Like many folks who have a big screen television, I want to make the most of my viewing experience by watching Blu-ray movies instead of DVDs. As I typically do, I spent a lot of time on Amazon reading reviews before I bought a Blu-ray player. Eventually, I decided to buy an LG BD370 player, primarily because it has the ability to stream Netflix movies.
As soon as my new Blu-ray player arrived, I bought a few Blu-ray discs so that I could enjoy my new high-definition bliss. One of the movies I bought was The Matrix. While watching it, I noticed that the audio and video were out of sync. The audio arrived about 1/2 second after the video, transforming The Matrix into Keanu Reeves vs. Godzilla. In other words, everything looked like a dubbed foreign horror movie. The same problem occurs in many of my other Blu-ray discs, DVDs, and Netflix streamed content. DVDs and Netflix streaming on my Xbox 360 is perfect and DVDs are perfect in another player I have, so the problem is limited to the LG player.
As I often do when I encounter problems with products I purchase, I went online to try and find some solutions. I found many reports of people encountering the same problem with my specific Blu-ray player. I found a long list of troubleshooting techniques to try and resolve the problem, none of which succeeded for me or for others. Next step: contact LG.
I opened a tech support incident with LG. After I described the problem, the LG tech asked if my HDMI cable was HDMI 1.3 certified. I knew why he was asking me that. The HDMI 1.3 specification provides the ability to fix lip sync issues introduced by devices taking longer to process video than audio, the most common cause of sync issues. In such cases, the audio is played sooner than the video. However, in my case, the audio is played later than the video.
All of the above is really a moot point because the cable I was using was an HDMI 1.3 cable. However, because it didn’t have “1.3” printed on the cable, the LG tech insisted that I replace it. I purchased a new, high-quality 1.3 certified HDMI cable. (Incidentally, this cable didn’t have “1.3” printed on it either.) When I tested with that cable, the same problem occurred.
I contacted LG again. When I explained all the details, I was told that the issue would require further research. They asked for my phone number and I was told that they would call me back within two days to tell me what to do next. (Incidentally, each time I contacted LG during all of this, I had to go back through the entire history. Frustrating!)
Three days went by and no call, so I contacted LG again. I was told that I hadn’t been called because they were investigating a new firmware update. When I explained that I had the latest firmware installed already, I was told that there was a new version of firmware specifically designed to correct my problem and that hadn’t yet been posted on the LG site. Great! She told me that they would send me a CD in the mail that would update my player and fix the issue.
Several days later, the CD arrived in the mail. I put it in my player as instructed, but there was no prompt to update the firmware as I had been told there would be. I contacted LG again and I was told that the CD was damaged and that they’d need to send me a new one. I explained to the tech that I was able to read the CD fine on my computer, so I know that the CD isn’t damaged. He insisted that it was. When I told him that I was able to copy files from the CD just fine from my computer, he got angry with me and hung up on me!
I called back. While I was on hold waiting for the next tech, I looked into the firmware version that was on the CD that they sent me and discovered that it was an old version of the firmware that was one version older than what was already on my player! When the next tech came online, I informed her of my discovery. Her response was to tell me that I needed to downgrade to the old firmware to fix my problem. Okay, I have no problem with trying that, but the player won’t let you install an older version.
At this point, she said that I would have to return my player to LG since it was defective and wouldn’t update any firmware. I explained to her that it did update firmware fine. When I turned it on for the first time a couple of months ago, it informed me that there was new firmware and it updated it just fine. The problem was with lip sync. She said, “Then you need to return it to us to fix the lip sync.” I told her that my confidence and trust level with LG wasn’t high and that I wasn’t confident that they could fix it. She said, “Look, if you want it fixed, that’s what you need to do. Do you want it fixed or not?”
I agreed to send my player to LG for a replacement. As of right now, I’m waiting on the replacement unit. However, I can assure you that I will never buy another LG product. During this issue, LG has outright lied to me, been rude and disrespectful, and hung up on me! (I assure you I have been polite and courteous to them on each interaction.)
LG Electronics
Grade: F
Update: 2/24/2010
I received my Blu-ray player back from LG today. The serial number was the same and the marks left by the feet of an AV switch I had sitting on the original unit were still visible. However, the problem does seem to be resolved. Apparently LG replaced the system board in the player. This leads me to believe that the problem is not correctable in firmware. It seems as though there may be a problem with one or more hardware components.
If you are having a problem with your LG Blu-ray player, I recommend that you send it to LG for repair. It’s obviously a problem they’re aware of, but it requires significant effort to get them to agree to fix it.
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