LG BH200 Blu-ray/HD DVD player all-region Blu-ray playback

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Chris Gerhard

2K Club - QQ Super Nova
Joined
Jan 15, 2006
Messages
2,659
Location
Little Rock, AR
The LG BH200 is the only Blu-ray player I am aware of that can be made to play all Blu-ray region discs, A, B, and C by a remote control hack. It bitstreams the advanced audio codecs and decodes all except DTS-HD MA after the most recent firmware update. Currently it is Profile 1.1 but is reputed to be capable of Profile 2.0 although I can't say whether or not that ever happens as it would require a firmware update. I haven't seen any claims that it won't play specific Blu-ray discs, those problems seem to be behind us with most or all players now. "Stalingrad/Enemy at the Gates" is one HD DVD it can't load and play properly and I believe there are a couple of other rare examples of HD DVD's that don't play, all imports for US owners. Many Toshiba HD DVD players can't play the same discs based on what I have read and I don't know if firmware updates can fix those issues either.

The player can be purchased at Best Buy.com for $340 and I believe most or all Best Buy stores will match the online price and that is how I purchased it. It was really expensive until recently and is still expensive compared to many straight Blu-ray and straight HD DVD players but that closeout price seems reasonable to me and it should result in inventory being blown out and we won't likely see new in box for less in my opinion.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...p=&qp=&list=n&iht=y&usc=All+Categories&ks=960

Here is the AVSForum that discusses the player and various hacks, it is the most hackable of Blu-ray players with all-region DVD and PAL playback possible among other things as well. I love this player and can sure find no problems with it other than what I have mentioned.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1009104

Chris
 
For multizone blu ray help you can also go here

http://www.bluraymods.com/ourproductshw.asp

they sell modified panasonic players and have mods for sony and pioneer, but they are only zone 1 and 2 on the dvd section for sony and pioneer ...so far..

I was aware of this but it was way too expensive for me so I was glad to find the LG solution which also doesn't void the manufacturer warranty.

Chris
 
Hi guys,
I got a BH200 last Thursday as a late birthday present :D
It was an imported US model and it works really well (I have to use a power converter, though, to use it with the European 240V).

This player is really super-quiet! A real revelation after the noisy PS3 I had before (which is in the shop for the second time because it again refused to play and BDs :()

I have two complaints, though:

It does not play together that well with my Denon 4306: the player refuses to output Multichannel PCM over HDMI. I don't have these problems with the Toshiba XE1 or the PS3. Currently, the best way to go for me is to use the dts re-encode, which is far from ideal.

The other thing is just a minor gripe: the display on the device cannot be dimmed. It's always lit which is a bit annoying if your player is situated near your projection screen.

Best regards,
Oliver
 
Hi guys,
I got a BH200 last Thursday as a late birthday present :D
It was an imported US model and it works really well (I have to use a power converter, though, to use it with the European 240V).

This player is really super-quiet! A real revelation after the noisy PS3 I had before (which is in the shop for the second time because it again refused to play and BDs :()

I have two complaints, though:

It does not play together that well with my Denon 4306: the player refuses to output Multichannel PCM over HDMI. I don't have these problems with the Toshiba XE1 or the PS3. Currently, the best way to go for me is to use the dts re-encode, which is far from ideal.

The other thing is just a minor gripe: the display on the device cannot be dimmed. It's always lit which is a bit annoying if your player is situated near your projection screen.

Best regards,
Oliver

No audio issues I have discovered here with my Yamaha RX-V663 but I have only used it with audio bitstreaming. Have you used the all-region Blu-ray playback ability? Have you updated the firmware for impact on any issues?

Chris
 
I have LG BH 200 in my Studio for 3 months now,
Great unit and significant drop in price.
Back when I did firmwire upgrade to be able to bitstreem DTS-HD MA
Let me know if anybody has an issue with that
Will be glad to help.

Alexander.
 
Hi Chris,
No audio issues I have discovered here with my Yamaha RX-V663 but I have only used it with audio bitstreaming. Have you used the all-region Blu-ray playback ability? Have you updated the firmware for impact on any issues?
Yes, I have updated to the latest firmware BH02080620A and the driver 0702.
I also set the DVD Region to 0 and enabled PAL playbac (EEPROM set to 55 53 00 80 00 05 40).
I left the Blu-ray region on A because I don't have any region B discs.

I also tried different settings for the sample rate and after reading in the manual that setting the S/PDIF-Output to anything else but PCM Stereo would set the HDMI Audio to PCM Stereo automatically I took care that S/PDIF was on PCM Stereo.

I was not able to get PCM Multichannel to work with my 4306. I know that people with newer AV-Receiver models with an HDMI 1.3 interface do not have these problems. Personally I think that the guys at LG misread the HDMI specs and thought that you need 1.3 for Multichannel PCM, and so they don't even try... but this was already specified for 1.1, and both the XE1 and PS3 prove that my 4306 is capable of this, even in 7.1 with 96kHz.

I don't really think this will be fixed with the new firmware that is rumored to be in the works. I guess there are not enough people with that combination of devices :( All the HD-maniacs stormed the stored when the Denon xx08 line came out... :eek:

Oliver
Oliver
 
Does this unit have multichannel analog outs as in 6 RCA or is there only L R stereo plug ins? The multis would be nice, HDMI is forcing me to buy an HDMI enabled receiver just because of the hook ups. I'm still happy with the sound of my vintage Sansui 9001! Any chance the rumored OPPO bluray player will also throw in HD playback as a bonus? I'm sure the licensing fees for HD are cheap now....Yea, and maybe Sony will offer a patch to allow the PS3 to play DVD audio......
 
My first and only HDMI audio processor is HDMI 1.3 and I wasn't aware of any issues with the BH200 and HDMI 1.1. The thread at AVSForums I referenced has a lot of discussion about the player and many owners, surely many with HDMI 1.1 AV receivers discussing the player, have you inquired about the issue there? It does sound like an issue that should be addressable to me, there should be no difference in how a receiver with HDMI 1.1 handles uncompressed lossless PCM compared to a receiver with HDMI 1.3. If LG isn't going to address the issue with the next firmware update, we sure need to be making LG aware of the problem for a subsequent update.

I am surprised you don't own any Region B discs since that is your home country's region.

Chris

Hi Chris,

Yes, I have updated to the latest firmware BH02080620A and the driver 0702.
I also set the DVD Region to 0 and enabled PAL playbac (EEPROM set to 55 53 00 80 00 05 40).
I left the Blu-ray region on A because I don't have any region B discs.

I also tried different settings for the sample rate and after reading in the manual that setting the S/PDIF-Output to anything else but PCM Stereo would set the HDMI Audio to PCM Stereo automatically I took care that S/PDIF was on PCM Stereo.

I was not able to get PCM Multichannel to work with my 4306. I know that people with newer AV-Receiver models with an HDMI 1.3 interface do not have these problems. Personally I think that the guys at LG misread the HDMI specs and thought that you need 1.3 for Multichannel PCM, and so they don't even try... but this was already specified for 1.1, and both the XE1 and PS3 prove that my 4306 is capable of this, even in 7.1 with 96kHz.

I don't really think this will be fixed with the new firmware that is rumored to be in the works. I guess there are not enough people with that combination of devices :( All the HD-maniacs stormed the stored when the Denon xx08 line came out... :eek:

Oliver
Oliver
 
Hi Chris,
My first and only HDMI audio processor is HDMI 1.3 and I wasn't aware of any issues with the BH200 and HDMI 1.1. The thread at AVSForums I referenced has a lot of discussion about the player and many owners, surely many with HDMI 1.1 AV receivers discussing the player, have you inquired about the issue there?
Yes, my boyfriend who also has the SuperBlu posted this there after we tried his unit with my 4306. And after I got the player myself and updated to the latest firmware he posted there that the issue still persists. I believe that there is an LG guy reading in this thread, so I hope they know about it.

It does sound like an issue that should be addressable to me, there should be no difference in how a receiver with HDMI 1.1 handles uncompressed lossless PCM compared to a receiver with HDMI 1.3.
I agree that this should be fixable. I don't know if this only happens with the Denon 3806 and 4306 bor if HDMI1.1 Receivers from other brands are also affected. Judging fron the AVSForum thread there just seem to be too few people around with such a combination of devices: this might also be the reason why this is not very high on the list of problems that are addressed in new firmware updates :(

I am surprised you don't own any Region B discs since that is your home country's region.

Since I always watch the original language versions I opted for a US player when I got my first BD device (a PS3). I mostly import the discs (which us much cheaper than here in Germany). So I only have a handful of discs from Europe and all of them are codefree.

Best regards,
Oliver
 
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