LG BD390 Blu-ray Player - LG BD390 Blu-ray Player

When playing a Blu-ray movie, the BD390 does a superb job. With The International, it transfers the digital 1080p/24 video signal to our Toshiba test TV over HDMI without introducing any problems or glitches, resulting in a pin-sharp, punchy picture that will absolutely blow you away.

The International is a great showcase for the LG's talents. It renders stubbly faces and detail-packed shots of European cities beautifully, and there's an aerial shot of New York in Chapter 2 that boasts jaw dropping depth and clarity. The juddery camera pans are a bit of a niggle but there isn't much else to complain about.

Bright colours are rich and vivid, while skin tones boast a natural balance. The expansive contrast range allows for good, clear definition during dark scenes and black depth is excellent. Play about with the picture settings and you can achieve a much more satisfying balance than the ‘standard' setting, but avoid the Mosquito Noise mode as it blurs the picture and reduces detail, making the picture look only marginally sharper than a DVD transfer.

Further evidence of the LG's silky video processing is provided by its near-flawless handling of the Silicon Optix HQV Blu-ray and DVD - making this a terrific choice if you intend to use this deck for your SD discs as well as your shiny new HD ones.

Audio performance is excellent. There are no problems with the deck's PCM decoding of Dolby True HD or DTS HD Master Audio, and through the multichannel analogue outputs the sound is an absolute riot - piercing effects, rich bass and forthright dialogue fire at you from every angle, and sonic detail is sharper than a Jimmy Carr put-down, without any similar risk of being offensive.

Verdict

Quite simply, the BD390 is the deck that does it all, boasting a ludicrously lengthy list of features that beggars belief at this price. We thought the OPPO BDP-831 was generous but the LG makes its spec sheet seem positively miserly.

Built-in Wi-Fi is the obvious star attraction, but DLNA-certified networking, YouTube access, built-in memory, extensive format support and versatile USB playback seal the deal. And that's before we've even mentioned the ultra-speedy disc loading, brilliant operating system and impressive picture quality - all of which makes this without doubt the best value Blu-ray player on the market.