LG BD 390 - Blu Ray player and streaming media player in one
Written by Ingo in Technology , tags: Blu Ray Player , LG BD 390 , Streaming
Also featured in a recent article Blu Ray Player LG BD 370 have not we keep the end, although he liked us, in principle well. The reason was, first, that the price at Promarkt (199, - € on sale) is much too high, since the BD 370 is currently only regular 168, - € free on Amazon. On the other hand has recently been with the LG BD 390 has already introduced a newer model, which is the same capabilities as the BD 370, but also can also play media files (videos, music, photos) from the home network using streaming. This feature seems quite sensible, as is anticipated that you are, sooner or later most of its files on a central hard drive (eg a NAS disk) and you want to access it from different rooms of the house, for example in the feature film living room to see, hear favorite songs through the stereo system or desktop PC in work or arrange the photos in the garden with a notebook like etc.
The LG BD 390 wick looks quite different from the BD 370, the very nice looking enlightened "wheel" of the 370 is gone. Overall, the player acts in his flat black glossy look quite elegant. What I do not like the position of the eject buttons, namely the top right (see photo), while the charge for discs is left. Like the predecessors, the BD 390 fanless and altogether quite quiet.
The picture and sound quality - are to be expected with such a device - is excellent, and occasionally in the 370 BD criticized by some users of certain image jerking scenes as horizontal panning, we have seen so far. DVDs are reproduced in excellent quality thanks to upscaling.
The streaming functions either via LAN cable or wireless access to the domestic Netzwek are controlled by a clear menu. The playback of files on a USB disk has been improved, as it is not only possible with the BD 390, on FAT32-formatted drive (USB flash drives access), but NTFS is supported, so that current drives will easily .
To support the formats via network and USB are listed on the manufacturer side only AVI, DivX, PNG, JPG and MP3, it also plays MKV. Pity is that not one of the WAV format support is, as I almost all my music as uncompressed WAV on the hard disk have. In addition, some DivX versions of no-no sound (unsupported codec, such as LPCM) played.
Unfortunately, DVDs are not played via streaming or USB with menu structure, ie the BD 390 directly accesses the VOB file, so that you have no menu and no chapter can control directly. However, this is something to support what only a few eh Media Player.
What is extremely annoying though and so does not of course, is the fact that the language currently being played from a USB or network (ie ripped) DVD does not work. With the sound button the remote can usually zap the language tracks the DVD, however, these without even appears. On many DVDs you have, therefore, only the original English and can not switch this on German (!), Other DVDs remain, however without sound and a DVD with a live concert, which can either be played back in stereo LPCM or DTS 5.1 , you can hear only sound rubbish. How to read in various forums, all users have this problem. Predecessor, the BD worked 370, smoothly this way.
Apart from the problems with the DVD playback, the network streaming function is nice, my PC and its shared folders are detected directly, without a uspn server must be running.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind - The LG-Hotline
So I call the hotline of LG trying to find out if and when is solved with a future firmware update the problem. The Hotliner however, seemed to have never heard of this problem. In fact, it seems after recently browsing through some internet forums about the various bugs of the LG BD to know when the LG-390 support staff. An indictment! He suggested that it einschickt the unit to LG (although it's obvious that there is a general problem of the software).
The Hotliner ultimately took on my information and promised that I would be called back by a technician within the next two days. Perhaps LG would think about it, technically trained staff to put equal to their hotline. The recall was the way to this day (day 6 after call out) ...
Youtube
Like the BD 370 can also play the youtube videos directly, which occasionally is quite nice. You can log in with his Youtube account, so that you have direct access to his favorites. However, one can not assess yet to comment videos. Comments can be displayed without even. Evil is that I need to find a significant offset (perhaps one half to one second) between picture and sound. The same videos are fine on the PC. In addition I must also ask the technician the same time, if for this me back 
Conclusion
As a Blu Ray player itself, the BD 390 OK, the Streaming / USB options contribute but their concept is good, but technically quite immature. Thus, one wonders what one is therefore about 100, - € more paid to the BD 370, which not even some of the issues raised showed.
Theoretically, the problems will be solved quickly by firmware Ipdate, but rather shows the reaction of the Hotline points out that this is tantamount to Waiting for Godot likes.
More information on the BD 390 can be found here at Amazon:
[...] That are about on various PCs in our household. The thought of this really BluRay Player LG 390 has a total flop in this regard but when [...]