The BD670 is strangely anonymous for a top-of-the-range Blu-ray player from major brand. Admittedly, it’s not range-topping from any great height - it sells for a meagre £170 - but even so the dull black case, cake decoration buttons and flimsy disc tray proclaim “move along, nothing to see here” with utter conviction. However …

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Saturday 1st October 2011 15:47 GMT John Sanders

I Love it...

When I see mkv, avi and the rest of the cohort on a big brand's official format (BRay) player.

It tells a story of industry failure, and it also tells a story of last resort pragmatism.

One word to people thinking about buying any of these:

Don't. They become outdated pretty quickly and do not get enough updates during the useful lifespan of the device.

Dear Reg Readertard buy yourself a media centre computer its the way to go.

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1. Sunday 2nd October 2011 18:29 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  I agree - a media centre computer is the way to go - though the only ones I could reccomend are the ones you build yourself/configure/install/know how to keep up to date. Though for most consumers I'd say the PS3 would probably be the better option for futureprofing going by it's history.
  
  As for this LG I'd say alot of features were an afterthought - finaly it appears that wifi has become standard and not a afterthought USB stick add-on. That said when I read "If you want to watch discs with interactive content, you’ll need to insert a 1GB thumb drive into the front of the player", then I have to laugh given how much would it of cost to add this and indeed why any streaming system can't affford a couple gig of memory and some flash storage for the extra features they afford is crazy. But with a media PC you can at least upgrade organicly instead of having to replace it completely.
  
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Saturday 1st October 2011 15:47 GMT dansus

NTFS?

Can it read NTFS drives?

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Saturday 1st October 2011 22:52 GMT PeterGriffin

MOV, AVI.. yes but...

MOV and AVI are the container - which codecs?

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1. Sunday 2nd October 2011 08:35 GMT Brian 6
  
  codecs
  
  DivX and Xvid obviously.
  
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Sunday 2nd October 2011 08:35 GMT Anonymous Coward

The Real World...

<quote>When I see mkv, avi and the rest of the cohort on a big brand's official format (BRay) player.

...

One word to people thinking about buying any of these:

Don't. They become outdated pretty quickly and do not get enough updates during the useful lifespan of the device.

Dear Reg Readertard buy yourself a media centre computer its the way to go.</quote>

This view, and the ripping community's view, to try the latest codecs annoys me immensely.

Divx and H264 don't change too much, and so anything with the spec on the side should play fine. Compare that to Xvid and x264 in which later revisions may or may not play with an older decoder. These devices are *retail* and generally won't have developers adding new codecs and updates all the time, but they shouldn't need it. Not everyone has the ability to get a real media centre working nicely.

That said, the LG HB906TAW (which has this model with surround sound & speakers) works fine for my kids, updates every so often, and only has issues with files the WD Live and BeyondWiz also have issues with.

Only issues seem to be :-

* Odd resolutions(not 4:3, or 16:9) not always playing - complains about unsupported resolution.

* Some 5.1-channel AAC in MP4s produce motorboating on the sub-woofer

* No VP8 support - but then we're back to codec version issues

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Sunday 2nd October 2011 08:35 GMT Buzzword

Compared to a PS3

When you can buy a PS3 for £200, all other Blu-Ray players need either many more features or a much lower price.

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Sunday 2nd October 2011 08:35 GMT Marco 4

The Devil Is In The Detail

I bought this device a while ago for mainly two reasons:

1: I wanted to watch IP TV like iPlayer, 4OnDemand, Demand 5 and ITV Player.

While iPlayer can be watched using an App, there don't seem to be apps for the other players. I expected to be able to solve this problem by watching these using a built in browser. But guess what: There is no browser! It seems that LG have removed the browser application from their LG Live on blue ray players (it apparently does exist on LG TVs!)

2: Use as CD and DLNA Media Player and Renderer (audio and photos) to stream music from my TwonkyServer.

Unfortunatly, the user interface is quite slow and not really suitable for large libraries. No problem I thought: I use it as a renderer anyway and use my Android phone or PC to controll the device as a DLNA renderer. That does work to a certain extend ... except that it plays MP3s too fast when sent from any controller. So if you want to enjoy music as it is supposed to be then you have to navigate using the LG UI.

While I receive automatic software updates regularly none of these issues have been fixed. Having contacted LG support regarding these problems I don't think they have the intention to add a bowser. The MP3 redering problem I think they didn't even understand.

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1. Sunday 2nd October 2011 18:29 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  ^^^^^^THIS
  
  ^^^^^THIS should be added to the review.
  
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Sunday 2nd October 2011 18:29 GMT EddyB

Nice machine, but slooow

Apps not very inspiring

IPtv channells dull

NOBODY at LG I have spoken to or mailed can tell me why the device throws a "hissy fit" & switches off > not standby completey off, then proceeds to reboot & I have the pleasure of try again.

On the LG website they jabber on about a Faceboko app Hmm where is it.

How many flavours of .mkv are there some of my files play some dont?

Some files advise resolution not supported so I must solve this how..?

A regular store bought dvd played fine for 10 minutes & then began to shudder and the strange spinning wheel buffering type circle flashing thingmebob appeared why??

Not over excited about its reading from a network > finds over 2000 video's of various size & shape but as soon as one is opened >viewed & closed it loses all memory of the rest & proceeds to recount them yaaaawn

All in all wonder if I can return it before my warrenty runs out.

Will stick to using a HDMI cable in the back of my graphics card into my tv to watch content on my drives & play blu rays from my Pc's blu ray device less hassle & no BD live etc etc issues.

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Monday 3rd October 2011 06:38 GMT Anonymous Coward

This is incredibly old news. I just bought the 690 for $169. So that means another series is due out soon. But I guess better late than never. Unless you're helping LG clear out inventory for the new model? The 690 is a far better machine and with it I don't need a "media center" PC. Just share any volume on my network, and even the card reader in the All-in-One printer is in the list, its SmartTV features and I have the perfect media system. Without a PC.

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Monday 3rd October 2011 08:28 GMT Christian Berger

I'm actually about to retire my Blu-ray Disc player

I actually had moved on from dedicated VCRs (VHS and Video 2000) to a simple PC running VDR, the standard video disc recording software for DVB. It simply worked. By now the solution has matured to a level where it doesn't need special DVB cards with video out and can just use a wide variety of graphics cards.

Recently I bought a Blu-Ray disc. I popped it into my Player, it recognised it, and then the screen went black and it didn't respond to any input... Now I got Virtualbox and some old operating system named after a German/English Pop Duo of the early 1970s (WTF!!!), and some obscure software only running under said operating system, and it simply decrypted the files for me. Now I have an obscure directory structure with lots of files. The one named 00800.m2ts contains the movie in a format at least mplayer, xine and XMBC can play.

Getting a pirated copy of the movie would have been considerably easier of course, but I did want to stay as legal as possible.

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Monday 3rd October 2011 09:13 GMT Anonymous Cowbard

Surviving Electrocution

Someone needs to have a look in the dictionary.

By definition it's not possible to survive electrocution.

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