Review: LG Blu-Ray, Twin HD, 500GB PVR

By Mike Bantick
Sunday, 20 June 2010 17:13

Entertainment

The LG HR599D PVR ticks a lot of boxes as a home entertainment hub providing a flexible way to enjoy the media of today.  This neat little box delivers Twin HD tuners, Blu-Ray playback and 500GB of hard drive space as well as DLNA compliant networking.

LG Electronics has kept the aesthetics of theHR500 series of PVR’s clean and unassuming.  There are two buttons, power and eject on the front top of the unit, other controls, disk tray and single USB port are hidden behind a smoky front panel.

On the rear of our test HD599D again things are relatively simple.  Antenna in/out, 1080p rated HDMI out, Digital and 2CH audio out, video and component out and an ethernet connection if the internal Wi-Fi capability cannot be utilised.

 

In the box you will find a RF cable, audio and video cables as well as a remote and, interestingly, a copy of Nero MediaHome4 Essentials software.  No HDMI and, even more disappointingly, no component cables.

If you have a pencil handy, you can also check the following feature shopping list items:  500GB HDD, Twin HD Tuners, Blu-Ray, DVD, AVCHD and CD  disc playback, DLNA or PC server media capable including .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .mp3,  .mp4, .divx, .avi, .mpg, .mpeg, .mkv and .wma files, and associated Codecs.

 

“The HR500 provides the ultimate viewing experience with dual channel Full HD 1080p recording capability, Blu-ray playback, built-in HDD and integrated WiFi connectivity,” said Dinawati Lie, Assistant Category Manager, AV and IT, LG Electronics Australia. “At LG, we are committed to providing our customers with the ultimate viewing experience by delivering innovative products with high quality picture and sound.”

Our initially set-up of the HD599D was not too successful however, our older Fujitsu 1080i Plasma TV showed nothing but a blank screen soon after the boot-up flash screen.  Moving to a newer Sony Bravia was fine, and some fiddling with the settings showed that there is certainly the option to adjust the HDMI output settings for different displays.

Otherwise, settings available for the unit are somewhat sparse; by default for example the buffering for TV Timeshift is not enabled, except by choice with a flick of the dedicated remote control button.  Permanant Timeshift can be, thankfully set within the unit settings. 

Usability from PAGE 2