Broadcom Corporation announced with its partner, LG Electronics., that LG Electronics received the overall Best of Show award at the 2007 International CES show for the Super Multi Blue Blu-ray & HD DVD player, model BH100. The player features Broadcom's UOD platform to allow the playback of both blue laser optical disc formats, using its "system-on-a-chip" (SoC) solution.
However, while LG may be the first to support the playback of both formats, they ran into quite a serious issue with the DVD Forum due to the player lacking iHD support, a critical interactive feature for HD DVD to allow the user to access its special menu system. As a result, the DVD Forum has required LG to remove the HD DVD logo from its player. Luckily it did not result in a court case. Despite this, the player will still play HD DVD movies, but the user will not be able to access its menus unless LG comes out with a firmware update to add iHD support. The player is still set to retail for $1,200.
Going by this c|net report, this player has already been spotted in CompUSA, which lacks the HD DVD logo as a result of the iHD issue. The player is expected to reach Best Buy and Circuit City early February, but with a retail price of $1,200, it currently works out more than the price of buying a separate Blu-ray and HD DVD players! For example, at this time of writing, Amazon currently sells the BD-P1000 for $599.99 and Toshiba's original HD-A1 for $399.99, which gives a total of about $1,000; $200 cheaper than LG's BH100. On the other hand, the combination of both formats in a single player does have the advantage of having just the one box below the TV, although with limited HD DVD playback features.
