LG Electronics has unveiled the LG BH200, which will become the first official hybrid Blu-ray and HD DVD player. As the LG BH100 lacked certain HD DVD requirements such as the HDi interactive features, the HD DVD promotion group prohibited LG from using the HD DVD logo to promote the player. On the other hand, it could still play HD DVD discs, obviously without certain features.
The LG BH200 will be LG's second Super Multi Blue set-top player and meets all the mandatory requirements for both Blu-ray and HD DVD, including HDi. However, while this may look like the ideal alternative to buying a single format player, this player still costs more than buying both the lowest price HD DVD and Blu-ray players separately.
This player will have a manufacturer's suggested retail price of $999, which is around $150 to $200 more than the BH100 can currently be bought for.
A step in the wrong direction:
- too expensive
- there's only space for one format; what's the point in getting a player to play both?There's only one DVD-ROM format. The fact that there's 2 DVD recordable formats is not relevant here. This device is, basically, for pressed content. Remember that, with the new DRM restrictions, it will be very difficult that the same freedom will be allowed for recorded content as it currently exists with DVD.
Also, the 2 DVD recordable formats seem to be a lot easier and cheaper to implement on a single drive than the case with HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, where the technologies are not so compatible. Therefore it is very likely that prices will always be considerably higher than purchasing separate players.
Therefore, if I would be interested in purchasing a HD player right now, which I'm not, I would go for one of them, probably the one with more content I'm interested in. Later, if this proves to be the loser format, I would get a player for the other format. Which, anyway, would be a lot less expensive than it is today. I'm sure it would be a lot less expensive than purchasing a dual format player.
And I repeat: there's no space for 2 formats. Walmart, for example, is eager to just stock one type of HD player. They even "beg" for someone (studios, etc) to decide on which format will win it, so that they just stock one of them. Target is said to just be stocking one format (Blu-Ray). Blockbuster is also leaning towards Blu-Ray, offering a lot more content than in HD-DVD.Top news
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