed...the file sizes of the files on the 690s internal HDD are displayed differently dependent on how you display them. I generally manage the files on the 690 from my Mac's Finder, and all file sizes display as "EB" not GB (Gigabytes). It's not a huge deal, but I would like to have the real file size displayed in the Finder.

When I "get info" on one file from the Finder, size is shown this way:

6.69 EB on disk (1,557,885,849 bytes)

The same file that sits directly on my Mac displays size as:

1.56 GB on disk (1,557,887,187 bytes)

Using Win7 explorer in details view displays file size as:

1,521,373 KB

Using the 690 Menu > Information on the file it reports:

1485.715 Mbytes

Win7 says that the 690s OS file system is NTFS, but I'm not so sure. The Mac doesn't have any problems displaying my Win7 NTFS shares and file sizes. Maybe the file system of the 690 is unique/proprietary? Anyone know?

I have firmware v8.62.221.E

For the visible apps store there are 4 apps now. Can't recall the names though. Some Jesus app, photo app, matching pics game, and a video app of some sort. 2-3 days ago there were no apps listed. Frankly, the only app I'm interested is Amazon which I hope is part of the 25th update.