LG's XF2 media player does 1080p with subtitles, blows budgets, ships next month

When it comes to storage-based media players that you connect to your TV, it all boils down to performance, compatibility, and capacity. LG's XF2 player ships in April and, with its 1080p video and 5.1 audio output over HDMI, has the performance side covered. In terms of compatibility it hits all its marks (MPEG 1/2/4, h.264, Xvid, DivX, FLAC, WMA, AC3, etc. etc.), also supporting subtitles and captions in a number of formats. Capacity, well, 500GB is good, but more would have been better, especially given the lack of a network interface -- and the price. This one will retail for 270,000 won, or about $240. Yeah, ouch.

[dand Posted Jan 13th 2010 9:21AM]

No network interface?

FAIL

[Bratan Posted Jan 13th 2010 9:26AM]

@dand Agree. WTF LG? Dump that HDD, add NIC port and shave $140 then you might have some compentition for WD TV live or upcoming Popbox...

[grumpyOldMan Posted Jan 13th 2010 9:41AM]

@dand
It does subtitles in 1080! Bask in all that glory and quit being greedy. :)

[nos879 Posted Jan 13th 2010 3:08PM]

@dand

people are not looking at network interface

[hajj3 Posted Jan 13th 2010 9:24AM]

no ethernet, no bistreaming HD audio and the firmwares on their bluray players for .mkv playback are buggy, doesn't fill me with confidence.

id rather have a popcorn hour a-200 for $70 less or a popbox or a sumvision cyclone enclousure, all beat this and are cheaper!

[LongKnights Posted Jan 13th 2010 9:32AM]

I better get cracking on my income tax return if next month is April.

[ddmeightball Posted Jan 13th 2010 9:44AM]

@brown like dookie
She blows something alright!

[B3astofthe3ast Posted Jan 13th 2010 9:55AM]

Why not just get a PS3 slim, which does all that this does, can stream, play blu rays, and much much more???

[FnuGk Posted Jan 13th 2010 12:18PM]

@B3astofthe3ast
ps3 does not do subtitles = fail
ps3 does not see or play mkv container even though it plays mp4 but no firmware to fix this in sight = fail

this lg one looks great but i guess the boxee box will blow it away

[Cheesus Crust Posted Jan 13th 2010 3:38PM]

@B3astofthe3ast Using MKV2VOB it takes 2 minutes for me to convert a 1080p copy of Inglorious Bastards with 5.1 to .mpg/.vob, both of which the PS3 reads WITH surround(it plays all formats with surround). On Xbox you would have to hard covert to .mp4 (because of the sound) which takes a couple hours.

The Subtitles? GOD DAMN those are an issue. I wish the MKV2VOB would keep the subtitles, cause watching my anime on my 52" becomes a pain. But thats where my 1080p Monitor(23") comes in XD

[brookey86 Posted Jan 13th 2010 10:13AM]

camera focus fail.

[Xero2 Posted Jan 13th 2010 10:17AM]

Its another generic Realtek player only with a prettier skin, it has the same all/movie/photo/music filters that all Realtek players have.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 13th 2010 10:20AM]

OMG Lame no gigabit ethernet card.
Also another anorexic asian girl in the add!
DOUBLE FAIL!!
EVERY SINGLE LG ADD HAS AN ANOREXIC ASIAN GIRL AHH.

[kgsbca Posted Jan 13th 2010 10:28AM]

No network intfc? How do you get content on this? Not easily I'm guessing.

[tiago Posted Jan 13th 2010 10:44AM]

@kgsbca how about usb?

[kgsbca Posted Jan 13th 2010 11:20AM]

@tiago, that's just another version of sneakernet. Ethernet on media players has been ubiquitous since 2003, and most media processor chips have it built in, so the incremental cost is just a cheap transformer and a jack. If this was designed to be a portable device that plugs into your desktop and then into a TV set, it would be a different story, but it isn't.

[domopod Posted Jan 13th 2010 11:49AM]

shes cute,

[JT88 Posted Jan 13th 2010 1:15PM]

For that price and only slightly larger formfactor, I'd get a Dell Zino - full 1080p mediacentre capabilities with no worries about future format compatabilities, and you've got a fully-functioning Win7 system to boot.

[Alan Strangis Posted Jan 13th 2010 2:01PM]

@JT88 agreed. And if you spend a bit more you can get some decent gaming out an HTPC as well.

The bonus of an HTPC is never having to worry about codec support, and if you want to slap an external tuner on it, it's relatively inexpensive. None of these media devices interest me in the slightest, as it's simple to get Windows Media Center and Boxee to play together with a single remote, and all your media can sit elsewhere.

[travis8214 Posted Jan 13th 2010 3:57PM]

@Alan Strangis Or you could do what myself and a few of my friends do and use a gaming PC as an HTPC. It's kind of the smarter route as "hey look this >product< is totally for home-theatre pc use" are typically more expensive than the much more capable products which are geared towards, well, gamers.

Okay except for the video cards, but if you're planning on gaming in 1080p, it's totally worth it. Trust me.

[travis8214 Posted Jan 13th 2010 3:53PM]

WAIT - it does flac, an open-source lossless audio codec, but does not to MKV, a mere a/v lossless container? What's wrong with this picture?

[travis8214 Posted Jan 13th 2010 3:58PM]

@travis8214 Whoops, I meant to type "but does not do MKV, a mere a/v container"

[travis8214 Posted Jan 14th 2010 3:14AM]

@travis8214
err i reread it... it does support MKV. Didn't click the link to the article, seemed like something engadget would've listed instead of lobbing it into the "etc." bin

[Ariolander Posted Jan 13th 2010 4:56PM]

In this case you would be better off with an LG BD 390. It has an Ethernet port, built in wireless, Blu-Ray disk playing, Netflix, Pandora, network streaming, USB NTFS and FAT hard drive support on top of major format support including .MKV containers and subtitles.