LG to unveil world's first second-gen 'Super Blue' Blu-ray/HD DVD hybrid drives

LG unveiled its world’s first second generation ‘Super Blue’ Blu-ray/HD DVD hybrid drives during KES 2007.

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.

Anyone who was planning on buying LG's hybrid high-def player may wanna sit down for this one. As we reported from CES, the BH100 fully supports Blu-ray discs, but since it lacks support for HD DVD's iHD, you can't access an HD DVD's interactive menus, you can only see the movie straight through.

So as a result, the DVD Forum might sue LG for falsely using the HD DVD logo and for falsely saying that their hybrid player plays HD DVDs when in fact it doesn't play them the way they were intended to be played. Microsoft was also a bit miffed at LG for...

not giving them a heads up before announcing the BH100. So it looks like LG's baby won't see the light of day, which is a damn shame. Both sides have valid points—we just hope they manage to work something out because all this does is make me wanna stick with my old school DVDs even more.

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.

I would not care about a hybrid HDDVD/BD disc if I have a universal player. It would be uncalled for, unless you were all gun-ho and bought one of the formats already during this war. Anyone who did that has got big kahunas! And for the people out there that say HDDVD and BD is a waste of time and we do not need another format don't have a t.v. that is 1080p capable. I just bought one 2 weeks ago and when you watch sports in hi-def, it is amazing. The current dvd's don't play that clear and that is why there is a new format war. I have an upconvert dvd and it still does not compare to watching a movie on HBO in high-def. That is what you will get when you watch a movie in the new format! I will be getting the universal player when it comes out. This will end the format war period. We don't care as consumers what format we get hd movies in, as long as it is hd and it looks good and the quality is there! Bring on the Universal Players!!
viaAving.