LG BH100 HD DVD / Blu-ray hybrid player reviewed
by Donald Melanson 
posted Jan 30th 2007 at 3:58PM
As promised after teasing us with their unboxing pics, the folks at Gadgetaholic have put down the camera and delivered a full review of LG's format-agnostic BH100 HD DVD / Blu-ray hybrid player. On that all-important point, they found that the player handled both formats "flawlessly," with picture quality for each pretty much in line with standalone HD DVD and Blu-ray players. Of course, you'll have to make do without HDi functionality or HDMI 1.3a support, which LG now says won't be able to be remedied with a firmware update. They also found the player to be somewhat lacking when it came to the still-important question of DVD playback, with the quality of upconverted DVDs varying noticeably from disc to disc. Add all that to the relatively steep $1,199 price tag, and Gadgetaholic has a tough time recommending the player for most users, finding it notable for what it achieves, but ultimately viewing it as more of a historical footnote than a serious contender.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
scott @ Jan 30th 2007 6:28PM
"They also found the player to be somewhat lacking when it came to the still-important question of DVD playback, with the quality of upconverted DVDs varying noticeably from disc to disc."
Duh. There will never be a player that can flawlessly upconvert every DVD to the same quality. The video on the DVD's themselves vary in quality depending on the source and the amount of compression. The better the source, the better the upconverted picture will be.
bob @ Jan 30th 2007 7:08PM
For $1,199 i would buy myself a PS3, xbox360 with a HD DVD add-on. if i went for a core 360 i could even pocket $100
Derrick @ Jan 31st 2007 1:28AM
1) This is vastly different from some of the real world user reviews.
2) IMO the reason we have moved away from our huge crt's is to decrease the clutter not increase it by having a stane alone HDDVD player or 360 & addon plus a PS3 and a dedicated player for our multiple music formats. Hats off to LGE for being the first and hopefully this trend continues.
Willi @ Jan 31st 2007 9:07AM
1) It's not HDi, it's now "Advanced Navigation".
2) It's a complete joke that this player does not support Advanced Navigation for that price tag. I can appreciate it as a work in progress but actually selling it as a dual format player is just wrong imo.