Live from CES this week was LG’s unveiling of the ground breaking dual format HD laser player, the LG BH100. It will be the first player on the market with the capability to play both next-generation disc formats. The player was announced along with a dual format disc drive (the GGW-H10N) that offers even more functionality for PCs and laptops. The Super Multi Blue 50GB drive is compatible with Blu-ray Disc, DVD, CD read/write and HD-DVD-ROM (read), what LG calls "the most universal unit available."

Steve Sechrist
Senior Analyst and Editor
Projection Monthly

This is not the first time the Korean electronics giant has gone down this "universal player" road. Earlier in the year, LG indicated it was considering the dual format player but in September, John Taylor, a spokesman for LG US, announced they did not have the device on the roadmap. Then - just three days before the massive CES trade show in Las Vegas, LG announced they would preview a new Blu-ray player that could also play HD-DVD discs.

The "Super Multi Blue" player, as LG likes to call it, is a fully functional Blu-ray player but lacks some "advanced functionality" in playing HD-DVD discs. The company said the HD-DVD advanced menu interactivity is not available and unlike its new disc drive cousin; this first generation universal player does not support CD functions but does offer full 1080p in both 24 and 30 Hz using HDMI 1.2. Another nice feature, the player will up-convert standard DVDs to 1080i resolution.

LG said its player will be available through national retail channels like Best Buy and Circuit City with an initial MSRP at $1,199 - that’s about twice the cost of a stand-alone HD-DVD player from Toshiba, but closer to Blu-ray players, many retailing for over $1000. And a small price to pay for consumers to hedge their bets in the ongoing format wars.

What LG hopes to achieve from the launch is consumer momentum lost when the industry introduced the confusing dual format message, delivered with competing Blu-ray and HD-DVD standards. Folks stayed away from the relatively high priced players not wanting to make a loosing bet on a soon-to-be outdated format.

The day before the press event, host organization CEA pegged the number of HD drives sold last year at 250K units, far below the 750K units expected at the beginning of 2006. The dismal forecast was first made by CEA’s Sean Wargo at the Samsung Executive Summit in San Jose, CA last November where he attributed the "format wars" as the primary reason for lagging sales in the category. In fact, at the Blue-ray press event, Andy Parsons noted that Blue-ray disk sales have now exceeded HD DVD and he forecast them to far outsell HD DVD in 2007.

Suffice it to say a universal player is a step in the right direction bridging the blue laser formats in a device that can address the needs of most consumers. By launching a Blu-ray player with HD-DVD read capabilities LG has gone a long way in mitigating these concerns but time is still needed to know if this approach gets adopted by other manufacturers, and can create enough traction to get consumers to finally open their wallets.