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Information and quotes taken from pages 66-68 of the January 2009 Home Theater magazine

According to the professional review on the LG BD300 by Kris Deering over at Home theater magazine publication, LG's first generation BLU-RAY player the BD300 is the fastest BLU-RAY player on the market. The Playstation 3 is no longer the fastest BLU-RAY player since the LG BD300 is about 5 seconds faster loading BLU-RAY's including intense java encoded discs. So the LG is the new reference player for speed. The Panasonic players are the overall best players for picture and a sound quality. The main advantage of the LG BD300 player besides speed is the ability to stream Netflix movies that are sometimes close to 480I DVD quality. Perhaps in the future HD downloads will be an option, but the current Netflix quality is poor compared to the quality one gets from a BLU-RAY disc.
The new LG BD300 does have its negatives. It does not include 1GB of internal memory for BD-LIVE and to make matters worse instead of using a SD card slot in the front, it uses a USB in the front which makes some USB flash memory more visible. At least Panasonic uses a small hidden SD card in the front. Sony hides the USB slot in the back on their players which is good cosmetically but also makes it hard to switch out the memory. The ideal BLU-RAY player should have at least 1GB of internal memory with a hidden SD slot in the front to expand the memory. Another negative is LG has decided not to include 480I legacy S-Video jacks on their BLU-RAY players just like Samsung is doing on all their new BLU-RAY players. This cuts cost but for consumers that still have old 480I TV's with the best input being S-Video this is not a wise move. All DVD players have S-video and if consumers are going to start replacing their DVD players with BLU-RAY players in the home, they might need this 480I S-Video connection until they upgrade all their TV's to 720P or 1080P. Another negative is that the LG BD300 will not internally decode all the advanced audio formats like DTS-HD Master audio. The LG BD300 only has 2 channel analog output. Still with all the negatives the first generation LG BLU-RAY player made history by being the very first standalone player that beat the PS3 machine in speed of loading a disc. Hopefully other brands will take note of this awesome achievement by LG engineers.


Quotes from January 2009 Home Theater magazine review by Kris Deering (pages 66-68)

"You'll also find a covered USB port on the right side of the front panel. Like many other BD-LIVE capable players, the BD300 lacks the 1 gigabyte of local storage required for BD-Live playback. You must purchase a USB flash drive separately to enable BD-Live interactivity. You can also use this port to play back music files and do firmware updates if the player isn't connected to the Internet. I'd like to see all BD-Live players include the required 1 GB of storage internally and offer the ability to add more storage via external media. This would alleviate confusion for consumers who try a BD-Live disc and don't know they need to purchase out-board memory. I'm sure this scenario will result in more than one service call to manufacturer, or worse, a return of the player to the retailer. Still, the ability to expand with outboard memory makes the player more flexible in storing download content, as the 1 GB minimum may not be enough in the long run."

"The BD300 can output the advanced audio formats in bitstream form, but its internal decoding (to PCM) is limited to Dolby suite, which includes Dolby TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus. It's not clear whether LG will offer DTS-HD Master Audio decoding in a future firmware update, but I'm a bit surprised this feature isn't in players across the board now. So, for full resolution DTS-HD MA playback, your A/V receiver or surround processor must do the decoding. There are no multichannel analog outputs, so lossless audio is limited to multichannel PCM over HDMI from uncompressed PCM and Dolby TrueHD soundtracks or native bitsreams."

"The biggest feature that sets the BD300 apart from other BD players is its inclusion of Netflix streaming capabilities". "Some titles were extremely soft and almost out of focus, with the image quality of a bad cable feed. Some titles fared a bit better, with video quality approaching DVD quality."

"The BD300 doesn't perform well processing 1080I content." "However, most pre-recorded Blu-ray movies are encoded as 1080p/24, and the BD300 did an outstanding job with these."

"Speed and ease of use are the biggest issues that have plagued the standalone Blu-ray player market. With Sony's Playstation 3 setting the bar for disc load times and overall speed and ease of use, nearly every player out there pales in comparison. Some recent Samsung and Panasonic offerings close the gap, but they still fall short with more difficult titles. LG did what seemed to be impossible; it outperformed the Playstation 3. When I started my testing with the BD300, I was surprised by how fast the player booted up and loaded discs. After a few tries, I was curious to see how it would stack up if I compared it directly with my PS3, which continues to be the benchmark for disc loading and interactivity. Armed with a handful of titles from various studios and a stopwatch, I set out to see just how close this competition would be. Surprisingly, the LG pulled ahead with most titles. Granted, the differences were typically within 5 seconds of each other, but most players fall behind the PS3 by a much wider margin."

Conclusion

"LG has done a spectacular job with its first standalone Blu-ray player. The BD300 sets the bar for disc load and response times. Netflix support only adds to the allure of this low-priced player. I hope other manufacturers take note, because the standalone Blu-ray player market just got a whole lot faster."

http://hometheatermag.com/discplayer...yer/index.html