LG BD550 Network Blu-ray Disc Player (2010 Model)

Let me get this out of the way up front: This is my first Blue-Ray Disc player.I'm very pleased with this LG BD550 product. I wanted a product that would (a) play Blu-Ray Discs, and (b) let me watch streaming movies/shows over the internet using my Netflix account. This does both.I considered the higher-end BD570 but decided against it because I did not need the built-in wireless capability, so I got the BD550 which just has the ethernet port, but no wireless (and saved about $70 doing so). I already had an Apple Airport Express behind the media stand for streaming music from iTunes to my stereo, and I was able to configure it as a simple wireless ethernet bridge, so in order to connect the BD550 to the internet all I had to do was connect an ethernet cable from the Airport Express to the BD550. Once that was done, everything internet related simply worked "out of the box".Blue-Ray audio/visual quality seems good to me.The user interface is adequate and is reasonably responsive. I have no complaints with the remote.One thing I didn't expect - the BD550 defaulted to 1080i. I'm not sure if that is normal for BD players, but I switched it to 1080p for playing BD discs.Since it's connected to the internet, it will occasionally ask me if I want to update the firmware/software.The unit does not generate much heat, and has no vents in the top or sides of the case, i.e. no vents to block, so I figured it was OK to place my Cable/DVR box on-top of it.Of all the internet enabled functions (I think this is called "Netcast") I've tried four of them:1. Netflix - Works as advertised. I have a 3Mbps internet connection and I'm pleased with the quality of streaming netflix video. Certainly it's not high-def quality, but good enough given the convenience. I wish it were easier to search for titles though. I can't really complain, it is good enough.2. Pandora - This is really great. I'm a computer pandora user though on the computer it will occasionally throw in an ad or pause to ask you to confirm that you're still listening. I don't get either of these when playing music through Pandora on the BD550. I do wish, however, that one you've started a channel going that the interface would show a different graphic (like a near full screen CD artwork, a la iTunes, or any option besides the default screen).3 & 4. Youtube and Picasa - I tried these out just for the heck of it, and they work, but I do not envision using these on a regular basis.UPDATE: I recently upgraded from a 3Mbps internet connection to a 7Mbps internet connection. While Netflix was certainly usable with a 3Mbps connection, it is markedly better with the 7Mbps internet connection. I read that Netflix requires 5Mbps or greater to stream HD video.UPDATE 2: I've tried out the Vudu service. As a new user, they were offering a free rental for a while. I never got round to trying it before they changed the free rental to a $20 credit (which gets you four rentals at "HD" quality - even better). Just in case this is useful to other users here is what I found. Vudu currently supports 3 levels of streaming quality: SD (480p), HD (720p), "HDX" (1080p). What I've found is that with about 7Mbps I just don't have enough bandwidth to reliably stream HDX/1080p video. I've watched 2 full movies at HD/720p quality and there were no problems, glitches, or stops to buffer whatsoever. Of course SD works fine (requires even less bandwidth). Vudu allows you to watch trailers for free in HDX, so that's an easy way to tell if you've got enough bandwidth (if you don't, it will periodically stop the video to buffer the stream). There appears to be an option to 'downgrade' (e.g. from HD to SD) in the middle of a rental if you need to. I think the Vudu HD stream looks better than my Netflix stream (to my knowledge, Netflix sets video quality based on available bandwidth, so you don't know what quality you're actually getting from them). Vudo offers more recent titles than Netflix has, so I can see myself occasionally using Vudu from time to time in addition to Netflix.

The LG BD-550 Blu-Ray player is a great device for the price!After yet another local Blockbuster store closure, I finally broke down and joined the 21st century by signing up for Netflix. After choosing the plan, I went shopping for a Netflix-capable device to stream movies. I initially considered a Roku but my TV didn't have enough inputs to support adding another device so I started looking at combo Blu-Ray/Netflix-capable units to replace my standard DVD player. The first few I looked at were more expensive, being well over the $200 mark, and had WiFi capability built in. That's handy to have, but after reading other reviews of choppy streaming over WiFi, I decided that a less expensive player without WiFi would suffice. It came down to the LG BD-550 or one of Sony's offerings. I saw some less-than-favorable reviews of the Sony unit, so LG it was. Between the other good reviews for the LG and when I saw that Amazon had it for less than $140, that sealed the decision there for me.I couldn't wait to try it out when it arrived the next day. I was initially concerned that I'd have to run a rather long network cable between my router and the player, but my dad gave me a MoCA adapter (this is basically a small box that you plug your cable TV's coax in to, then you can run another coax out of that box into the back of your cable TV set top box, and a network cable out of the MoCA to a network-enabled device, such as this player). Connecting was a breeze and I had it up and running in no time. As of this writing, I've had the player for 2 weeks and there have been 2 software updates available for it...one was available as soon as I hooked it up (which I had to manually check for) and the second one was available yesterday...that one was detected automatically when I first turned the player on yesterday.I'm extremely pleased with the streaming capability and the picture quality of the network stream. No choppiness (it helps to have a rather fast internet connection...I'm pulling 15 Mbps) and the clarity is at least DVD quality. The DVD playback is great too. I haven't poked around too much with the other network services it comes with...I did check out the Picasa web gallery option and that was neat. I have yet to try the Blu-ray option as well. Since my TV is a 9 year old rear-projection unit, it won't be able to take full advantage of the 1080 resolution...heck, the TV doesn't even have HDMI on it. But it is high-def and the picture quality is excellent so far.I'm only a little disappointed that you can't do a search for movies on the Netflix portion...you'd have to browse the selection one by one (only up to 75 titles per genre via the devices). If you want to search, you have to go to a computer and search that way, then add the title to your Instant Queue. I'm also a slight bit disappointed in the title selection for streaming...but that's just a Netflix thing. A lot of titles I was looking for aren't available for streaming, but even still, I have been able to find a good bit of movies to stream. It's definitely enough to keep you busy while you're waiting for the next DVD to arrive in the mail. :)