When Blu-ray was launched it was the pinnacle of technology, quickly killing off the competition from HD DVD in the same way VHS killed off Betamax. Blu-ray may still be holding its place at the top end of home entertainment, but competitors have to offer more than just a standard player to remain competitive. This is where the LG BD570 Blu-ray player comes in, offering more than just excellent quality Blu-ray playback, with Home Cinema Choice awarding it 4 stars and the Home Cinema Choice Best Buy award for its abilities as a Media Centre featuring Wi-Fi & DLNA.

LG’s BD570 is fully DLNA-certified and can stream media content from other DLNA and plug and play devices, via Ethernet or over Wi-Fi, on top of its Blu-ray playback capabilities.

Another great feature that is flagged in the review is the integration with Gracenote media – as you listen to audio CD’s the deck will instantly find and display the artwork. That is a great feature, but gets beaten hands down by a feature called Music ID. This allows you to find the title of a song on the soundtrack of a film at the press of a button, as it automatically searches the Gracenote database.

Another great selling point is Netcast™, a feature that has been integrated into a lot of this year’s TVs from LG that allows you to access select internet features including YouTube and Picasa, and the BD570 is also equipped with this.

When these are taken into account alongside all the other features included in the BD570, it really is no surprise it got a 5 star mark for features.

The highlights picked by Home Cinema Choice include integrated Wi-Fi, disc-loading speed and the quality of the media streaming, with the final comment saying “overall, the LG570 is a thoroughly engaging Blu-ray and network player that should negate the need to buy a separate media streamer for most users.”

Read the full review from Home Cinema Choice click here

Full specifications for the BD570 are available here

To read Techradar’s 5 star review of the BD570 follow the link here