Network connection for blu-ray players - worth it?

[chrisblau]

I'm new to the blu-ray end of the entertainment world. Forgive me if this is a dumb question or if its been answered before.

I'm in the market for a blu-ray player. I don't want to drop a whole lot of money, $150 would be the sweet spot. During my shopping around I'm seeing the cheaper players don't have network capability. This, of course, excludes them from using the BD-Live features (which I couldn't care less about). My question is this: is blu-ray still a heavily evolving format that requires updates to the players? Could I survive without this ability to update the firmware? Are there other ways to do firmware updates without the network connection?

Right now I'm looking at the LG BD270... thoughts?

Thanks for the help!

[subwayfox]

From what I have heard it is not worth it.


I was always wondering if they could stream new trailers at the beginning of the movie from the net instead of having to watching whatever movies were coming out back in the day when the disk was made.

[vance]

The LG players can update through USB as well, and this is usually just to add new features, not to finally get the format to maturity.

What I like the network capability for is so that I can use the player as a media extender and Netflix player. I find that I stream movies from my own computer or from Netflix on my LG BD390 much, much more than I use it to watch bluray or dvd movies. Having that player means I don't need a Roku and Popcorn Hour, etc, to get all my media to my TV.

So, I know that you don't want to spend a lot, but it actually might be worth it to save up a bit more, or look for a really good deal, and get a 390 instead of the 270, just in case you ever want to use those features.

[thalidomiderobot]

Most definitely a good idea for the shear ease of updating, plus all of the potential extras that vance mentioned. There is a third way to update, beyond networking and usb, the beloved firmware update disc that you can burn by downloading the iso image from the manufacturer's website which is why you want to stay with more noticeable brands for some sort of peace of mind that they will make this content available down the road. I think this particular issue is discussed on episode 2 of the show. Why poo poo BDLive chrisblau?