Go To Latest Video ReviewsLG BD370 Blu-ray Player Comments
| Author | Danny Phillips |
| Published | 28th Feb 2009 |
| Manufacturer | LG Electronics |
| Price | £191.30 (Exc VAT) |
| as reviewed | £220.00 (Inc VAT) |
| Latest Price |
| Design |  |
| Features |  |
| Performance | |
| Value | |
| Overall | |
Comments for LG BD370 Blu-ray Player
Prem said on 1st March 2009
Geoff Richards said on 1st March 2009
I can't imagine I will use the YouTube option that often, personally, but the rest of this sounds pretty decent. April is only a month away now so hopefully we'll see the street price slip under £200 before long; this player is definitely on my shortlist
Ohmz said on 1st March 2009
I see we have pictures of the user interface, a welcome addition!
Greg said on 1st March 2009
It's amazing how we get used to the shortcomings of today's 'technology'. 35 seconds from inserting a disc to getting the disc menu.
That moan aside, this looks like a decent player. Still not good enough to make me jump and upgrade my TV to a bigger one and to start paying the extortionate amount of money charged for BD movies.
haim said on 2nd March 2009
Doesn't that 35 seconds include an anti piracy message and/or video.
p.s. Piracy is theft, me hearties.
chancykid said on 3rd March 2009
The waiting has become a 21st century trend I reckon. Just look at the PS3 and how some games have to be installed first. Not exactly cutting edge is it?
Mazga said on 11th March 2009
This Blu-ray seems to be packed with all the features one wants from BD player (USB, MKV file support)... Can someone compare it's picture quality to Panasonic BD-35? I would definitly buy this player but i want best picture quality to pair it with new panasonic plasma, if the pic quality is not on pair with BD-35 maybe it is best to wait for Panasonic BD player with USB and support for MKV.
Geoff Richards said on 11th April 2009
Well, it seems the planets have aligned. Not only is it April already (I told y'all time would fly!), but several retailers have just today dropped the price from £229.99 to £199.
Mine's now on order. Hopefully it will arrive ready for next weekend!
Geoff Richards said on 15th April 2009
Fair play to Dixons.co.uk - I ordered on Saturday lunchtime, Monday was a Bank Holiday, and it arrived today (Wednesday).
Oh, and TR Reviews Editor, Andy Vandervell, ordered one too :)
I look forward to test driving it after work.
Pbryanw said on 19th April 2009
Just wondering if you've had the time to fully test drive it yet Geoff? Not that I don't trust the TR review, or the similarly praiseworthy CNET one, but it would be good to get a first-hand account.
It's either this or the Samsung BD-P1600 for me, but the MKV support, and quick loading times, might swing it for the LG.
Andy said on 19th April 2009
Well my experience has been pretty good. In fact, the only problem I had is that it needed a software update when I first got it to play Taken, but it wouldn't connect to my network. A router firmware upgrade sorted that out, though. It's a great machine, so I'm very happy and I'm pretty sure Geoff is too. ;)
Geoff Richards said on 20th April 2009
I haven't checked against a stopwatch, but loading times have been quick enough for me that they aren't really an issue. This is my first Blu-ray player, and I only have a 720p TV, so I'm not really qualified to talk about the imagine quality vs the Samsung or any other player, other than to say it seems to do the job and looks dead sexy.
The only caveat related to the USB playback is this: the port is FAT32, so is limited to 4GB per file. I need to finish editing the footage from my track day before I can test this limit (ie what happens if I try and playback a 6GB home movie) but a fallback is burning your footage to a dual-layer DVD-R for up to 8.5GB.
If you shoot a lot of HD H.264 like our Camcorder Guru, James Morris, then you may need to look at a WD TV (supports NTFS drives, so filesize not an issue) and a separate Blu-ray player. But if you'd rather have an all-in-one, and you only shoot shorter home movies (12Mbit/s will get you around 44 mins; high-end camcorders at 19Mbit/s only 28 mins) then the BD370 is pretty decent.
Remember, it's only a per FILE limit, so you can always edit your footage into multiple parts. Oh, and if you're a serial uploader to YouTube you're stuck to 10 minute chunks anyway. The YouTube interface seems pretty good, but sadly my HomePlug network is glacial (bad house wiring) so I haven't really tested that. But should be good for a bit of post-pub giggles at people falling off skateboards :)
Pbryanw said on 20th April 2009
Big thanks for the positive follow-ups from both of you. If all goes well, I'll be purchasing this LG next month. (And I'm already looking forward to watching Blade Runner & The Blue Planet on it :) )
Pbryanw said on 29th April 2009
Just want to say, thanks to this review, I went and bought the BD370, and it's every bit as good as expected. Blade Runner has never looked better, and is a step up from my upscaling, DVD Player :) Now to get some Homeplug's so I can use the YouTube feature.
Mark@Ramsgate@Kent said on 27th July 2009
On the basis of the original review, I bought this player. I'm not sure if it's just the discs I have, but there are no adverts in them.
The picture is wanderful, even if my t.v. is not full 1080p, just HD ready (got caught out on that one, too eager to buy a new HD telly).
Load time is very quick and no slower than 'normal' dvd.
I baught my 370 for less than £150 at Amazon with free p+p.!!!
Upscaling is very good too.
I have purchased 5 Blu-ray discs so far; Die Hard 4.0 - Earth, journey of a lifetime - The Italian Job 40th anniversary special edition - Queen rock live at Montreal and finaly Appleseed EX Machina and they all look crisp and sharp and with my JVC surround system, pretty awesome. Again, these discs are from Amazon, DO NOT BUY AT HMV, they are very very expensive there.
As with Pbryanw, Blade Runner is next on my list and guess what? less than a tenner at Amazon with free p+p.
Mike said on 30th August 2009
The player freezes after a short running of a movie.
Geoff Richards said on 30th August 2009
Test with a couple of different movies, Mike. If it's still doing it across multiple discs, you must have a duff unit. Return for a replacement. I've had no dramas with mine across 10+ films
Opus said on 30th August 2009
Brought this last week to replace my failed budget DVD player. This player really squeezes the best out my DVD's however, like Mike mentioned I also don't get to see the previews on my DVD's.
liam said on 3rd September 2009
with out the dvd player being wireless enabled how will i be able to access the utube function?? i have internet access but the modem is upstairs in my bedroom.. i do however have a virgin media box downstairs, will this conect via usb or ethernet cable to from my virgin media box to the dvd player? will this work? otherwise il need to wait for LG to bring out a wireless option? any help much appriciated..thanks
Geoff Richards said on 3rd September 2009
@liam - the BD370 only has Ethernet, so you can only connect via that. The BD390 has wifi, but has not yet been released in the UK / Europe (it's available in the USA).
I'm not that familiar with the Virgin Media setup but here is one possible test for you to try: to use YouTube on the BD370 just requires internet via ethernet cable; this is also try of a laptop when wifi is turned off so maybe you can test your theory.
I rather doubt it will work though. The modem is what you ultimately need to connect to, and if the Virgin Media box has an ethernet port on the back, I'm assuming that's designed for "internet in" rather than "internet out". If you require a modem as well then that suggests to me that the vox downstairs is just doing TV.
Of course, it's certainly possible to bridge your wifi from upstairs to a new box downstairs that can then connect via ethernet, but that's really far more cost and hassle than mere YouTube on one's Blu-ray player is worth, in my view.
I have owned this player myself for several months and even though my ADSL router is in the same room within (long) cable length, I simply haven't bothered. The player doesn't support a plug-in keyboard (that I'm aware of) so you're limited to using the remote control to surf YouTube, so I just use my laptop.
Chris Hunt said on 17th September 2009
Well just bought one of these for £112 (plus VAT) from Pixmania, delivery was £5.22 plus VAT but as I went through quidco that'll be ofset. Total cost £135 (incl. VAT) a bargain I think. This is my 1st blue ray player and have to say I'm very pleased the picture is great even though I'm only connecting to a 720P plasma panel. It slotted into my AV system and was real plug and play. The digital optical cable came out the back of my old DVD player and into this, the hdmi the same and away I went playing films within a few minutes. Very happy that it will send audio over the hdmi cable and to the AV AMP at the same time. My old DVD player wouldn't do that unless I set it to send PCM to the AMP :-( This now keeps the other half happy and she can simply use the TV volume rather than fiddle with the AV amp to get sound. I had a WD portable hard drive knocking around and wondered if the player would work with this, initially no luck until i read the manual (the last thing anyone ever does right?) and found that the USB interface would only work with FAT16 or FAT32 file system. Checked the hard drive and found it formatted to NTFS. So a quick reformat of a 320GB hard drive to FAT32 and it recognised it no trouble. Dropped my entire music collection onto the hard drive and now have it all available to play through the player and amp. I'm no audiophile and realise the sound won't be quite as good as the original CDs but its good enough for me! Even if I rip some of my DVDs onto the hard drive the 4GB file size won't be an issue. Network connection was very simple as I run Homeplug around the house. Simply connected a homeplug to the back and away it went, got its IP address from my DHCP server, connected to the firmware update server downloaded a new firmware version and installed in in minutes. Next step is to see what is makes of a DiVX filmn(the only format supported acording to the manual), should be interesting.
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Could it be? A decent LG product?
I wonder. Past expereince has shown that LG products look good, have decent spec but the usability has been somewhat frustrating. I wonder if this player follows that trend.