LG HB906TA Home Theatre System Review

The market for Blu-rays is fast expanding globally, despite there still being love for DVDs, which are in mass circulation. Blu-rays offer way better video quality than DVDs, so manufacturers are launching many products with Blu-ray playback capabilities, be it notebooks, Blu-ray players or home theatre systems. As Blu-rays become common, brands also dole out Blu-ray players that support 3D Blu-ray playback. LG is one such manufacturer to launch the HB 906TA 3D Blu-ray home theatre system. This HTS boasts of some impressive specifications, apart from 3D playback, which include the ability to view online content through the LG Smart TV app, USB connectivity and many more.

Unboxing: the LH HB906TA Home Theater System

Design and Build Quality
Being a 5.1 channel home theatre system, the HB 906TA is made up of 5 speakers, a subwoofer and a 3D Blu-ray player. Looking at the system, one gets easily impressed with its stylish looks, which can be attributed to the black glossy finish, it carries overall. The player, to start with appears boxy, but retains a classy look. The only noticeable obtrusion on the face of the player is the volume knob. Other controls are touch sensitive buttons denoted by their symbol. These buttons have a white finish. One look at the player, and it gets clear that this player does not feature a Blu-ray disc tray. This tray and a few connectors such as ports for mics, port in and USB are neatly concealed by a flap that when closed appears to be part of the front panel. The flap, though stylish-looking feels a bit flimsy and when opened a certain amount of caution should be used. The top and sides of the player too, are finished in glossy black, but unlike the front panel, it is made of metal. On the top, close to the face of the player is a strip that has the brushed metal look. This adds to the style factor of the player.

Connectors found on this player are located at the rear, apart from the few that are located underneath the flap on the front. There are colour coded pin-type connectors for speakers. With the help of these colours, one can easily set up the player without the need of a technician. HDMI, Ethernet, component, a port for a FM antenna and optical in are located at the back. The connectors are neatly spaced and one can find a reduced amount of clutter.

Input output options at the back

The surround speakers can either be wall mounted or set up as tall boy speakers. The height of the surround speakers are around a foot and a half and when converted to appear as tall boys, they measure around 3 feet. There are three drivers on each speaker, which include two mid-range drivers and a tweeter above it. The size of the mid-range drivers are approximately 2 inches in diameter, while the tweeter is around an inch and a half. The centre channel speaker features two mid-range drivers located on either side of the tweeter.

Along with the speakers are a subwoofer. It stands around a foot tall and the front features a plastic meshing that covers the forward facing driver. Below the meshing is an air vent. The overall look of the HB906TA is stylish and the home theatre system is pretty light-weight. One can take advantage of the weight to change the position of the speakers in their house as much as they please.  The remote control of the system is light-weight and though it is cluttered with a lot of buttons as is the case with most players nowadays, the spacing of the buttons is good. This ensures one can easily get used to it within a matter of minutes.

Features
The HB906TA home theatre system sets itself apart from other 3D Blu-ray home theatre systems by offering really good features at a price point that is approximately Rs. 7,000 lesser than other manufacturers. The headlining feature of this home theatre system is its ability to read 3D Blu-rays. To gain the full benefits of this feature one should have a 3D capable television along with 3D glasses.

The interface of the player is really fluid and extremely stylish. One can be easily impressed with the layout of the widgets onscreen. The icons on the interface give it a minimal look, hence it is extremely simple to use and the settings have a lot of options to play around with. One can also adjust the background wallpaper of the menu from the settings folder. The ability to customize the homescreen appealed to us a lot as this feature is usually found on HD media players and not usually on DVD or Blu-ray players. Apart from this, it has DLNA support allowing one to share data over a home network to other devices.

The interface looks classy

The player uses LG Infinia to access online content and in this option one can view video content from sites such as Indiatimes.com, YouTube, Stuff, Google Maps, Picasa, etc. One of these channels is called i-play TV where one can play games on the television through the player. The list of games is not very vast, but the said channel is still in its beta phase. The selection of channels is country specific and one has to select their country before being able to access any online content.

The player can support a wide range of formats, which include, DIVX, MKV, MP4, etc. Dolby TrueHD digital plus is featured on this player as well allowing one to receive an enhanced audio playback. Other features include ability to read external hard disk drives, CIFS, Music ID by gracenote, along with the ability to use an iPhone or an Android smartphone as a remote control. LG claims that the surround speakers fire at 180W RMS while the subwoofer fires at 200W RMS. Read on in the performance bit, to see how the speakers and the player fared.