LG's low cost HTIT: LHB953

[coachD]

I was looking to upgrade from a Samsung BD-1200 player I have had for almost 3 years. I was looking at the LG 390 and then this baby came on sale and I had to go for it.

While not wireless, the LHB953 does have access to Netflix, Pandora, and You-tube via an Ethernet (LAN) connection. It plays Blu-rays mighty fine and pretty darn quick to me. It also plays dts-HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD. Oh, it has an IPOD dock right up front. It lets you adjust each speaker for the best sound possible.

My first choice to watch a Blu-ray movie was Terminator Salvation. The picture is just simply fantastic and the sound took my breath away. Salvation features DTS-HD and I had the system rocking the whole time!

I got what I thought was a good deal. My local PX was selling this HTIB for about $529 or so. Then they put it on sale this past week for $479. Still not good enough as Sears was selling the 953 for only $349. Well, I just had the Post Exchange price-match Sears (they called and checked up on me) and I got this great system for $379.99 and no tax at the PX.

Everything was easy to setup. Right off the bat I updated my firmware with no problems or hiccups of any kind. Then after watching and getting blown away by Terminator Salvation and The Quick & the Dead, I connected to Netflix and activated my system. Presto I was watching Season 1 of Dexter and catching episode 7 (in 1080i). This system supports 1080P Blu-rays. I connected a coaxial cable from my HD cable box to the 953 and was listening to some NCAA football in surround sound this past Saturday.