Blu-ray players with built-in Netflix streaming

Matthew Moskovciak, August 19, 2009

Blu-ray was originally all about pristine, high-def video quality, but--somewhat ironically--the format is spurring the popularity of low-resolution streaming services like Netflix. Samsung and LG have included Netflix streaming on all of their standalone Blu-ray players this year, making it easy to mix the eye candy of Blu-ray with the instant gratification of streaming video.

The ratings of these players reflect their overall capabilities as Blu-ray players. If we were judging them strictly based on Netflix performance, they'd get identical scores, as we've found the Netflix streaming experience to be virtually identical on all the products we've tested. In other words, if you just want a basic Blu-ray player that streams Netflix, feel free to go cheap.

As for the Netflix experience overall, we're generally fans, although be forewarned that the selection of movies available for streaming is much smaller than Netflix's DVD catalog. That being said, over the last year Netflix has added content from ABC and CBS, so if you dismissed the selection early on, it's worth revisiting.

As for the image quality, it ranges from mediocre to near-DVD (the "HD" content comes closest, but it's still a minority of the selections offered), assuming your Internet connection is fast enough to stream at full quality. It never comes close to Blu-ray, but for most people we'd say it just barely hits the critical "good enough" marker.

If paying a monthly subscription fee for Netflix isn't your style, Panasonic features the pay-per-view Amazon Video On Demand streaming service on its recent Blu-ray players; LG also offers CinemaNow streaming. If you're still not ready for Blu-ray, but want to get Netflix streaming, you can get the service on both the Roku Digital Video Player and Xbox 360.

More Resources

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