Hybrid HD-DVD and Blu-ray player from LG

Author: Wil Harris
Published: 7th January 2007

The BH100 is the hybrid HD-DVD and Blu-ray player from LG.

LG has defied digital media moguls by stepping up and announcing a home theatre player that will accept both Blu-ray and HD-DVD discs, in a move that could defuse the ongoing 'format wars'.

The BH100, as it is called, will cost $1,199 and be out before April.

The player sports all the usual next-gen features - 1080p output, HDMI, DTS HD and the like, although there's no information available on whether it will support the latest HDMI 1.3 standard.

The player achieves its multi-format goodness using a Broadcom chip which decodes both formats.

The formats are superficially very similar - both use blue lasers for accurate reading of disc tracks, and both use MPEG 4 and VC1 for video encoding. The only difference is really the fact that Sony owns the Blu-ray format and HD-DVD is an industry-standard successor to plain old DVD.

The buttons on the device are inspired by the LG Chocolate phone, being backlit and touch sensitive.

Also announced was the LG GGW-H10N, which is a PC drive designed to accept both formats - especially designed for Girls Gone Wild discs? It will support writing to Blu-ray discs but not HD-DVD writables, and also may not support some online/interactive features of HD-DVD. Expect that to also arrive before April, although we don't have a price yet.

Exciting stuff, and good to see technology coming to the rescue of consumers who would be otherwise stuffed by the format wars. Will you be stumping up for one of these hybrid players? Let us know over in the forums.