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Both Blu-ray and HD-DVD are su pported here
Company plans to launch dual-format drive at the same time

At CES this week, LG Electronics announced what could become the first of many similar products -- a hybrid Blu-ray and HD-DVD all-in-one player. Called the BH100 and the GGW-H10N, LG establishes the units as part of a line that it refers to as the "Super Multi Blue" line of players. LG said in its original press release that there's great confusion and consumer frustration in the high definition market right now.

Many consumers are definitely applauding the direction that LG is heading in and are hoping that other manufacturers follow suit. Sony’s Blu-ray format has seen a fair share of problems that HD-DVD did not have, making the later a format that was sought after more quickly. According to LG:

LG Electronics offers flexibility to consumers in the next generation in optical disc drives. The GGW-H10N is compatible with both Blu-ray Discs and HD-DVD formats. The Super Multi Blue drive is compatible with Blu-ray Disc, DVD, CD read/write and HD-DVD-ROM (read), offering consumers with the most universal unit available.

Besides a set-top player, LG is also launching a Super Multi Blue drive capable of reading both HD formats. The two products marks first in the industry. The drive will be able to write to recordable Blu-ray discs in both single layer and dual-layer formats, stacking in roughly 25GB and 50GB respectively. The drives are fast too, being able to burn a single 25GB Blu-ray disc in about 25 minutes.

In a statement to the press, Dr. Hee Gook Lee, president and chief technology officer of LG Electronics said, "we’ve developed the Super Multi Blue Player to end the confusion caused by the current competition between Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD. Customers are no longer forced to choose between the two formats."

It took a long time for dual-format DVD-R and DVD+R drives to arrive on the computer market, but thankfully things are speeding along in the Blu-ray and HD-DVD battle. Expect more electronic giants like NEC, Pioneer and Matsushita to announce and launch dual-format readers in the future.

Pricing for the player is said to start at $1,200 USD.

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Nice, but...
By dcalfine on 1/8/2007 6:15:37 PM , Rating: 2
I'm happy that someone finally went out and did this. I know Samsung, as well as others, were planning something like this, but LG actually did it. $1200 is still pretty steep though, and by the time the price lowers and the reliability increases to levels where the average consumer will "consume" products like this, digital distribution will probably be widespread in most areas.

This squabble between Toshiba and Sony is getting out of hand... and into the hands of LG, it seems




RE: Nice, but...
By deeznuts on 1/8/2007 8:40:46 PM , Rating: 2
Technically its a squabble between Toshiba, NEC and a few other companies and:

Board of Directors
Apple
Dell
HP
Hitachi
LG
Mitsubishi Electric
Panasonic
Pioneer
Philips
Samsung
Sharp
Sony
Sun Microsystems
TDK
Thomson
Twentieth Century Fox
Walt Disney
Warner Bros.

That's just the BOD. Check out the full list here:

http://www.blu-raydisc.com/general_information/Sec...


RE: Nice, but...
By zombiexl on 1/8/2007 9:07:21 PM , Rating: 2
Doesn't sony own a chunk of those studios?


RE: Nice, but...
By zombiexl on 1/8/2007 9:08:23 PM , Rating: 2
nevermind i didnt read the post fully to see you left out most of the studios..


RE: Nice, but...
By masher2 (blog) on 1/9/2007 8:36:30 AM , Rating: 2
> "That's just the BOD. Check out the full list here..."

While true that many companies have a hand of some sort in Blu Ray, its extremely inaccurate to think that every company on the contributor list (or even on the board of directors) has nearly the stake in (or power over) the format that Sony does.


RE: Nice, but...
By nilepez on 1/9/2007 1:53:50 AM , Rating: 2
Are you kidding me? You're going to opt for a digital download that is lower quality (none are even DVD quality at this point), costs about as much as a DVD and has few, if any, extra features?

The price on this unit is high, but we're still in the first year of the game. At this point in the DVD game, prices were still very high. We'll see sub $400.00 players before the end of the year, which is about where we were a year into DVD.

The bottom line is that prices are falling and the format wars are irrelevant (most players will be Duel Format a year from now), which is long before digital distribution will be a major player.

Let's keep in mind that digital music downloads are still a tiny part of the music industry (the media just can't help talking about it, because it's Apple).


RE: Nice, but...
By othercents on 1/9/2007 10:32:39 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
We'll see sub $400.00 players before the end of the year, which is about where we were a year into DVD.

I doubt that... When there is a format war the pricing won't drop as fast because production won't be able to ramp up because people won't want to buy a product that could end up being the next Betamax. DVD had an advantage because everyone was on board with the technology and the market wasn't as skittish as it is now with the new formats.

Other


RE: Nice, but...
By masher2 (blog) on 1/9/2007 10:38:57 AM , Rating: 2
> "I doubt that..."

Err, given you can ALREADY find a sub-$400 HD-A1 player, you might want to reconsider that opinion. In a year, you'll probably be able to find sub-$300 players.


RE: Nice, but...
By masher2 (blog) on 1/9/2007 8:37:35 AM , Rating: 2
> "$1200 is still pretty steep though..."

That's what I paid for my first DVD player. Of course DVDs were a much larger step up over videotapes than this is over DVD.


Maybe not smart move now.
By hstewarth on 1/8/2007 6:39:14 PM , Rating: 2
With two competing formats, it would better if we only have one format - then letting both survice. It still better than have 2 seperate players out.

But recent release schedules - show that Blu-Ray has 56 up and coming titles, while HD DVD has 13 titles.

The new 2nd generation HDDVD drive that supports 1080p is just as expensive as Blu-Ray and actually cheaper than this drive.

What people want is not more expensive players - but instead lower cost ones. Maybe the first one that supports 1080p by itself and cost around $300 will when.

Steaming of 1080p content is likely years away - think about it 1920x1080x30 bits of information per second is a lot of information. Even with compression it maybe too much band width assumes I have my #'s correct.




RE: Maybe not smart move now.
By rttrek on 1/8/07, Rating: 0
RE: Maybe not smart move now.
By masher2 (blog) on 1/9/2007 8:45:58 AM , Rating: 4
> "First, 1080p is 1920 x 1080 x 60 pixels per second. 1080i would be x 30..."

No, not at all. 1080p does not imply anything whatsoever about the frame rate. You can have a 1080p24, 1080p30, or 1080p60 signal. The highest signal supported for broadcast now is actually 1080p30 (though almost no one uses that high a mode). BD and HD-DVD discs are typically encoded at 1080p24.

As for 1080i, its supported up to 60 fields per second, which is, of course, 30 frames/sec.


RE: Maybe not smart move now.
By CascadingDarkness on 1/9/2007 2:11:06 PM , Rating: 2
Yes 1080p24 seems to make most sense since it is 20% less bandwith than 1080i60 and matches the actual format films are recorded at better.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1080i
Wiki and Google know all =)


RE: Maybe not smart move now.
By masher2 (blog) on 1/9/2007 2:19:51 PM , Rating: 2
> "Yes 1080p24 seems to make most sense since it is 20% less bandwith than 1080i60 and matches the actual format films are recorded at better...."

It makes the most sense for encoding film-print movies, yes...not neccesarily for broadcasting, or even displaying those movies Most display devices tend to run at 30fps or some multiple thereof, which is why 3:2 pulldown is required in the first place.

Also, one point lost to most people is that when you interlace properly-encoded digital material to 1080i60, the resultant signal can be deinterlaced back to 1080p with zero loss of image quality . Which is why "lacking" 1080p for an HD-DVD is really no lack at all.


RE: Maybe not smart move now.
By Reflex on 1/8/2007 9:55:48 PM , Rating: 2
Its really too bad for the Blu-Ray camp that the most popular player(the PS3) for BR completely screwed up by not including a hardware scaler. As a result, a large portion of the HDTV install base is stuck watching their BR movies in 480p. Furthermore, another large portion is stuck watching in 1080i in the case of their HDTV supporting all but 1080p, which admittedly is better than 480p, but not as nice as 720p.

Between that and the poor encode quality of BR movies Sony really screwed up on the whole 'delivering the HD experience' thing they were hyping last year...

Ah well, should be fixed when they finally move to current encoding standards and release a hardware revision for the PS3.


RE: Maybe not smart move now.
By slackpiv on 1/8/2007 10:39:48 PM , Rating: 2
That's wrong. No HDTVs are screwed. As a TV cannot be labeled an HDTV if they do not support 1080i or 720p. Support for those two are required for the HDTV labeled to be used. 720p vs. 1080i debate is up in the air as which is better. However almost all plasmas/LCDs are 720p while almost all crt tube tvs are 1080i. However the 1080i only crt tube HDTVS also support 720p. The only owners that are getting screwed with 480p are those owners who bought a 720p or 1080i only tv before HDTV consortum desided what HD was. Needless to say that it was a while ago and affects a very minute group.


RE: Maybe not smart move now.
By Reflex on 1/9/2007 4:27:27 AM , Rating: 2
Not really. Remember, the PS3 can only output Blu-Ray movies at three resolutions: 1080i, 1080p and 480p(also, technically 480i).

So, with that in mind, here are the scenerios:

1) Most HDTV owners do not have a 1080p set, so there is only a tiny fraction that can display in that mode.

2) Up until recently, the consumer high end was 720p, which the PS3 cannot display BR moviesin. Most of those sets can also do 1080i, which the PS3 can play movies in, however it is an inferior standard(don't believe me? Spend a little time on AV forums, its really *not* in dispute). On these sets they do get HDTV, but obviously not an ideal image.

3) Many people with older LCD panels(as well as some other HDTV's) only have 480p or 720p options, those people will unfortunatly only see a 480p image.

A *huge* amount of HDTV's are affected by this, as chronicled in many forums, online articles, and blog postings. Remember, HDTV's have been sold in the US for the better part of a decade. Releasing a player that dosen't support the installed base *is* botching the launch of the player, at least as far as movies go. People should not have to go buy a new TV because they were blindsided by Sony's scaler ommission, and those people are going to be suprised when a HD-DVD player looks noticably better on their set than the PS3.

This is not a 'small group' thats affected, it is the majority of people who bought a HDTV before 2005 or so that will be impacted by this.


RE: Maybe not smart move now.
By masher2 (blog) on 1/9/2007 8:51:29 AM , Rating: 2
> But recent release schedules - show that Blu-Ray has 56 up and coming titles, while HD DVD has 13 titles..."

Sony's studios have been "announcing" non-released titles for nearly a year now. As of whats available today, Amazon.com shows 305 HD-DVD titles, and 227 BD titles.

> "The new 2nd generation HDDVD drive that supports 1080p is just as expensive as Blu-Ray..."

Given that 1080i60 from even the low-end HD-DVD player deinterlaces to 1080p with zero loss of image quality, I don't see it as a lack. And that player can now be found for under $400.


FINALLY!
By Christopher1 on 1/8/2007 6:14:13 PM , Rating: 2
Finally, someone has dared to buck Sony and the other companies who support Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, and put them both in one player!

Kudos to LG, and I hope that they sell a LOT of these players.




RE: FINALLY!
By lufoxe on 1/9/2007 8:35:56 AM , Rating: 2
I'm glad and angry all at the same time, I'm glad that LG has decided to go ahead and think of the consumers wants (which in turn leads to revenues in their pockets. Kudos LG for doing it. BUT, I am angry as a consumer, such a player shouldn't have NEEDED to come into the market, first it was beta max/VHS, then things smoothed out and we just had DVDs, it was beautiful (we're talking movies not recordable media where the last standard was CDs) then the wrench has to be thrown in with HD-DVD/ Blu-ray. As a consumer this pisses me off.. get a standard format and make the players better instead of sitting on your keister and making money off of licensing fees. it's a trend that is happening more and more, and it's really pissing me off


RE: FINALLY!