LG Launches BD300 Blu-ray Player with Netflix Streaming

Plenty of awesome-looking gear was flaunted at the CEDIA expo this past week and wallets will soon be shrinking all around the country as a result. From $35,000 70-inch plasmas to, well, just about everything else you would ever want to stuff into your home theater, gear fans around the globe are drooling over the releases to come over the next few months. Several announcements have caught our eye so far, and one of them is the little beauty pictured above. First announced at CES this past year, the LG BD300 might just be the Blu-ray player you’ve been waiting for – if you’ve been waiting for a new player that is. Forget about the 1080p Blu-ray video compatibility and the DVD upconverting (ok don’t completely forget about that), this little demon will also replace your current set top box and allow you to stream Netflix downloads to your TV. If you’re a Netflix customer who has been waiting to find the right Blu-ray player, you probably just found it. If you’re a Blockbuster Total Access customer who has been getting more and more annoyed as they increase prices and remove benefits, you probably just found a good reason to make the switch. Of note, the BD300 will ship with BD-Profile 1.1 and the company claims that firmware updates will be fast and painless in the event the spec changes five minutes after you buy the player. This makes sense of course, since the unit is always connected via Ethernet. The LG BD300 will become available in October and will carry a relatively easy to swallow price tag of $399.

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