Samsung’s BD-P2500 and LG’s BD300 will get you instant content via Netflix. But why?

I didn’t get it. I sat there in the press conference listening to LG excitedly talk about their new Blu-ray player that had the ability to stream content from Netflix.

And they're not the only one. Samsung, TiVo, and several other companies are touting the same feature.

I don't get it. This is a dumb idea, right?

No matter how good the streaming content is, for the moment it’s still a far cry from Blu-ray’s high bit rate. Ostensibly, that’s what Blu-ray was created for. With screens getting bigger and bigger, we needed something that didn’t look as bad as 480i. So why would anyone want to watch streaming video, (in my mind, You Tube quality) on their perfectly good Blu-ray player?

Yeah, I didn’t get it. But I would.

The Content

Netflix claims 12,000 movies and TV episodes available to stream. These are all free, as long as you have a Netflix account. The cheapest plan is $4.99 a month, which gets you one movie at a time, a max of two per month, and two hours of streaming time. The step up is $8.99 for one movie at a time, unlimited per month and unlimited streaming time. This is the one I chose, adding $1 per month to get my movies on Blu-ray. Two other plans are available that get you more movies at a time.

At this point, you are pretty much good to go. You can watch the instant content on your PC or on your TV via a Netflix-enabled device. In addition to the two Blu-ray players you see here, other possibilities are: a specific Netflix player by Roku, the Xbox 360 or TiVO HD DVRs (check out our HD XL review online).

LG announced at CES this year that it will start offering LCDs and plasmas that are Netflix enabled. While no review samples were available at time of writing, expect them to function pretty similar to these two players.

Once you’ve booted up your device (and hooked it up via a wired Ethernet connection), all you need to do is navigate to the Netflix section of the player. You have to register the player with your account — a simple process that took seconds.

You can have up to four Netflix-enabled devices on your account, though how many streams you can watch at a time varies depending on what account level you have.

If you did want to watch from your PC, you’ll need to install Microsoft’s Silverlight program (the website will prompt you for it, and direct you to the install page). This process took just a few moments, and the movie starts playing as soon as soon as you get back to the page.

Engage Stream

Oddly, there is no way to surf the Netflix content from your TV. You have to use Netflix’s website and choose the content you want. Not everything I looked for was available.

I estimate around half of what I wanted to watch could be watched instantly. Your mileage may vary, depending on your tastes, but Netflix says it has new streaming content every day.

There was a specific address where you could see all the HD streaming content, but oddly this has been removed. So finding what material is HD now is difficult, to say the least.

Once you’ve picked a few selections to watch, you can go back to your TV and choose which of your selections to watch from the player’s interface.

Content starts almost instantly, but quality varies significantly. Most SD selections are rather soft, but amazingly they’re still very watchable, even on my 100-inch screen. Definitely worse than DVD, but much better than what I had in mind when I heard “streaming video.” Not all content is at the original aspect ratio; some are cropped, and which ones seem to be a random thing.

HD content does much better. Shows like Hereos and CSI look very detailed. Not as good as broadcast — perhaps on par or a little worse than a compressed cable or satellite feed. Even better, most shows are updated weekly so if you miss an episode, you can watch it, essentially, on demand.

On the PC the quality isn’t as good. The same shows are softer and have more artifacts. There are a lot of variables as to why this could be, so I have no conclusion as to why.

One of my favorite features is that the main Netflix server remembers where you left off. You can start watching the movie in the living room, head to the bedroom and pick up right where you left off.

One word of caution: I have a fast, 10 mbps connection, and everything worked great. I have two colleagues who have tried this with 1.5 mbps connections, and they said the picture quality was unwatchable.

Netflix requires at least 1.5, and 5.0 for HD, but these minimums are certainly not ideal. If you have a large TV or are a bit of a videophile, you may want to wait till you have a better connection.

The Devices

If you've read my reviews of the BD-2500 and BD300, then this will be a bit of a recap. 

Between the LG and the Samsung, the Samsung responds a little slower, both in accepting inputs from the remote and navigating the interface. Navigation itself is also a little more difficult. Buttons that you assume would work, like “Return” and “Menu” are inexplicably disabled when watching Netflix content.

While the difference in speed was noticeable using the players back to back, the speed is just a little slow even not compared to something else.

Then again, the LG requires an external USB thumb drive while the Samsung doesn’t, so I’ll give them credit there. Then again (again), the Samsung is also $50 more expensive and you can get a 2-GB thumb drive for pocket change.

The Samsung is a better scaling DVD player. Both load big Blu-ray titles like Pirates of the Caribbean in about a minute.

For more on the individual playback characteristics of the LG and Samsung as Blu-ray/DVD players, check out our website.

While I was incredulous at first about the whole Netflix-on-BD idea, I’ve swung around 180 degrees. The video quality may be crap compared to BD, but that’s not the point. It’s the ability to think of a movie or TV show, click on it and then be watching it a few seconds later. I found myself watching shows I watched as a kid, or forgot about, just for the fun of it — stuff that I would never waste money renting or buying, but seeing as it was free, why not?

PRICE:
Samsung BD-P2500, $399
LG BD300, $349
Netflix, $4.99 – $16.99

CONTACT: LG.com, Samsung.com, Netflix.com