Product Review

LG BD590 250GB HD Network Blu-Ray Disc Player

Other reviewers have stressed the Blu Ray quality and Internet media streaming of this equipment, so I thought I’d address a couple of other apects which make this an excellent addition to your home network if you have a large collection of audio files on accessible on your home network, or you just want to play CDs you’ve ripped to the LG BD590 250 GB hard drive.

As a quick overview, the connections are reliable (I’m running the HDMI out through my AV receiver) and everything is quicker than my two-years old 300 series LG Blu Ray. (All I did was unplug the old unit and move it to the bedroom and plug the new unit into the same cables.) The picture on the old unit was good, but this picture with the same BD or streamed input is much better. I haven’t seen any blockiness that I used to get. Likewise, DVD performance is better. One thing that was surprising is the audio output is lower than the previous model I owned, so you may have to turn the sound up on your receiver or TV. Using the HDMI output, I do get quite acceptable audio sound in surround sound modes, and the stereo performance is very good — not quite up to the standards of my Denon DVD-SACD-CD player, but then the BD590 was less than half the price.

First of all, let me explain it’s connected to my ethernet Gigabit LAN by wire. Although I have a wireless node, I prefer the speed of ethernet, and the BD590 does not disappoint.

I have a nice collection of SACDs and Mapleshade CDs which I ripped as wave files to the hard drive. The BD590 does not play SACDs, except dual-mode SACDs which it treats as CD-stereo. Playing them back through my Dahlquist DQ-20 speakers, the recordings sound a bit “brighter” than on the Denon and with somewhat diminished bass. Once again, I have to adjust the volume gain higher than expected (and the old model), but the sound is very good.

If the sound is not as good as the original media played on other devices, the convenience is well worth-it — especially for setting up playlists for parties, etc. The ripping interface is intuitive, but a bit clumsy if you are trying to rip multiple CDs, because each time you “eject” the ripped disk it “blows” you all the way out of the ripping menu. This is the biggest complaint I have had, and it’s meant I got some CDs ripped to the wrong folder — an inconvenience I have not figured out how to correct yet. Lastly, I haven’t found a means of telling me how much of the total hard drive is used.

The LG BD590 comes with Nero MediaHome Essentials software to install on a PC, which I upgraded to MediaHome after playing with it for awhile. It does a great job of streaming some 13,000 audio files from my Windows 7 PC throughout my network, and it will stream telvision from one networked device to a networked television. MediaHome basically integrates any PnP media servers on your Network, and does a much better job than Microsoft Media Player. Unfortunately, none of my televisions are “network ready” at this point, so I am unable to report on this on video streaming. (Television streaming is one of the primary differences between the bundled Essentials MediaHome and the full software package.) Stereo imaging and other aspects of audio ripped to the hard drive are quite acceptable as a tradeoff for convenience at the lossless ripping quality. At the 320 MP3 setting, it’s surprisingly listenable to a critical ear over good equipment–satisfactory for the convenience.

I have one of the original Roku audio-streaming devices, and for a year it’s been unable to receive audio through Windows Media Player, and I was unable to diagnose or cure the problem. I had decided to use my Roku as a $500 clock and just upgrade my server to one of the Logitech models, but MediaHome cured the problem. What wonderful serendipity!

So now I can stream the WMA-lossless enconded CDs from my collection to my beloved Roku again, but ALSO to the BD590. Given a little more time, I’ll compare the two devices and report back if one seems superior to the other. The Roku has optical and RCA outputs, whereas I’m running the BD590 just off the HDMI.

Finally for you music lovers, the Pandora Network service is excellent for finding new music you will probably like, and I think it’s well worth the $36 per year to have a premium subsciption to it. The sound of Pandora over the LG BD590 is significantly better than the “radio” I get streamed over my DirecTV. It’s plenty good enough to enjoy as a primary music source.

In closing, I’ll just say I rate this . . . with the Nero MediaHome software a great media integration tool for the home network. It’s a lot of bang for the buck, IMO.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

LG BD570 Network Blu-ray Disc Player

Why Did I Buy The LG BD570:
First Blue Ray players are common and there are not that many differences in the actual playing of a Blue Ray disc. I bought this player over others primarily to view photos and play music from a USB drive and replace a standard DVD Player and Roku Soundbridge (digital Music player). I wanted to put my music and pics on a USB drive and not have to have to leave my PC on or turn it on every time I wanted to play MP3s. Second I bought this for access to Netflix & Picasa. Lastly, I would get the Blue Ray capability as a bonus in the same box and have no need for a separate DVD player.

To be honest I didn’t even try out Netflix or the Blue Ray/DVD player because of the short comings in the other areas.

Set Up:
Setting up the LG BD570 was easy. Lots of options are provided and it took very little to connect to my WIRED network and download firmware upgrades. Options are significant for different resolution outputs (good for 1080i TVs) and for connecting through a AV Receiver.

Home Link:
Set up was easy and the BD570 recognized my Windows 7 PC without having to install the Nero MediaHome Essentials CD.

USB Drive:
The BD570 provided enough power to the USB port to power a small portable USB hard drive that does not have its own power supply. The player will read FAT16, FAT32, and NTFS formatted drives however it does not support NTFS when using BD-Live or Audio CD recording. Not a huge deal because you can reformat the drive using FAT32 instead of NTFS.

MP3 Limitation:
The LG BD570 will NOT read MP3 ID3 tags (verified by documentation in the manual). This means the player cannot read the Artist, Album, Track, Cover Art, Lyrics, or anything else in the MP3 File for display on the TV. This limitation exists for both MP3 files on a USB Drive and on a PC accessed via Home Link. Unfortunately this is a show stopper yet is so easy to implement.

Playing Music via the USB Connection:
The BD570 will not recognize Play Lists stored on the USB Drive even when the Folder Structure was not changed from the initial hard drive. The only way to play music is to go to a folder and play all music in that folder. Another show stopper as without this you will need to create a folder of all the music you want to play for a party or an event and then copy each song to that folder on your USB Drive.

Viewing Photos via the USB Connection:
Photo viewing worked well off of the USB drive or Home Link. You can play music at the same time you are playing a slide show which is really nice but again, you cannot play music from a Play List.

Home Link:
Viewing photos and playing music from Home Link works like you are playing music or viewing photos from the PC directly. You can use Play Lists for Music, tags and playlists for photos and you can play music (including Play Lists) while playing a Photo Slide Show. Unfortunately LG BD570 will not display the MP3 ID3 Tag information as noted above.

Picasa:
Picasa worked well but you the option to play music from the USB drive does not exist when viewing Picasa albums.

Summary:
Since BD570 won’t recognize Play Lists the USB Drive is useless. However, since the player will not show the MP3 ID3 tags this player is worse than my Roku music server (it shows artist/title). Other DVD players will play Netflix at a lower price so this one is going back.