Audio Video News

High-def disc devotees can now put aside their worries about camping on the wrong side of the format war. According to LG Electronics, the LG BH100 - the first, and so far, only player on the market capable of playing both Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD format disc - can now be yours.

The BH100 was officially unveiled during the first press conference of the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) last month. The buzz around the player was so hot, other manufacturers who had scheduled press conferences that day tore up their press releases and limped back to their booths in shame.

LG says the BH100 is now available at national retail stores (i.e., Best Buy, Circuit City, and CompUSA) as well as rat egional retailers and local dealers. (As the time of this posting, Best Buy was out of stock; Circuit City had units available on-line; and, although CompUSA was out of stock on-line, my local store had units in stock.)

The BH100 can output 24- and 30-frame-per-second 1080p from high-def discs and includes full interactive functions based on BD-Java. The BH100 doesn't offer the same level of interactivity with HD DVD discs, though. The player supports various A/V formats, including MPEG-2, VC-1, H.264 video, MPEG1/2 audio, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital+, DTS and DTS-HD audio. The unit also includes multiple inputs/outputs such as HDMI out, component/composite video outputs, and optical/coaxial/discrete 5.1 channel audio outputs, among others.

Standard DVDs are upconverted to 1080i.

The suggested price is $1,199. As you might guess, units are already showing up for sale on eBay - although, at the moment, none of the bids are above retail.