LG...Life "isn't" Good...maybe?

[TurboNutter]

I just picked up the new issue of HOME Theater magazine. I bought it because it said HD DVD and Blu-ray hit the shelves on the cover. In the AV news wire section it talks about the movies and players that are coming out or already out on both HD and Blu-ray. In the very last sentence of the article it says that LG may be coming out with the first combo player and canceled their Blu-ray only model. Sorry to those of you who were looking forward to the LG model, if anybody even was.

[zombie]

Last I read LG gave up on their plans for a dual format player and was going ahead with their BD player. I think that article's info is a bit outdated.

[JTK]

Originally Posted by nyg

Last I read LG gave up on their plans for a dual format player and was going ahead with their BD player. I think that article's info is a bit outdated.

Yeah, these magazines are typically several weeks behind current times for the sake of print deadlines.

I think they even made some allusion to that in this month's editorial by Ms. Jensen and several other places.

[hmurchison]

What is it with Korean companies? Both Samsung and LG both at times pontificated about creating a Universal Player. Neither company has followed through on much of anything in this regard.

BenQ now says they want to work on one. I'm not sure the components are there to make it an inexpensive endeavour yet. I could see Universal Players hitting for gen 3 product where the OPU and supporting chipsets are cheaper.

[AV_Integrated]

I believe that information from a press release by LG was misread. I read that press release a couple of times and what it could be read as saying was that they were in development of a dual player and that Blu-ray was not coming out this Spring and we would see a Fall release.

It was kind of vague, but it was interpreted by some as saying that a DUAL player was going to be released this Fall. I think, with better writing it would have been more clear that their Spring launch of Blu-ray was being pushed back to Fall, but they still had a Blu-ray player coming out. As well, they are DEVELOPING a dual format player.

Key word is developing... My understanding is that current licensing prohibits Blu-ray and HD-DVD in the same player. This is why (I heard) Samsung dropped dual format plans. I am not sure if my info is correct, but I would be pissed if I were a Blu-ray specific company and someone came in to undermine the millions in development costs with one single dual format player. The public may want it... but companies are out to make money. I don't see it happenning unless the format battle rages for a few years.

[hmurchison]

I've heard the same thing but then again I saw the mess that one writer created by claiming HD DVD was 1080i only and how long that took to die down. I've never seen anything proving that there is licensing language that prohibits dual players. That's coming mighty close to antitrust. I'm going to chalk that up to rumor simply because LG or Samsung for BenQ (all have mentioned Universals) obviously have access to the license terms and if they're even talking about Universals then I have to think that there is no prohibition.

[marzetta7]

Originally Posted by hmurchison

I've heard the same thing but then again I saw the mess that one writer created by claiming HD DVD was 1080i only and how long that took to die down. I've never seen anything proving that there is licensing language that prohibits dual players. That's coming mighty close to antitrust. I'm going to chalk that up to rumor simply because LG or Samsung for BenQ (all have mentioned Universals) obviously have access to the license terms and if they're even talking about Universals then I have to think that there is no prohibition.

HD DVD is only 1080i when the hardware that is capable of playback only outputs 1080i. It does no good to have discs encoded with 1080P but can only be viewed by hardware that is only 1080i capable. The gist, HD DVD IS giving you only 1080i at the moment.

Regarding universals, yeah there has been talk, but talk only gets you so far. I've yet to see any universal player come to fruition even in a prototype. Samsung mentioned, yet it appears they are going the Blu-ray only route. LG mentioned it, but where is their universal player? BenQ mentioned it as well, but it appears all they are releasing are Blu-ray players. Really, I think the thing that needs to be chalked up to rumor is the existence of a universal player.