LG BD550

The LG BD550 is an entry-level Blu-ray player.  It also features a media player and support for Blu-ray Live features if you connect a USB key, while an Ethernet port gives you access to DLNA networks.  All of this is available for a very attractive price.

Hardware

LG has completely revised the design of its earlier DVD and Blu-ray players.  The new BD550 has a slim, compact black frame in glossy plastic, and will look perfectly at home next to your other Home Cinema equipment.

Nothing could be simpler than what you find on the the front: the Blu-ray drive is in the middle, with buttons on the right hand side.  The USB port is further over, and you can connect either a flash memory stick or an external hard drive to store data from BD-Live features (1 GB minimum), or use it to access your own videos, music and photos via the media player. 

The media player supports NTFS, and once you've connected an external device, it can access all sorts of file formats.  During our tests, almost all of the HD video formats we tried worked without a problem.

Things are nice and simple at the back too, with a basic range of inputs and outputs: HDMI, composite and component for video, an Ethernet port, and coaxial and stereo for audio.

You certainly can't complain that the BD550 is slow: it takes just four seconds to eject a disc starting from standby and just 23 seconds to display the first frames of a Blu-ray disc.

Image Quality

We weren't surprised to find that the BD550 produced a very similar image to LG's BX580 Blu-ray player, a few details excepted.



Our test results indicated only minor differences between the BD550 and our standard reference, the Sony PlayStation 3.  That said, LG's latest Blu-ray player still has a slight tendency to inject a little too much red into grey, but the overall deltaE—a measure of colour discrepancy—remains unaffected.

HD content looks quite simply perfect.  Upscaling of SD content is still a little too coarse for our liking, which is because the default sharpness levels are too high.  Lots of manufacturers rely on this technique to lull viewers into thinking that's more detail visible in the frame than there really is.  We prefer the PS3's smoother, more natural output. 

Audio Formats

The BD550 can handle HD audio codecs like Dolby TrueHD, Digital Plus and DTS-HD MA.  To make the most of them, though, you'll need to use the HDMI output.  Otherwise, you'll have to make do with Dolby Digital or DTS over a coaxial cable.

Energy Consumption

Last but by no means least, the BD550 is far from greedy.  With an average energy consumption of just 0.3 W on standby and 11 W while playing a Blu-ray disc, it's one of the most energy efficient Blu-ray players currently available.