==Price and Availability==

After owning my old DVD player for quite some time, about a year ago I decided to swap to a new Blu- Ray Player. As I didn't really know what I was looking for I asked my brother for some help and he recommended the player he owned so after a little looking around for the best deals I bought the LG BD550 for about £90 online. It's a lot cheaper now though and can be picked up for about £50 on eBay, which is obviously a great price.


==LG BD550==

I was very impressed with my new Blu- Ray player when I took it out of the box. It's glossy black which matches with my television, it's a very sleek and slim design and looks really high quality and is certainly very modern. The player is easy to set up but it's worth knowing that there's no HDMI cable included in the box which I think is a bit unfair. This meant I couldn't use my new player straight away but I ordered a cable from play.com for a couple of pound so at least it wasn't a big expense. The Blu- Ray player has a range of features including the ability to access the internet, upscale normal DVD's and play back videos, music and images via the USB port.


==My Experience==

Apart from my little snag with the HDMI cable the rest of the set up was easy, just a case of getting it out of the box and plugging it in. It does pretty much work like this as the Blu- Ray player comes with its own remote but if you want to use your normal TV remote to change the volume then it does have to be programmed but this is pretty easy to do with the instruction manual. Although I probably don't use the whole range of services available for using the internet with this player we do occasionally watch YouTube clips through it. It is possible to stream video and music from the internet but this is too complicated for me and generally we do it through the PS3.

Now for the important bit, how does watching a Blu- Ray film differ from a regular DVD? When first watching a Blu- Ray film I was shocked by just how bright and defined the picture was. It really is completely crystal clear and the images really seem to pop out of the screen almost. When it comes to up scaling normal DVD's I am a little more sceptical, I don't think the difference is that noticeable the colours just seem a bit brighter.


==Overall==

Overall, I've been impressed with the difference using the LG BD550 Blu- Ray player makes, the image quality is certainly a lot better and gives a better viewing experience. The additional features are good but as I just watch films I don't really make the most of them as they aren't that easy to use so maybe this player isn't that great for the average film watcher.