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When the LG Super Multi Blue player was announced at CES this year there was much excitement from the gathered technological masses. A high-definition player that can cope with both HD DVD and Blu-ray — “W00t,” we thought, and even said it out loud (when no-one was in earshot). And now, after much waiting, the BH100 has arrived and LG has announced a price too.
And that’s where the good news ends. Because the BH100 will go on sale at the end of May and will cost a staggering £1,000.
To see what you can get for £1,000, Crave did a little Internet window shopping. We discovered that you can buy an Xbox 360 with the optional HD DVD drive, a PlayStation 3 and a Wii and still have enough change for a bottle of overpriced lager from a tediously trendy London bar. All for the same price as this player, with the same media playback abilities and a metric tonne more fun.
What’s more, for the same price you could buy the Toshiba HD-EX1 HD DVD player and the Samsung BD-P1000 Blu-ray player and have enough cash left over to buy a high-definition movie.
If the high price doesn’t put you off, you might find the specification does. The BH100 won’t support HDMI 1.3 or any of the extra interactivity found on HD DVD discs. It does claim support for the Blu-ray interactive platform, but with updates happening to that in October it’s possible full support won’t continue.
Updates are also tricky — unlike Toshiba’s HD DVD players, there is no way to update the BH100 over the Internet. There is an Ethernet port for service upgrades, but LG says this is only for its use and won’t be used by customers.
Crave would like to point out that we really do think what LG has done with the BH100 is technologically impressive. Yes, it’s true that Samsung has announced a player that does the same thing, but it won’t be out for a while yet and we certainly don’t know what it will cost. Of course, as time goes on the price will drop, but with so many other options, it’s going to have to fall by a significant amount to make it sell. -Ian Morris
