LG BX580

The BX580 is LG's first Blu-ray player that's compatible with the Blu-ray 3D standard.  It comes with plenty of features, including support for 802.11n WiFi networks and DLNA.

Hardware

As well as fitting in the smallest of spaces—it's just 8 cm deep—and having a sleek mirror finish, this Blu-ray player has an excellent rage of features.  That includes a HDMI 1.4 output, as well as component and composite video ports.  It might not have multi-channel analogue audio outputs, but it does have analogue stereo, coaxial and optical audio.  An Ethernet port and a WiFi card allow you to get online.

Unfortunately, there's no internal memory to store BD-Live content.  If you want to use it, you'll need to plug in a memory stick, meaning that the little flap in front of the USB slot will be open almost all the time.

There's a small fan at the back, and you can hear it whirring away during some quieter moments; we would just as easily have done without.

The BX580 also has a media player which can access external devices formatted using NTFS.  Once you've connected a USB key or an external hard drive at the front, you can play a wide variety of files.  During our tests, the majority of our HD videos worked without a problem.

Finally, this is one of the fastest players off the starting blocks we've seen so far.  It takes just under four seconds to open the disc drawer from standby, and around 26 seconds until the first frames of our test disc appear on screen.

Image Quality

The HDMI output produces a neutral signal in both 2D and 3D without needing any tweaking.


We used our equipment to measure the picture on our test TV, and the results were very similar to those achieved by our standard reference, the Sony PlayStation 3.  There are a few slight differences though.  The LG BX580 has a tendency to display dark areas lighter than they actually should be as well as to have a slight red tinge.  The deltaE, or the average discrepancy between the colours that should be shown and the actual results, showed that LG was 1.2 ahead, with a score of 2.7 instead of 3.9, which is virtually invisible to the naked eye.


Like most players, the BX580 does a great job with HD content, and watching a 3D movie is an excellent experience too.  However, it sometimes makes the picture a little too sharp in the hope of giving the impression that there are more details present than there really are.  On the other hand, Sony rounds out some of the contours to produce a softer, more natural result.

Audio Formats

HD audio formats are no problem for the BX580: it can handle them all.  Then again, it only has a stereo analogue output alongside the optical, coaxial and HDMI 1.4 outputs.

That means you'll have to stick to the latter to enjoy HD sound using DTS or Dolby Digital.  If you don't have an HDMI input on your amp then you'll only be able to pick up the basic 'Core' signal using the optical or coaxial outputs.

Energy Consumption

The BX580 did a great job in theses tests too.  Our equipment showed energy consumption of just 0 W on standby, which in reality means consumption of below 0.05 W.  Playing a Blu-ray disc requires just 14 W.