As a geek and self proclaimed technologies I have a large list of gadgets that I would like to purchase, as a father and husband the list can only be accessed 3 times a year at most to purchase the next that makes more sense. Last weekend was father’s day, one of the marked days when my wife may purchase from such a list.

My 3 daughters and wife surprised me on father’s day morning with the new The LG BD 370 Network Blu-ray Disc Player that I have been asking for a while.

This great device is much more than a Blu-Ray disc player, the most amazing part of this gadget is that will stream Netflix movies from your Instant Queue for free with your unlimited subscription of Netflix. A huge money saver in renting fees from your local blockbuster.

The DVD Renting evolution.

Local DVD store => DVD in the mail => Streaming movies to your TV

The progression on movie entertainment has slowly moved from when you had to go to your local video store to rent your DVDs. Netflix came a long and you didn’t had to leave your house in order to received your movies. Blockbuster came 6 months later with the same option giving also their customers the option to exchange their movies at the store, a great new twist that brought many users back to the Blockbuster option without realizing that extra fees on the delay of returning those DVDs.

I started testing Netflix streaming using my wife’s laptop that has a HDMI port to connect to the big screen TV, we enjoyed the first and second season of heroes straight to the big TV without waiting for a DVD in the mail or incurring in any more changes. My kids enjoyed as well a few children movies. The evolution was simple, instead of moving around the TV I needed to add into the list a network Blu-Ray to use a remote control and having the device always connected to the TV.

1080p DVD quality.

The device comes set up as default to provide you with 1080i that you can change to 1080p using your HDMI and renting of course Blu-Ray disks, that will cost you an extra $2 on your Netflix monthly price. The quality change from the normal HD provided by my Dish Network to 1080p is substantial on audio and a little noticeable on the video quality. My wife protested that she could not tell the difference.

The Streaming Quality.

When streaming from Netflix the device checks your bandwidth to deliver the best quality on the speed of your internet, having a FIOS internet into my house, I do believe that I’m getting the best possible quality streamed to my TV that I would say is close to my HD channels.

The only complain I have.

After you purchase the device, in this case my wife did, you won’t be able to connect it to the Internet without a Ethernet cable to your router. Now I am in the 99% of people that does not have Ethernet ports in every room in the house. The device does not come with a wireless card, only a Ethernet port, a huge design problem if you asked me, for the price of a device like that, I would pay an extra $50 for a wireless N card on it, instead you’ll have to get a power line to connect your device with an extra $100 out of your pocket.

Pay Per View.

The device also upon running a software update will provide you with a Pay Per View application to download movies, an option that I don’t see myself using it as much having the Blu-Ray coming in regular basis, I do not know what quality of movies will be streamed from that service.

What’ next?

In summary the device is a great purchase for my family and one of the gadgets that will be use by everybody in the house. I believe these kind of devices will grow in popularity as more and more families adopt the Internet as the pipe to bring the information into your house. In my case we are completely in dependency of the Internet. I filled all the ports on my router already. I have the router provided by Verizon FIOS and connected to it, 2 wireless routers, an N and a G as well as a Vonage device that connects to the router and to the phone socket to provide a telephone service around the house. Now the new Powerline network adapter to connect my LG BD 370 Network Blu-ray Disc Player to the Internet. Of course various computers using the wireless as well as 2 iPhones and a WII, without forgetting my wireless printer that one day will be an Internet Printer without any doubt.

We overloading the devices in the house to provide us with all this gadgets and the continuation of the increase pipe to the Internet.

So, what’s the next gadget in the list? Or the better question, when is the next time that I’ll be able to get a new device? New date is Xmas or my birthday in January. I believe is time for me to get a 64 bit Windows 7 touch screen laptop by Xmas ;-) I won’t keep my fingers crossed in this one, as right now after this one my WAF (Wife approval factor) is pretty low.

Cheers

Al