Why You Can Trust CNET LG BD370 review: LG BD370
LG BD370
LG BD370
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
If you've been following the Blu-ray market, it was getting obvious toward the end of 2008 that standalone players needed to innovate, since previous step-up features, like Profile 2.0 and DTS-HD Master Audio, were becoming standard. LG was the first company to break the mold by releasing the BD300, which was the first Blu-ray player with built-in Netflix streaming--and it did it well. The LG BD370 is the entry-level successor to the BD300, and it's very similar, with the main upgrades being onboard decoding for DTS-HD Master Audio Essential and faster load times. Unfortunately, we still had some nitpicks with the image quality on both Blu-ray and DVD, and competitors like the Samsung BD-P1600 and Panasonic DMP-BD60 perform better. If Netflix streaming is a must, and you can't stand the flip-down design on the Samsung BD-P1600, the BD370 is a good option. But if you're a videophile who puts a premium on image quality, you'll want to pick another player.
Design
The BD370 has a unique look, with no exposed disc tray and a silver square dominating the otherwise glossy black front panel. The disc tray hides behind a small automatic door on the left hand side--an arrangement we liked much better than the Samsung BD-P1600's flip-down door. The front panel controls aren't obvious at first, because functions like Open/Close and Play are activated by pressing the corners of the silver rectangle in the middle of the unit, and Power is the silver circle in the center. These controls aren't easy to figure out by just glancing at the unit, but they do keep the front panel looking sleek.
Additional front panel controls, along with a USB port, are accessible under a flip-down panel. It's the only USB port available, so if you keep a flash drive in there for BD-Live functionality, you'll need to leave the front panel down. We observed that the BD370's disc drive was unusually slow and jerky, which doesn't matter much in terms of actual use, but it makes us a little worried about its durability.
The included remote is one of the better ones we've seen on a Blu-ray player. Buttons like Disc Menu and Home are appropriately separated, and playback controls fall comfortably under your thumb. Additional seldom-used buttons are hidden under a slide down cover on the bottom half of the remote; we actually liked having those buttons out of sight as it makes the remote simpler.
User interface
The user interface is similar to the one on last year's BD300, and we like it. Using snazzy high-def graphics and easy-to-understand icons, the BD370 makes all its functionality available from the initial boot-up screen.
Both of LG's 2009 Blu-ray players include Netflix Instant streaming. The user experience is nearly identical to that of the Netflix Player by Roku, and we recommend you check out that review for more information. In short, you can stream anything in Netflix's "Watch Now" section, and while there are some flaws--much of the SD content is not wide screen, for example--it's a pretty great user experience overall. The initial catalog of movies and TV shows was fairly lackluster, but recent deals with CBS and Disney have significantly improved the content selection. (CNET Reviews is published by CBS Interactive, a unit of CBS.)
The BD370 will also offer CinemaNow access starting in May, which provides pay-per-rental pricing, similar to satellite and cable video on-demand services. We've never used CinemaNow on a standalone device before, and we'll update this review with our experiences when the service becomes available.
YouTube functionality is also included, and the interface is surprisingly responsive. Within a second you can browse the featured, most viewed and top-rated videos, and there's also search functionality. Videos start out playing in a small window; you can make them full screen by pressing the Display button. Unfortunately, there's no aspect ratio control, although full screen mode shows wide-screen content correctly, without stretching or squeezing, and the smaller screen mode shows 4:3 content correctly. We don't find much of YouTube's content to be compelling in a "sitting on the couch" environment, but it's nice in a pinch if you want to show your friends a couple of viral videos.
Features
Like almost all 2009 Blu-ray players, the BD370 is Profile 2.0-compatible, which means it can play back the Internet-enabled BD-Live features available on some new Blu-ray movies. To access BD-Live content, you'll need to connect an Ethernet cable and a USB drive for storage.
The BD370 has onboard decoding for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio Essential. That means it can decode those soundtrack formats so they can be played back on almost every HDMI-capable AV receiver. Bitstream output is also supported, if you'd rather the decoding be done in your AV receiver. (DTS-HD Master Audio Essential differs from standard DTS-HD Master Audio in that it lacks decoding for a few legacy DTS DVD soundtracks formats such as DTS 96/24, ES, ES Matrix, and Neo:6. It still decodes all the high-resolution Blu-ray DTS soundtracks.)
Connectivity is standard. There's an HDMI port capable of outputting 1080p HD video, and high-resolution multichannel audio. Component video, which can output Blu-ray movies at 1080i and DVDs at 480p, is also available. For audio, there's a standard stereo analog output, and we were happy to see that the BD370 includes both optical and coaxial digital-audio outputs--most players have cut down to just optical. There's also a USB port on the front panel and an Ethernet port on the back, but there's no Wi-Fi option, like the Samsung BD-P1600 offers.
If you're looking for more features, you'll need to step up to the LG BD390, which offers built-in Wi-Fi, 1GB of onboard memory, and 7.1 analog audio outputs. The competing Samsung BD-P3600 has a similar feature set, including an included Wi-Fi dongle, 1GB onboard memory, 7.1 analog audio outputs, plus superfast operational speed.
Blu-ray performance
While the video quality on many high-end Blu-ray players is becoming virtually indistinguishable, there is still some variation among entry-level models. We put the LG BD370 through our full suite of high-def image quality tests, starting off with Silicon Optix's "HQV" test suite, with the BD370 connected to the Sony KDL-52XBR7 via HDMI, set to 1080p output.
The first test we looked at was the Video Resolution Loss test, and the BD370 failed, as there were clearly jaggies on the rotating white bar and all we could see was a gray box where there should have been alternating white and black lines. Next up were a pair of video-based jaggies tests, and again the BD370 came up short, as we could see jaggies on both of these test patterns. The BD370 also failed the final Film Resolution Loss Test, with the same behavior observed in the Video Resolution Loss test. That compares unfavorably with all the recent entry-level Blu-ray players we've reviewed, such as the Panasonic DMP-BD60 and Samsung BD-P1600, which passed all these tests.
We switched over to program material and the BD370 fared better. "Mission: Impossible III" was up first, and it handled our favorite test scenes, showing no moiré in the stairs at the beginning of chapter 8 and no jaggies on the trimming of the limo on chapter 16. We switched to "Ghost Rider," and the BD370 performed well again, as we couldn't make out any moiré in the grille of the RV as the camera pulled away at the end of chapter 6. Last up was the video-based (and 1080i native) "Tony Bennett: American Classic," and here the BD370 stumbled, as we could see plenty of jaggies on the clapperboard at the beginning of the Diana Krall segment, as well as later on in the dancer's shirts.
It's worth pointing out that these issues only occur when you the BD370 is set in 1080p, with 24-frames-per-second mode disabled. We test in this mode because it's the most common format accepted correctly by the majority of TVs; however, if your HDTV can accept a 1080p/24 signal, the BD370 puts out pristine image quality.
The BD370 may not have the best video quality in this price range, but it fares better when it comes to load times. It was able to load "Mission: Impossible III" in 14 seconds with the player on, and in 28 seconds with the player off. That's actually better than both the Panasonic DMP-BD60 and Samsung BD-P1600, which took 21 and 16 seconds, respectively, to load the movie with the players on. The BD370 wasn't quite as quick to load movies featuring more extensive menu systems. It took a minute and 26 seconds to get to the actual movie on "Spider-Man 3," for example; that's about as fast as the Panasonic DMP-BD60 and considerably slower than the BD-P1600, which took a minute and 7 seconds.
Standard DVD performance
The catalog of available DVDs still dwarfs the Blu-ray, so we put the BD370 through our DVD testing suite. First up was the Silicon Optix's "HQV" test disc, and the BD370 performed well on the initial resolution test, showing all the detail on the test pattern without any image instability. The BD370 struggled with the next two video-based jaggies tests, particularly on the test pattern showing three pivoting lines. Finally, we looked at the 2:3 pull-down test, which the BD370 passed, showing no moiré in the grandstands as the race speeds by.
We switched over to program material and started off with the opening to "Star Trek: Insurrection." The BD370 looked good, with its 2:3 processing successfully rendering curved surfaces, although fine details looked softer than we're used to. Next up was the difficult intro sequence to "Seabiscuit," and we could see more jaggies than we'd like; occasionally we even noticed a particularly annoying shimmering effect that occurred at 2:05 and 2:22. The BD370 isn't necessarily bad at DVD playback, but videophiles might notice its limitations.