Home Theater: Streamy LG Blu-ray Disc Player

LG and Netflix announced the fruits of a previously inked partnership: the new LG BD300 Network Blu-ray Disc Player that’s the world’s first Blu-ray disc player to be able to instantly stream movies and TV episodes from Netflix (if you have a Netflix subscription).

Netflix claims to have over 100,000 movies – including 1,000 Blu-ray titles – available for physical rental via the US mail. But for those of you who can’t wait, Netflix has about 12,000 titles that can be rented for instant viewing via your PC or, now as announced with much fanfare, your LG Blu-ray disc player. (Those 12,000 titles, by the way, are a mix of movies and TV show episodes – not 12,000 movies.)

There was lots of other technical info presented, but I was too mesmerized by the 4:3 version of “The Omega Man” (surely, Charlton Heston’s finest moment) that was being streamed on a TV behind the presenters.

Seriously, the important stuff – for the moment, anyway – is that the box uses an Ethernet connection (no built-in Wi-Fi), receives streamed movies in “near SD quality” but will not upconvert them (your HDTV or video processor will have to do the job instead), the 1080p output will be reserved for Blu-ray discs, and the player will be available at “the national and regional specialty retailers” in October for $399.95.

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