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LG’s HB954PB has a smart set of speakers. They’re heavy, especially the floor-standing front pair, which have sturdy metal stands and weighted bases. Together they produce a taut bass and well-rounded mid-range that brings out the best in all kinds of film soundtracks. Performance was impressive, taking only 42 seconds to access the main menu, and skipping chapters was snappy. LG’s menu system is easy to use, and the Home screen gives you the choice of Movies, Photos and Music depending on the contents of the disc or USB flash drive inserted. This is the only player we saw that could access the contents of NTFS-formatted USB disks, not just memory sticks. File format support is better than most, but there’s no MPEG4 support. There’s a YouTube application, but it isn’t as sophisticated as others we’ve seen: you can log in, but you can’t access playlists or play videos sequentially. There’s also no network media streaming support. AVCHD files can be played from DVD, but not Blu-ray video, and DVD upscaling was poor, with jagged edges and ghosting. Owners of consoles or set-top boxes will be happy to find two HDMI inputs, and there are both optical and coaxial S/PDIF inputs. A pop-out tray on the front houses an iPod dock, and there’s a 3.5mm audio input on the rear in case you want to connect an MP3 player via its headphone socket. You’ll have to connect a separate composite video cable to your TV to watch movies stored on your iPod. Instead of colour-coded plugs, the speakers have bare wires with coloured tape to distinguish between them. The USB port is on the top of the player, which could be awkward if there’s a shelf or another device above it.
Although the YouTube application is limited and there’s no media streaming, the HB954PB stands out from the group with its two HDMI inputs, its great speakers and the ability to handle more file formats than the other kits here. The main downside is that this kit is very expensive and you can get much better deals.
