13. Hybrid/Combo Offerings

As we write this story, only Korean electronics giant LG offers any DVD players or drives that can handle both HD-DVD and Blu-ray media. In fact, they've got two such products: one player (the LG BH100), and one drive (the LG GGW-H10N). Rather than summarizing these items in a very short table, we'll simply jump into descriptions and photos of the two offerings in the sections that follow. We also include a sidebar entitled "Going Both Ways", which portrays another perhaps slightly more affordable "combo" strategy - namely, purchasing a media PC that includes both Blu-ray and HD-DVD drives. In a forthcoming story, we'll address what's involved in building such a PC yourself. Remember that each of these two units comes with a hefty suggested retail price: $1,300 for the BH100 and $1,200 for the GGW-H10N.

LG BH100 Player

By permitting its users to load and run either HD-DVD or Blu-ray media, this LG player makes the whole face-off between the two formats moot. But such divine indifference also comes at a divine cost as well (MSRP for this player is $1,199 and the lowest price we can find right now is just under $1,000).

This is the first product we've seen that differentiates maximum resolution by the video output: 1080p requires HDMI, 1080i component output or better, and 480i composite output or better. The unit also supports digital audio through HDMI or coaxial and optical digital outputs, and can handle Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby True HD, DTS and DTS-HD. Interestingly, it offers only 5.1 analog multichannel audio outputs; this is somewhat surprising in such a high-end product whose decoders support multiple 8 channel surround sound schemes.

In a radical departure from other high definition player designs, the LG combo unit offers a straightforward media tray.

As far as other speeds and feeds go, the only really noticeable omission is support for audio CDs: we have to guess that there just wasn't enough room in the pickup for four lasers. This makes this unit a lot like other triple players, except that it eschews the 705 nm infrared laser for a second 405 nm blue-violet laser, so as to have one for HD-DVD and another for Blu-ray. On the plus side, the same 4X speeds (3.5X for dual layer Blu-ray media) that we saw for the LG GBW-H10 Blu-ray only unit, also apply to Blu-ray media on this player. No information is available about HD-DVD read or write speeds at present.

Another surprise is that the unit's HDMI connection is 1.2 rather than 1.3, so it cannot emit raw Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD signals through that port. Early reports also indicate that load and start times, as well as DVD navigation, are somewhat slow and clunky. Though the unit supports all the interactive Java menus for advanced features - it is Blu-ray disk certified - it doesn't support the HD-DVD HDi interactive menu system, which knocks out access to director's comments and music video elements on HD-DVD media. Sadly, LG confirms that the company plans to add neither HDMI 1.3 support nor HDi capability in upcoming firmware upgrades to this unit.

Do you really need one of these units? We can only make a case for those whose work compels them to acquire both HD-DVD and Blu-ray content, and those for whom money is simply no object. Otherwise, you get more advanced features from multiple players, and can also spend less - substantially less, if you have the gear to make the Xbox 360 HD-DVD player and the Playstation 3 work in your media room. For more information on the BH100, visit its product page on the LG Web site.